A Word from Jennifer

 

The Washington Post September 27, 2024 by Jennifer Rubin The media, political insiders, former Republicans and even members of Harris’s own party have underestimated her abilities to carve policy positions and reconsolidate the Democratic base. Most prominently, she has been consistently criticized for failing to articulate her economic vision. However, in two speeches — one in Raleigh, N.C., last month and one in Pittsburg on Wednesday (where she identified herself as a capitalist seeking “bold, persistent experimentation”) — as well as numerous campaign events, she has delineated a set of serious, concrete policies. These include: restoring the child tax credit; creating a $6,000 credit for the parents of newborns in their baby’s first year; stimulating the housing market; subsidizing first-time home buyers; eliminating unnecessary college degree requirements for federal jobs; subsidizing child care (thereby limiting child-care costs to 7 percent of lower-wage earners’ income); raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent; and expanding the tax credit for start-up businesses to $50,000 (with the goal of 25 million new business applications by the end of her first term). In Pittsburgh, she added new economic policy positions: become the global leader in everything from artificial intelligence to clean energy to aerospace to biomanufacturing; double the number of paid apprenticeships; reform tax laws to allow more employee profit-sharing; incentivize investment in factory towns; and cut red tape in permitting for construction. This week, the White House announced that “the economy has grown by 3.2 percent per year during Biden-Harris administration — even stronger than previously estimated — and better than the first three years of the previous administration.” Harris has managed to reduce former president Donald Trump’s polling edge on the candidate most trusted with the economy. And frankly, she has left those complaining about her “lack of details” with egg on their faces. To the surprise of even her supporters, she has also managed to thoroughly discredit the radical Project 2025. Hammering at its extreme provisions at the convention and in virtually all appearances, she has made the document so toxic that Trump has attempted to disclaim ownership. A recent NBC poll showed voters hold an overwhelmingly unfavorable view (57 percent disapprove, 4 percent approve) of the right-wing agenda. My Post colleague Aaron Blakealso noted a New York Times-Siena College poll (65 percent disapprove, 13 percent approve) and a YouGov poll (52 percent to 11 percent). If Project 2025 is now considered a “blunder,” as Blake suggested, credit goes to Harris, who helped expose it and relentlessly denounced it. On the political front, we have heard endless reports that Trump was luring away key constituencies from Democrats — Black and young people. (The latter is due to the Gaza war, which actually does not to rank highly on their list of priorities.) The gold-standard youth voting poll from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics shows Harris has a mammoth 31 percent lead over Trump among 18- to 29-year-old voters (better than Biden’s margin of 24 points in 2020) with high levels of engagement. Polls also show Harris clobbering Trump among Black voters (attracting 82 percent compared with 12 percent for Trump among likely voters in swing states). A recent Washington Post-Ipsos pollfound, “Among Black registered voters, 82 percent say they will ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ vote for Harris ... . The share saying they would ‘definitely’ vote for the Democratic candidate is up from 48 percent for Biden this spring to 68 percent for Harris today.” And NBC’s most recent poll showed, “The share of Black voters supporting the Democratic ticket has also increased, from Biden’s 57-point advantage in July to a 78-point lead for Harris in this new poll.” There are more than five weeks to go until Election Day, although early voting is now underway in some states. The presidential contest remains close. However, whether advancing her own agenda, knocking down Trump’s or recovering critical support among Black and young voters, Harris seems to have defied critics and exceeded supporters’ expectations. Contrary to skeptics, she has turned out to be a remarkably effective campaigner. Distinguished person of the week A batch of current right-wing pundits recognize the threat Trump poses to our democracy yet insist they do not have enough information about Harris to vote for her; many current and formerRepublican officeholders who cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump nevertheless refuse to commit to Harris. They fare poorly in comparison with other Republicans who have the spine and courage to back Harris. The New York Times reported on the latest wave of Republicans to endorse Harris: “More than 700 current and former national security leaders, as well as former military officials, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a letter released on Sunday, arguing that only she had the temperament and values needed to serve as commander in chief.” One of the most heartfelt endorsements came from three past chairmen of the Maine Republican Party. They wrote:

They candidly acknowledge: “Much of the leadership of today’s Republican Party has joined the cult of Trump, and we know that they will care little for what we have to say.” The former state chairs nevertheless call on the better angels of the nature of “many honest, hardworking, principled people who — more than any party label — want what is best for our state and nation.” The group ends by paraphrasing another Republican Harris endorser, former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan: “On Nov. 5, be a patriot.”

If nothing else, the 2024 election has sharply delineated the Republican patriots from the cultists, the democracy lovers from the authoritarians and the courageous from the spineless.