Biden was 9/11 for Democrats, Harris is George W. Bush
Olivia Nuzzi: Good Writer, Bad Personal Decision Maker
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Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzalez are in the news. Low-rise jeans are back. Touchdowns are scarce in the NFL.
The 2000s are back!
And with them comes a massive bounce in likability for a sitting politician. In 2001, George W. Bush came out of a controversial and divisive election to become one of the most popular presidents of all time, starting near 60% approval and peaking at 92% after the September 11 attacks. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris started in the approval rating basement, as low as 35% in January, and has now become net popular at 55%.
Less statistically impressive than Dubya? Sure. But possibly a greater feat considering how polarized we are.
We know how George did it.
But how is Harris doing it?
My best guess: this was a 9/11-style disaster for the Democrats.
Not just the debate, but Joe Biden in general. His indefensible record, which Harris can now pretend to kind of, sort of, run against. His obvious mental decline and the humiliating excuses required to defend it.
But most importantly, the impending victory of the Democrats’ greatest villain.
To 40% of America, Kamala Harris is the Mets vs. the Pirates on September 17th. She’s Paul Simon on Saturday Night Live.
She’s a return to normalcy. Voters are rewarding her for that, whereas before they saw her as complicit.
Is that enough to get her over the hump? With early voting beginning in key states, it might be. Should she win, there will be a lot of conversation among Republicans about strategy. One line of attack that went by the wayside was trying to tie Harris to a cover-up of Biden’s decline. That was abandoned in favor of attacking Kamala’s past liberal statements.
But in the most recent NBC poll, Kamala is closing in on Trump as the candidate that represents “change.” Should that be the case on Election Day it will be a massive blunder to not spend more time to remind voters that Kamala Harris is not a fresh face but a current employee of the unpopular administration.
Olivia Nuzzi is a good writer, bad personal choice decider
New York Magazine feature writer Olivia Nuzzi is currently suspended from her job due to an unprofessional relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
There is a lot to unpack here.
RFK Jr. is a free radical in this election, especially in states like Nevada and Arizona where he was polling well with Latinos. His Trump endorsement briefly gave Chungus some polling momentum, but it has now swung back to Harris after the debate.
Kennedy is married to Cheryl Hines, who played a perpetually embarrassed celebrity wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Nuzzi was engaged to Ryan Lizza, a DC press stalwart who is currently on the team that publishes the influential Politico Playbook newsletter. They had a contract to write a book about this election together. That will not happen now, nor will their wedding, as their engagement has reportedly been called off.
It’s a tongue-wagging gossip buffet. Nuzzi sending “demure nudes” of herself to a source is horrendous behavior as a journalist. It was disqualifying behavior to her fiancé.
Let it be said to all impressionable young journalists and fiancés: Don’t. Send. Nudes. To. A. Kennedy.
That being said, some of the discourse around the Nuzzi story is that she is a hack writer. To which, I disagree. Nuzzi has a strong first-person feature writing voice and almost universally comes off as withering to her subjects. To the point where I’ve always wondered how she continues to get access. Although this article from inside the RFK campaign seems to suggest the answer is “flirting with older men.”
Still, she writes things that are fun to read! A few examples:
Dr. Oz can’t work a phone and trashes Nuzzi when he thinks he has sent her to voice mail
and of course
Joe Biden is a shambling corpse and everyone around him is scared
It’s the last one, I suspect, which has earned her the scorn of many on X. She piled on Joe when he was down. But, as we covered before, she didn’t point out anything particularly groundbreaking. Joe Biden was 9/11 to Democrats—it was the feature-writing equivalent of saying, “anyone notice that commercial airliners are hitting the Twin Towers?”
Fair disclosure: I like Olivia Nuzzi. I ran into her a few times on the trail, and she always seemed to remember me. Many journalists hate their jobs and aren’t particularly friendly; she was.
I also had dinner with her and Lizza in South Carolina in 2020. It was after I’d just watched Tom Steyer dance on stage with Juvenile as he performed “Back That Azz Up.” In hindsight, that only makes that story better.
Why isn’t Tim Walz on television more?
Likability is kind of his thing. Yet the Harris campaign hasn’t kept up his media pace. It remains to be seen exactly how good Walz will be at relating to white men without a college degree in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Politico seems skeptical during a recent Walz visit to the Lehigh Valley in PA.
My guess? Walz is more effective at jazzing up Democratic partisans than rust belt leaners. But if that’s the case? Why not put him on television more?
Hooray! Let’s land this 2024 plane!