Ben Domenech

Welcome to Thunderdome, or as David Axelrod calls it, Word Salad City. Kamala Harris’s closing argument played out in a CNN town hall last night, and it wasn’t much of an argument at all. On question after question, Harris reverted to talking points that often had little or nothing to do with the query posed to her. On the border? No answer on why the administration took so long to act. On taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal migrants? I was a prosecutor. On a border wall? It’s a dumb idea that I now say is a good idea. On taxes? It’s a very complicated situation. On food inflation? Greedy price gouging grocers. On her weaknesses? They’re actually strengths. On any mistakes she’s made?

I don’t understand why Liz Cheney thinks we would trust Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff with our children when we know there’s a non-zero possibility that the would-be first gentleman will attempt to knock up our nanny, but apparently that’s what they're going with on the campaign trail these days. For years, I’ve suggested an essential method to deciding who to support for president would be based on who you trusted to run a McDonald’s for a day or watch your children for an afternoon. Perhaps intimidated by the former president’s success at the former measure, Cheney suggested at her event with Vice President Harris this weekend that the latter measure would disqualify Donald Trump — who she endorsed in 2020 — as an unacceptable giver of childcare.

Welcome to Thunderdome. Tonight I invite you all to tune into a live conversation at 8 p.m. Eastern with Kmele Foster of the Fifth Column on the shifting race, gender and class divides in 2024, part of the Substack Election Dialogues series — more details are here!We’ve already surpassed 8 million early votes in this election, so that means we’re at the beginning of the final rounds with fewer than twenty days to go. For Kamala Harris, she’s still sprinting around with a media tour (well, really only 60 Minutes and last night’s Fox News interview count as media) that she really should have done months ago.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where the vibe is Miller High Life — which should only ever be enjoyed in a longneck as befitting the champagne of beers — and a Kamala Harris campaign that is turning from ebullience to despondence in short order. As my colleague Amber Duke and I discuss in the latest Thunderdome podcast, the refrain is a simple one: the joy is gone. The summer vibes that once sent a thrill down the pant-legs of everyone on the set of Morning Joe, including Mika and her lower-T colleagues, are now reduced to a point of constant contention: what is Kamala doing wrong — and how can she right the ship? And: why can’t Tim Walz be more like Josh Shapiro? And, even more: why won’t Joe Biden just shut up?

Welcome to Thunderdome. Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris today in Wisconsin at Ripon, known as the birthplace of the Republican Party at the Little White Schoolhouse. It was there in 1854 at a church meeting that Whig and Free Soil Party members gathered to form a “great irresistible Northern party, organized on the single issue of the non-extension of slavery.” This was even then pretty aggressive language for the Episcopalian who called the meeting, but not for Horace Greeley, who publicized it to the nation. Whatever Liz Cheney says today about how important it is to elect Kamala Harris will no doubt equal the historical significance of that moment, at least according to Rachel Maddow.

Vice-presidential debates rarely matter in politics except as fodder for jokes and, for today’s lazier commentariat, memes of the lesser variety. The greatest moment in modern vice-presidential debate history is Lloyd Bentsen’s ‘you’re no Jack Kennedy’ zinger of Dan Quayle, a debate win so effective that Bentsen and Michael Dukakis lost 40 states. Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman’s debate played out like a fireside chat between old friends. Joe Biden’s debates with Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan are mostly notable because watching them now puts in perspective how much the lifelong politician has faded into an ethereal ghost in his final years.

Welcome to Thunderdome. For the past several cycles, Donald Trump has been an anchor around the necks of Republicans running for federal office across the country, forcing them to respond to his every statement of wavering obnoxiousness. “Will you denounce” was practically an autofill statement from journalists, with exasperated Republicans having to suddenly come up with spin on the fly about whatever their top candidate was on about at the moment. This time around, that weight seems far heavier on Democrats. Witness the reaction to Kamala Harris’s endorsement, after previously calling for getting rid of the filibuster for climate issues and voting rights, to codify Roe v. Wade.

Welcome to Thunderdome. In the space of four weeks, the incumbent president was dethroned from his nomination and replaced by his running mate in a behind-the-scenes coup led by the most powerful person in the party (who still insists on the absurd claim it was an “open primary”). Within that time, the nation witnessed the first of not one but two assassination attempts targeting his opponent, the former president who has faced a thermonuclear level of lawfare in an attempt to seize everything he owns and put him behind bars.

Welcome to Thunderdome. The initial reactions to this week’s presidential debate from the commentariat was emphatic: Trump lost, Kamala won. But sometimes debates suffer from an initial overreaction from the highly tuned in, and once there’s a couple of days of simmering, reactions can change. That could be what we’re seeing happen in the reaction to this debate — it’s certainly what friend of the newsletter Hugh Hewitt thinks. But it’s also what some undecided voters think, too. Take Arizonan Sabrina Champ’s reaction, who was previously a Bernie Sanders voter and says no one won the debate: “She baited him and he fell for it. That was disappointing,” Champ said. “But as far as Kamala is concerned, I didn’t see a lot of policy.

Welcome to Thunderdome. Without fail, in every cycle, some media commentator will pen a ludicrous piece about why Republicans should want to lose. They follow a similar, all-too-familiar script: if the Democrat wins the presidency, they will be restrained by the power of the Congress and the Courts from advancing a truly radical agenda; historically, their victory will lead to a sizable midterm backlash setting up for a better election the next time around; and the sooner the GOP rids itself of the baggage at the top of the ticket, the sooner it can elevate younger rising stars who haven't been thoroughly villainized yet by the national media. This argument is bunk — and the author is usually not stupid enough to actually believe it themselves.