In his syndicated column, “Harris is beating Trump by transcending him: The vice president and her running mate are achieving a radical shift in messaging,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes at The Washington Post: “The sudden and radical shift in the trajecto ry of the 2024 campaign owes to more than the replacement of President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. To a degree that’s still not fully appreciated, Harris has embraced an entirely new strategy: She’s not just pushing back against Donald Trump’s politics of cultural division. She’s bidding to transcend it….Choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate reinforces the move away from clichés about “coastal politics” and “cultural elites.” Instead, she wants to fight on specific, practical measures government can take to improve lives, from family leave to expansions of health coverage. Both Harris and Walz are speaking a soothing and — to pick up on Democrats’ favorite virtue these days — joyful language of patriotism and national unity….You could tell the Trump campaign was thrown off by the Walz pick when the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, attacked the camo-wearing, gun-owning, small-town Midwestern schoolteacher as a “San Francisco-style liberal.”….Never mind that Vance lived in the Bay Area for about four years while Minnesota’s Walz visited the place for the first time only last month. The tired misfire speaks to how dependent the GOP is on stereotypes about who “liberals” are and what “liberalism” means.” Dionne concludes, “When Harris says, “We love our country,” pay attention to those words “we” and “our.” Harris and Walz are waging war on “inflammatory symbolic politics.” And, yes, it’s a joy to watch.”

Thom Hartmann reports that “A Tsunami of Right-Wing Dark Money Is Barreling Toward Harris and Walz” at The New Republic. No, Hartmann is not implying that the Democratic ticket is going to receive any of that ‘dark money; he is warning that they and down-ballot Democratic candidates are in danger of being crushed by it. As Hartmann writes, “Get ready: Massive pools of dark right-wing money are soon going to clobber us. Will Democracy survive this onslaught by the morbidly rich?….The official beginning of the election season is still almost a month away, and the big money pledged by right-wing and neofascist billionaires hasn’t even shown up yet….While over a hundred million pissed-off women and the widespread concern that Trump and the GOP are determined to destroy the American system of government seem like a powerful force, history tells us big dark money could overcome even those substantial tailwinds.” Hartmann notes that AIPAC political contributions have been used to primary and defeat incumbent Democratic House members, and adds, “But AIPAC is a piker compared to what’s going to be coming down the road as the tech, banking, insurance, and fossil fuel billionaires and their companies weigh in to the presidential race this fall….A previous campaign by the fossil fuel industry is instructive, particularly since that industry sees Harris and Walz as enemies; Harris signed off on the largest climate legislation in world history, and Walz has required the utilities in Minnesota to be 100 percent carbon-free by 2040, a mere 16 years from now.”

Noting another lavishly funded and successful effort to defeat a modest carbon tax in Washington state, Hartmann explains, “This is the brave new world Clarence Thomas’s tie-breaking vote brought America when the Supreme Court, in its 2010 Citizens United decision, legalized both political bribery and massive intervention in elections by corporations and billionaires….Prior to Thomas’s vote on that decision, Harlan Crow—who helped finance the original Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004—and other billionaires had lavished millions on Thomas and his family….Ever since Citizens United legalized literally unlimited contributions to the new category of political action committees it created (super PACs), just in the 15 months from January 2023 to April 2024, over $8.6 billion has been raised for this year’s federal campaigns with over 65 percent of that money—$5.6 billion—running through PACs. And, as noted, they’re just getting started….So get ready. It’s going to get ugly. There’s not a competitive House or Senate race anywhere in America that’s immune from massive dark money that’s been thrown together at the last minute to remain untraceable….As Senator Elizabeth Warren noted, echoing a position held by 72 percentof American voters, “Our democracy shouldn’t be bought and paid for by the wealthy and powerful.”….If Democrats survive the onslaught that’s coming and emerge victorious at the federal level, the first order of business next year must be to strip the cancer of dark money out of our body politic.” The bottom line for all Democratic candidates is that they are going to need more contributions to survive the GOP’s well-funded ad tsunami.

Here is the new Harris-Walz campaign ad re immigration.  I think Dems need an ad with stronger emphasis on the fact that Trump and Republicans killed a solid immigration reform bill. What do you think?