There is an old axiom of life - Never whiz into the wind. Things gets kind of messy when you do. In radio, that's especially true. It's possible on occasion to create an alternative narrative on a day when there's only one overarching, dominating story. But honestly, it rarely works. And if you aren't talking about the things your audience is focused on, they tune you out. 

Last night on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., the left-wing of the cross making up the National Mall, with the White House as the backdrop behind her, Vice-President Kamala Harris made her last stand. It was her closing argument. Her final pitch to the American people that she is presidential and fully capable of doing the job for the next four years. And Joe Biden, from the building behind her, bodied her with one sentence during her address. 

On this site, conservative media generally, and on Fox News all day, the pouncing and seizing by the right in response to the President of the United States calling half the country plus 0.4%, according to the most current Real Clear Politics national average of polls, garbage will be robust. But Harris' speech in and of itself does deserve some attention, because it was the absolute best Kamala Harris can offer...and it was still awful.

MSNBC called this the speech for the ages. This is what they're going to use to make the case to the few remaining people in the country watching their network to enthusiastically vote for Kamala Harris. Their entire prime time lineup - Alex Wagner, Lawrence O'Donnell, Stephanie Ruhle, all gushed over the Harris speech and flat-out ignored Biden's garbage line. It's as if it was never said. 

Actor, director, and one of the official celebrities of the fever swamp, Rob Reiner, proclaimed this on X last night. 

Remember Tuesday night October 29, 2024. The night Kamala Harris became the 47th President of the United States of America.

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) October 30, 2024

In reality, the speech was a rehash of her Democratic Convention acceptance speech delivered in front of the White House she's simultaneously trying to run a campaign using her time in the building as experience for the big job while running away from it because of the unpopularity of its current occupant. It's an untenable position. 

Her big promise right up top was that she pinky swear pledges that she will listen to the experts. 

Who are these experts on which she'll rely? Tony Fauci? Merrick Garland? The 51 intelligence agents that peddled the Russia hoax story? The entire administrative state that has swollen in tandem with the national debt? Let's put it this way. Reaganesque, she was not. 

This is the way. But Harris is Regan's polar opposite. To her, government is her mentor, her solution, her political platform. More government. It's no wonder an Ellipse audience filled with Northern Virginia and Maryland residents that serve as staff for all the federal agencies in Washington ate it up.

It's time to turn the page. Insert [I'm Donald Trump, and I approve this message] tagline here. 

Of course, Joe Biden, also in the last week, told Harris campaign staffers in New Hampshire that we need to lock Donald Trump up. But sure, lie openly about your opponent's intentions. That's what you do when you're down half a point overall, and behind in all the swing states. 

Kamala Harris is now going to deport illegal aliens quickly? Do tell. And here I thought that when Donald Trump has campaigned on that policy proposal for over a year, he's a racist and a Nazi. But in all seriousness, does anyone believe her newfound religion on border security and immigration reform? 

So she's going to deport illegals and crack down on immigration, and she's also going to usher in a earned pathway to citizenship, or amnesty. Those, of course, are two diametrically opposed positions to hold, and she offered them both up as her position within the space of a minute. 

The premise of another Trump campaign ad - Kamala Harris admitting that prices are too high. But she throws in the kicker that prices were going up before the pandemic. Of course, that's a ridiculous lie. The rate of inflation on Donald Trump's watch, even through the pandemic, was 1.4%. Prices were not in an inflationary cycle by any definition of the word. Either she knows she's shoveling out bull excrement, or she's too stupid to realize what her speechwriters crammed into the teleprompter, and she's a puppet of the "experts" on which she's going to rely as president, reading her scripted lines as directed. Either way, it's not a good look about a claim that preposterous.

She's honored to have served as this guy's vice-president. 

Her speech, stagecrafted to be the last ditch effort by the Democratic Party to make something out of this election cycle, won't be remembered by anyone. It will not be featured in a Kamala Harris presidential library. It was not unifying, genuine, or uplifting. And before she could descend the steps from the podium, Joe Biden had already stolen her thunder.

While MSNBC is in full-blown denial - denial that Biden said anything at all yesterday, CNN is coming to terms with the fact that any potential media momentum out of the off-color Puerto Rico joke told at the Trump Madison Square Garden rally is gone. Mark Preston, their senior political reporter, said this on CNN's morning show panel.

Preston is upset that the White House walked it back. He thinks half the country is racist and garbage. He thinks it hurts the Democratic Party's standing with the country to look weak and stand by their original comments. 

Huh. Not backing up what they say hurts Democrats, eh? You mean, like reversing course on fracking, illegal immigration, tax on tips, EV mandates, mandatory gun buybacks, Medicare for all? 

Kamala Harris' speech was the end of another long day that did not do her one bit of good, and instead harmed her electoral chances further with a week until the election next Tuesday. Earlier in the day, she ran a gauntlet of local media interviews, one of which was out of Detroit. This was on WDIV (NBC-4). The question was what Harris says to people who can't afford food and rent. 

I was born into a middle class family. Her tone deafness and inability to answer a question directly is terminal, as are her electoral chances. Early voting out of Nevada indicates that state is lost to Harris. Republicans have banked a huge number of votes. Arizona and Georgia polling data signal that there's no Sun Belt opportunity for her at all in this cycle. The Harris campaign has pulled ad funding in North Carolina. They've given up. It also appears they're pulling back in Wisconsin as well. Harris is circling the wagons around Michigan and Pennsylvania in the last week. 

In Pennsylvania, Democrats are up in early votes. As of yesterday, they've banked a little north of 331,000 votes ahead of Tuesday. But there's two important data points to keep in mind. First, in 2020, Joe Biden took 1.1 million banked votes into Election Day in the Keystone State. The final margin? 80,555. Second, That 331,000 has been shrinking over the last week. More and more Republicans than Democrats are turning out in the past 7 days, dwindling the balance in that vote account gradually, but steadily. If this pace continues, it's entirely possible that Harris' early vote edge on Tuesday will be under 300,000. Regardless, even if that number stays static, that's 800,000 fewer votes in a state that is famous for same day turnout that usually favors Republicans. She's in real trouble there, and everyone familiar with Pennsylvania politics knows it. 

You'll notice that while Harris was in Washington, D.C. addressing the bureaucratic state, Donald Trump was in Allentown holding another packed rally. Florida Senator Marco Rubio broke the news about Joe Biden's garbage line to Donald Trump live on stage. The audience reacted as you would expect. The gaffe will only serve to juice Donald Trump's base at precisely the right time. 

Harris has six days to stop the bleeding, and so far, there's not a Band-aid in sight.