Okay, so Kamala seems to be three points ahead of That Other Guy and that's by polling that reflects little or none of any "bounce" she's going to get from the Democratic National Convention. Not bad. There are polls that say it's more or less than three but this ain't a bad place to be right now.
I didn't see a lot of Day Three of the D.N.C. I did watch Bill Clinton take half-an-hour to deliver what might have been a great fifteen minute speech. That man was so good at that kind of thing in his day. I saw Tim Walz deliver what seemed to me like the same speech he's been giving for a few weeks now but it still probably makes even some people who won't vote that ticket think, "Kamala made a great choice." I saw Coach Walz's old football team take the stage which was nice.
Some pundit-type people on CNN were discussing what it is that's hurting Trump. I think Trump is hurting Trump by babbling on about crowd sizes and windmills and The Great Hannibal Lecter and his micro-respect for the military and how unfair it is whenever things don't go his way…but in second place, I think it's this: The Abortion Issue. He wants to have it both ways, assuring the "pro-life" crowd he'll give them everything they want while assuring the "pro-choice" folks he won't give the "pro-life" mob everything they want. Mary Ziegler explains why that's not working.
And this last thing for now is not really political: I'm still rewatching that Roll Call segment from Tuesday's convention coverage and marveling at how ingenious it was and how well they pulled it off. I worked with variety show directors who, if you went to them and described what you wanted to do — and you wanted to do that — they'd say, "Are you outta your mind?" Technically to coordinate all those speakers and all those camera shots and all that music and computer graphics on a live telecast (!!!), they'd tell you it was — as one director I worked with would say about any idea more complicated than two people on stage standing still — "im-fucking-possible."
But they pulled it off with only one or two minor glitches. And somehow every shot of every group of delegates was expertly designed with happy, enthusiastic people perfectly positioned with (usually) the name of the state in the shot and a perfect mix of old and young, white and non-white, male and female, etc. It looked like My America, which is highly inclusive and very, very joyful. Even if you don't care for or about the messaging, they took what is usually the most boring part of one of these conventions and made it, for me, the highlight. So far.