The last three weeks have been some of the longest of my life. On August 17th I was rushed to the hospital with diabetic keto acidosis. I did not know I was diabetic or had neuropathy, but I had an infected cut on my foot. The infection and diabetes fed off each other, and because of the neuropathy I didn’t feel the pain I should have. The result that day was losing half my foot. I chose to do an amputation of my lower leg just over a week later. I’ve done a week of rehab since and today I go home after three weeks. I’m beyond grateful.
In these past three weeks I’ve faced my mortality, my future, and the possibility of not doing a lot of things I love. The doctors at St. Luke’s Anderson saved my life. The nurses and staff kept me going. The staff at Sacred Heart rehab really put me back together. I’m fortunate. I had more visitors, calls, and texts than I could ever imagine. It kept me going. Other people wanting me to live was an even stronger motivation than my own desire to. Again, I’m grateful to everyone.
I will live and walk again. I have two pieces of advice for anyone who reads this. First, if you are uninsured, go on your state’s exchange and buy an insurance plan for 2025 under the Affordable Care Act. It cost me a couple dollars, but I’m not in financial ruin because I had good insurance. Second, get your blood work and watch every wound. This may very well have happened to me anyway, but it would have been better if I had known.
If you’re reading this, love ‘ya. Value life everyday.
I published this back in 2023, on 12/19. I got a lot of this right. This realignment wasn’t good for Democrats. Presidential approval remains poor. Non-college educated minority voters did keep moving towards Trump, while Harris actually improved with white voters almost entirely because of improved performance with college educated white men. The parts I got wrong were the importance of Dobbs and Biden winning. Dobbs did not disrupt the migration that was already going on with voters. Biden did not win, in no small part because of inflation/recession concerns and his own party knifing him up, because he wasn’t exactly what they really wanted. Kamala Harris could not unite the factions either, it turns out. Anyway, enjoy the update here.
It’s worth noting- our last two Presidents have spent most of the last seven years with poor approval ratings. When I say poor, I mean consistently under 50%, and usually handily. This is not something we’re necessarily used to- Bill Clinton spent most of his Presidency with high approval, George W. Bush spent his first term generally over 50%, and Barack Obama spent the majority of his Presidency with majority support. With that said, the new normal has become poor Presidential approval ratings, which seems to be an obsession of the press.
I think it’s worth us noting that this shouldn’t be shocking- the “right track, wrong track” question about this country has almost unanimously shown Americans saying we’re on the wrong track going back into the Bush 43 Presidency, or the better part of 20 years. Americans have not, for quite some time, thought the condition of our nation and society is improving. We live in one of the wealthiest, most technologically advanced, most militarily powerful countries in human history, we enjoy a high standard of living relative not only to the world, but to human history, and yet we’re not overly happy. The last couple of decades have shaken our confidence in so many institutions we held dear. We carry high debt, we work longer and longer hours for the same (or less) money, our marriages end in divorce (if they happen at all), addiction (to opioids, alcohol, whatever) is literally killing us, we’ve seen multiple wars in the last 75 years built on false pretenses, the Catholic Church covered up child molestations, school shootings are a constant part of our lives, universities covered for sexual monsters, our banks nearly melted down the economy, a hurricane destroyed an American city while our government looked incompetent, we spent 20 years in Afghanistan to just give it back within hours of leaving, Iran-Contra, the ridiculous Clinton impeachment, we lack confidence in our elections, Congress constantly gets us to the brink of government shutdowns, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I honestly can’t even remember all the stuff in my lifetime that people thought was horrible, and I didn’t even get into terrorist attacks here. It’s kind of surprising anyone thinks we’re on the right track. And I’m only bringing up the Supreme Court at the end of this list of grievances.
With that backdrop, it’s sort of surprising it took until 2017 for our Presidents to start seeing approval ratings that are under water. We began a period of political realignment with Barack Obama’s 2008 election, and we’ve been in it ever since. The net result is in-party division like we have never seen before. The Biden/Hillary wing of the Democratic Party represents somewhere between 55-70% of the party, while the Sanders wing approaches a third. The MAGA Republicans represent about two-thirds of their party, while the old Bush/Cheney/McCain/Romney/Ryan wing of the party is the other third. Nearly none of these people even entertain voting for the other party, but they basically hate the other wing of their own party. The net result of this is that virtually no national figure in American politics today has 50% of the population willing to “approve” of them. The other net result is that every Democratic Presidential nominee since 1996 has received at least 48% of the popular vote, and every Republican Presidential nominee since 2000 has received at least 46% of the popular vote. So basically the public will increasingly dislike our Presidential candidates, and yet they will basically vote for them or skip it. There’s very few actually open minded voters. There’s just a lot of unhappy voters.
All of this is a very long-winded way for me to say that Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s actual approval rating doesn’t really matter. About 90% of their voters from 2020 are going to vote for them again, no matter what, regardless of what pundits on X say. Even more to the point, even that last 10% might talk about doing something different, but 80% of them are voting the same way again, no matter what happens. National pollsters have not adjusted to an electorate that works more like the volume on your radio than a horse race. Intensity moves, opinions really don’t right now.
Again I’m making a point that is maybe lost in the explanation- Joe Biden is going to win in 2024. He’s going to win with an approval rating that probably never quite gets back to 50%. Most of the agitators to his left- be it on student loans, Gaza, or Dobbs- either live in super “blue” cities and states, or didn’t vote Democratic in 2020 (for varying reasons), and don’t represent anyone offline. Yes, this is true of the supposed “Gaza Backlash” voters in Michigan too, where Governor Whitmer last the Arab-American vote in 2022 and won an easy re-election. Trump has lead a very slow, drip of resurgence among non-white voters in general, particularly high school educated or less men, but he has more than limited his upward mobility with older white voters by putting Social Security and Medicare into question (and letting others in his party do so), and of course by Dobbs. Look, I’m going to be honest with you- Dobbs is going to decide the 2024 election. The GOP has generally underperformed a bit from 2017 on, but since Dobbs they have performed apocalyptically poorly for an opposition party in the United States, routinely losing or underwhelming in elections all over the United States. You simply cannot win an election telling slightly over half the population that they don’t have the right bodily autonomy in our society. There is no way to slice that. It cost the GOP what should have been a huge win in the 2022 midterms, it factored into abysmal performances in Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and around the country in 2023, and it simply will kill them in 2024. Worse yet for them, nominating Nikki Haley might seem like it would fix it, but both for her own extreme position on abortion, and the fact she could never get the Trump base voter to turn out for the election, she would underwhelm too. The GOP has a Dobbs problem, and virtually no silver bullet to fix it by 2024. The most angry women live in suburban swing Congressional districts, often times in the most swing states (which should be read as “suburban.”). Yes, things can happen yet. International crises. Recession. Inflation spikes (mostly from gas). A health crisis. So no, this is not set in stone. As is though, Dobbs is going to be what decides the 2024 election, and Joe Biden is in a good spot for that.
In the longer term though, this is more interesting than what I’m writing here. It may be a long while until a President has consistent majority approval. We basically live in a constant “four party” state where primaries are ideological war zones, and incumbents do not enjoy broad support within their parties. Voters are still realigning as I said before, but at a glacial pace for now. I would expect if the dam is going to break, and we’re going to see a mass migration of voters, it’s going to happen after Biden and Trump have run their final campaigns in 2024. In other words, a year from now you’ll just see the tip of the new political sun rising. College educated white voters moving left. Non-college educated voters of color moving right. This could make for significantly different politics in the near future, and serious problems for the Democratic Party. Much as Catholic voters moved substantially in the 20 years after JFK’s 1960 win, millennial and non-white voters are not going to continue to provide them the margins they gave Barack Obama. It was silly to ever think they would. Again though, these are five and ten year problems from now, not 2024. And no one should get worried about Presidential approval ratings for a while. They aren’t going to be pretty.
2004 under the 2024 electoral vote values.2008 under 2024 electoral vote values.2012 under 2024 electoral values.2016 under 2024 electoral vote values.2020 under 2024 electoral vote values.The 2024 outlook.
Back in the Obama years, we heard a lot about “demographics are destiny.” In fact they are, just not how those smart folks thought. There were thoughts of Democrats building huge electoral majorities as late as just after the 2012 election. The only part of that huge majority that has held as “permanent” so far is Colorado and Virginia, totaling 23 electoral votes. Democrats could probably count turning Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina all purple, totaling 49 electoral votes, as a somewhat positive outcome as well (Bush won them all somewhat easily). But for those 72 electoral votes, let’s be clear about what Democrats have seen slide against them. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin all blue from 1992 through 2012 and somewhat comfortable Obama wins, now are the 54 most competitive electoral votes in our nation’s politics. Florida, Ohio, and Iowa, 53 electoral votes that President Obama carried twice, are now almost certainly red moving forward. Indiana and Missouri, two of the three most competitive states in the 2008 election, are 21 electoral votes of red bastion. And of course, the promised movement of Texas to the left doesn’t look all that close to fruition. That’s 128 electoral votes Democrats thought as late as 2008 were no worse than battlegrounds that have slid away from them to varying degrees.
So the obvious question is why? An underrated part of this is Republican gains with Latinos and Black men in 2020 putting Democrats on defense. Even this though understates the bigger problem Democrats have had for a while- they put all their eggs in the demographic tsunami’s basket, and never understood what that meant under our federal system. This will become even more crystal clear in Senate elections over the coming decades. Population growth is in fact more non-white than ever before, but it’s all in a couple of states. By 2040, half the population will live in eight states, and 70% of the population will live in fifteen states. What that means in short is that half the country will elect 16 Senators and the other half (which will be much whiter and possibly have less education) will elect 84. The 70% of the country in 15 states will get just 30 Senators and the 30% in smaller, more rural, less diverse states will get 70 Senators. The United States Senate, before I am 60 years old, will be one of the least representative legislative bodies in the democratic world. While the House of Representatives, and by extension the electoral vote count for President, should at least partially move with population growth, even that won’t be perfect. Worse yet for Democrats, even if the GOP just keeps up marginal growth with non-white voters, they will keep Texas and Florida in their column for President, keeping them in the ball game to win elections if they continue doing well with white voters. Basically, if Democrats can’t change their 60 year trend line with white voters, Presidential elections remain on a knife’s edge, the Senate’s future is fairly conservative, and the House will only lean Democratic, not permanently tipped left. This is not even getting into state level governments, or what the Supreme Court will look like and do.
On Friday the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee formally adopted a new primary calendar for the 2024 Presidential race. The big highlights are replacing Iowa as first in the nation, instead having the South Carolina Primary go first, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, then Georgia and Michigan. Already there are problems, including Iowa and New Hampshire saying they won’t go along, and Georgia officials saying their primary won’t move. The order will be finalized next year.
The rationalization behind the President and the DNC’s decision is actually pretty strong and realistic. No group has been more loyal to Democratic candidates than Black voters over the last 40 years. Since South Carolina began moving up the calendar, it has been growing in importance, catapulting Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden toward the nomination, and three of them towards the White House. Joe Biden said having more diverse voices pick the nominee is the principle he values. That is a very good principle to have.
I have two main problems with the new primary calendar. The first is that making changes presumes there is something broken that needs to be fixed. There isn’t. Democratic nominees have been extremely competitive in recent years, which every nominee since 1996 getting at least 48% of the popular vote. Since 1992, Democrats have won five of eight Presidential elections, and won the popular vote 7 of 8 times. None of the nominees were crackpots that took embarrassing positions either. Democrats nominated fairly solid candidates under the existing calendar.
My second problem is that there is a perceived second problem being answered with the new calendar, that the current calendar doesn’t give voice to non-white voters. It’s true that Iowa and New Hampshire are super white. It’s also true that going first and second hasn’t increased their influence. South Carolina is the undisputed kingmaker in Democratic politics. Voting fourth has allowed them to effectively end many candidates’ pathways who could not connect to the large Black voting population there. Since 1992, every Democratic nominee for President except for John Kerry, who lost to North Carolina’s Senator, won the South Carolina primary. Most of them won decisively and walked out with significant delegate leads. In Nevada, Hillary won in 2016 to get back on her feet after New Hampshire, and in 2020 Joe Biden’s 2nd place in Nevada saved his campaign. The more diverse states are already the decision makers in the Democratic Party. There’s no disputing that.
Sure, one can argue the new calendar is a bow to “new realities,” and that’s true. Iowa doesn’t look like a swing state anymore. The party is simply more diverse. The new calendar accelerates the reality we live in. Again though, why? This current early state structure nominated Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. It elevated voices from people of color. Sure, the new calendar does that more. Are we fixing a problem by doing that though, or creating one. Leftist Bernieland voices will perceive this as an attempt to insure they can’t win, and while they should look inward and realize why that is, is that a conversation we need. The media will point out that Democrats want their nominee picked almost entirely with no input from the central and mountain time zones, or by coastal states, basically. Swing state New Hampshire and quasi-swing state Iowa will almost certainly rebel and lose a chunk of their delegates. And frankly, if Michigan and Georgia are in for being swing states, why aren’t Pennsylvania and Arizona? We’re opening a lot of cans of worms here, for marginal improvement in the process.
I love the principles being displayed by these moves. I can’t find the problems they’re trying to fix. I can clearly see the problems they will create.
I hope my Republican friends reflect a bit on the state of their party. America needs two functional political parties to work, and we don’t have that right now. Exit polls showed Joe Biden’s approval in the low to mid 40’s, depending on the state. Republicans should have been able to turn that into a victory, but couldn’t. That is a commentary on the GOP. Doug Mastriano and Dr. Oz aren’t acceptable people, let alone candidates. Herschel Walker is a national embarrassment. People don’t want to put Marjorie Taylor Green or Jim Jordan in charge of a bingo game, let alone a house of Congress. And the Dobbs decision, let alone talk of banning contraception or marriage equality, is simply unacceptable to a majority of Americans. People probably would have liked a plan on gas prices beyond “drill, drill, drill,” but you never put that forward. You’ll probably narrowly get the House for two years, but that’s gone in two years when a Presidential electorate votes in New York, so enjoy it, and you’re not getting the Senate next year. There’s room for a Conservative party in America certainly, but I think the point is the freak show needs to end.
Have a great day, and Merry Christmas and Happy Thanksgiving,
It was an August evening 18 years ago that I came back to my dorm from cross-country practice and saw a flier on my door advertising internships with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign for future Governor Ed Rendell and Congressional nominee Ed O’Brien. Motivated by my anti-war, pro-union, pro-environmental views of the day, I called the number the next day, and was on board within the week. I did not know at the time that my sports career, which had been ongoing since I was five, was days away from being ended by mono, or that I’d still be doing campaigns 18 years later (which was definitely not my intention at the time). In hindsight though, the transition makes sense and meant the world for me, as politics both replaced my competitive needs, and made me grow in ways I did not suspect it would at the time.
To be clear, 18 years later I could (and plan to) write a book about all the ways I think our political process sucks, and is broken. I often find myself feeling contempt for every part of the system, even as I would say without a second thought that this same broken system has made me a better person, and taught me to empathize with people I would not have had much in common with them. Politics is complicated though, so it’s fitting for me that I’m standing here all these years later observing that my own relationship to it is extremely complicated too. Ultimately though, it has been rewarding.
I can’t say I’ve ever had a bigger reward than the one I’ll celebrate this week: national Delegate. Thanks to the Biden campaign selecting me, about 300 people signing my petition, Joe Biden winning PA-7, and slightly over 50,000 people voting for me, I have the honor of a lifetime this week. Yes, it’s a weird year and convention, and I would be lying if I didn’t express my disappointment with not being in Milwaukee this week, but don’t mistake that for me being disappointed in the moment. I’ve spent my entire career working with a chip on my shoulder, that I’ve been passed over or underestimated by people in this industry for varying reasons. This week I can quietly and proudly tell myself I’m good enough, and for the nominee, no less. This is first line in your obituary type of shit here.
Without question, the best night of the campaign.
To be honest, I kind of thought this moment in my political life would happen four years ago, for Secretary Clinton and her campaign. I was an alum of her 2008 campaign, the convention was in my adoptive city of Philadelphia, I was raising money for her campaign and “Ready for Hillary” very early on, and I had friends and allies in close enough contact to them that I was pretty sure my call was coming. I received only small offers early on though and got passed over to be any kind of delegate for Hillary. It was personally and professionally very disappointing, and left me questioning many of my decisions. I got that my fairly extreme lack of diversity (white, straight, Catholic, male, geographically outside of the big cities) was a drawback, but why did it seem like I had nothing to offer a candidate that I admired like none other? The disappointment made me look in other directions, but ultimately I did stick with Hillary, and after the 2016 convention, they suddenly needed me to parachute into Northeast North Carolina to fix a messed up region for them, for which the honor will forever be mine. I made great friends there, and our hard work as a team gave the Tar Heel State a Governor and Attorney General that have improved so many lives. Ultimately though, even that experience left me and so many others feeling empty when Hillary came up short. It was devastating.
The last three years have been a whirlwind, and the experience has changed me politically like it has for so many of you. That all came to a head just two days before Thanksgiving, when I text an old friend who was Vice-President Biden’s head guy in Iowa after reading about him in an article. It would take until nearly Christmas, and I very nearly went in another direction, but I was offered to come to Omaha, Nebraska and join the Biden team as the out-of-state organizer there, and I accepted. I left the day after Christmas, ultimately spending 40 nights in the Midwest, fighting for Joe in Iowa. My role expanded to handling paid canvassing in Southwest Iowa and working with endorsers to fill our precinct captain team out, and it’s fair to say I was kept busy. I would not change it for the world though. Friends of mine, from Senator Casey’s political director to friends from past campaigns, and even people I met on twitter or knew from back home in Easton came out to volunteer for us. The personal highlight of all highlights was when my first major political boss, Senator Chris Dodd came to campaign with us over the last weekend in Council Bluffs (and his caucus day “good luck” call was awesome too). The whole experience was amazing, and during that time period I was informed that I had been selected to be a delegate (with a gigantic assist from Senator Casey’s political director, again). Honestly, even seeing that things weren’t looking great, I had prepared myself for a tough caucus night, and likely being laid off the day after. I got the tough caucus night, and handled it as best I could. Then I got the shocking call that I was being re-assigned to Philadelphia. For the next month, I don’t know if I was only lucky, somewhat good, or some combination, but I could not miss. I woke up every morning on Broad Street of my favorite city in the world, got my Friday night cheesesteaks, got visits from old, close friends I hadn’t seen in years, and oh yeah- things got better. To be honest, I have no idea how I got assigned to digital organizing, it was literally something I had never done in my career (maybe the only thing), but the success was there. My biggest two wins were Oklahoma and Tennessee on Super Tuesday, but the wins continued to just pile up in states I was organizing in- Massachusetts, Idaho, Wyoming, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Delaware- all states I either organized in on the digital team, or later on the Mid-Atlantic “Pod.” Obviously Covid-19 struck about a month after I arrived in Philadelphia, the primaries came to a conclusion earlier than expected, and I was re-assigned eventually full time to Pennsylvania, but there was so much winning- and that was a great feeling. None of that was better than being elected to the convention on June 2nd though, so here we are.
From an identity standpoint, obviously Joe Biden is the best fit to me politically that I’ve probably ever had. It’s a lot more complicated than that though. In 2007 I passed on an interview with his campaign, which was offered to me just two days after I had accepted an offer from Senator Dodd. In 2015, I had the contract in hand to go to New Hampshire for the Draft Biden movement, and ultimately life events gave me second thoughts that kept me with Hillary. Even now, I can’t say this campaign has gone according to script. I also can’t say the similarities I share with Biden are what actually even draws me to him either- his Pennsylvania roots, his Catholicism, his “working class” politics- none of that gets me. I think it’s just how real of a person Joe is. He’s achieved great things, but his life has been far from perfect. He’s suffered personal loss. He’s made damaging gaffes. The “smart” people have consistently dismissed his politics and some even have called him dumb. This is part of what I love about Joe- he’s smarter than the “know it all” types, because he can relate to normal people, he keeps a broad, open tent, and he lets his opponents keep their dignity (which is why they’re opponents and not enemies). When this is over, and it’s 1/20/21 and I’m telling you “I told you so,” remember this is why- the country desperately wants to have a normal human being be it’s leader, someone that can wind down the permanent culture wars we’ve been fighting since Newt Gingrich decided to make all politics as nasty and personal as he could. Joe Biden is genuine, he is decent, and he is a bigger man than the rest of Washington, and I’m only so thrilled that he and I both hung around the business long enough that I could say yes to his campaign, finally.
The first convention I was at, in 2004- a State Senator from Illinois.
Tomorrow will begin my third convention I have attended, my first as a delegate. My father and I drove up to Boston for the first two days of the 2004 Convention, and met this former State Senator from Illinois that you may have heard of named Barack Obama on Boston Harbor, speaking at a League of Conservation voters event the morning of his far more famous convention speech. In 2016 I spent the Philadelphia Convention outside of the hall as well, instead attending the parties and happy hours where you meet everyone. I would be an unequivocal liar if I said I’m not disappointed that I’m in Easton and not Milwaukee right now. There is zero doubt that I would have done anything possible to have the full delegate experience. Unfortunately life dictated otherwise though, so we’re going to do our best to enjoy the moment. I’ll attend the Pennsylvania delegation’s events, watch all the speeches, and attend the Labor caucus meetings (and any other caucus meetings I belong at). I voted for Joe Biden, our platform, and to continue under the post 2016 unity rules. Hopefully we delegates will get to register our support for Senator Harris with some form of vote, for history’s sake. I’m going to treat this convention seriously, because I waited a long f**king time for this. 18 years to be exact. And while no one is owed the opportunity to do what I get to do here, I earned it as much as anyone. I survived all that time, and the 9th position on the ballot in a low information race, for this. So yeah, I’m spiking the football just a bit.
Like our nominee I’ve got plenty of flaws, but also like him I’ve tried to not forget where I came from. I’m really proud to take part in this process and nominate a President we can really be proud of as a person again. I’m fortunate to be here, and fortunate to work for this man, and be a delegate. I remind myself that my immigrant great-grandfather walked across a railroad bridge from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to work in a cement factory with a bunch of other immigrants, then did it again the next day. I get to work for the 46th President of the United States, and represent the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District to vote for him at the Democratic National Convention. I’m thankful for the moment.
I was sitting in the Hotel Bethlehem having dinner with a friend on the final night I would be 34 as I looked out the window and saw the bus roll up to the door, with “MORAVIAN” scrolled across it. Out rolled repeated 22 year olds, dressed in their suits and dresses, smiles beaming across their faces. This was their night, May 10th, 2018, the gala celebration for members of the Class of 2018. These young Hounds had their lives in front of them. Twelve years ago, that was me.
Time is both our most precious resource and the most unforgiving critic. Time, inevitably will pass us by. For all of us, time is finite, and we don’t know how much of it we will have, only that we have now, the time between this moment and that morning when we are summoned home.
I turned 35 years old Friday, a semi-milestone in my life, one made easier by the fact that some bartenders and waitresses still ask me to see my ID. I feel my age some days, but others I still feel 25. I’m pretty proud of my life to this point. Professionally, I’ve worked for Presidents, Governors, Senators, Congress members, state legislators, judges, and local leaders, all over America, for diverse people, managing staffs and campaigns that were big and small. I’ve got a good relationship to my family, and I have stayed close with my friends from childhood to now. I serve on my college alumni board, my township board of auditors, and the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee. I’ve got a very sizable social media following. I go to lots of baseball games. I spent my birthday weekend at a wedding for one of my best friends. I came home and my dogs were happy to see me.
There are things that I’m either unhappy with or anxious about though. I’d like to be wealthier, maybe have a family life of my own, get more degrees, eat better, buy a home, get back into my athletic shape, and travel more. The good news though is that I’m not consumed by any of those things. They would all be added benefits. If they don’t happen, I’ll deal with it.
I’m pretty happy at 35, and pretty content with who I am. I’m a product of my community, family, friends, work experiences, and education, and I’m quite happy with that. Thank you for knowing me, and reading me.
Apocalypse Vibes 