It’s a old maxim that in Washington, when breaking news is anticipated, there’s an inverse relationship between the amount of actual information available and the breadth and intensity of rumors. So it goes with the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation of the Valerie Plame leak.Best I can tell, Fitzgerald’s investigation itself is pretty damn close to leak-proof. Hence, the speculation about its impending fruits is reaching levels of near-hysteria in Washington. Will Cheney be implicated? If so, does his implication implicate Bush himself? Did Rove roll over on Scooter Libby, not only exculpating himself but reinforcing his legend as the guy you don’t ever want to mess with? Will Fitzgerald wind up doing nothing, to the shock and disappointment of Democrats and the great relief of Republicans?Who knows? Nobody knows. The tiny trickle of actual news dribbling out today is tantalizing but inconclusive: reports of Fitzgerald paying a visit to Rove’s lawyer, and of FBI agents creepy-crawling the Wilson-Plame neighborhood to find out if it was common knowledge Plame was with The Company.There’s a general expectation that action will be taken tomorrow, but maybe not until Friday, and of course, Fitzgerald could actually hold over the Grand Jury for another week, raising the rumor noise to a high-pitched chattering whine.This is the perfect atmosphere for the Washington Insider Jiveass, who in the absence of real information, feeds the beast of speculation with wild claims backed by shadowy Sources. My colleague The Moose and I had a semi-serious conversation today about how easy it would be to set Washington on its ear by posting especially lurid speculation of our own: unconfirmed reports of beefed-up security in the office of John McCain, waiting in the wings to replace a disgraced Dick Cheney; Sources describing a stricken president weeping in the Rose Garden at the certain loss of his Pilot, Karl Rove; spot checks revealing a vast and coordinated wave of heavily tattooed bicycle messengers delivering multiple “target letters;” Grand Jurors with relatives in Red States suddenly stepping down. In today’s atmosphere, almost anything would get batted around Washington and beyond.I’ve always defined the Washington Insider Jiveass as someone who constantly seeks to know something unimportant fifteen minutes before anyone else. But when it comes to something important, the Washington Insider Jiveass seeks to convey exclusive knowledge of something unknowable close enough to real news events to get attention, yet far enough in advance to avoid looking stupid when it turns out very differently.That’s why this is the Day of the Jiveass in Washington; indeed, it’s a veritable Jiveass Jamboree.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 11: If Biden “Steps Aside” and Harris Steps Up, There Should Be No Falloff in Support
At New York I discussed and tried to resolve one source of anxiety about a potential alternative ticket:
One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the “Kamala Harris conundrum”:
“Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that they’re skeptical of Harris’s prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harris’s strength among the party’s most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position.”
The perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harris’s public standing shows she’s just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an “open convention,” “mini-primary,” or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket.
For a good while now, Harris’s job-approval numbers have been converging with Biden’s after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Biden’s is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. There’s just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep.
On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasn’t much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent).
After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harris’s strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters.
Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points.
Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasn’t as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points).
There’s been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. There’s not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women.
The bottom line is that one element of the “Kamala Harris conundrum” needs to be reconsidered. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible “replacement” scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her.