gehringer_2

Very possibly. Also, no candidate wants a more dramatic orator as their understudy. But the other side would be that the demographic where the Dems have the biggest hill to climb is white men, and Walz gives the white guy in the F150 permission to like a Dem more so than any other possible choice. My take would be that that was the single over riding consideration. And as I mentioned before, don't underestimate the importance what their internal polling may have been telling them. If they were behind in PA, maybe you need Shapiro. If you think you have PA, you make the broader play.

Yup. Minneapolis is less than an hour from Eau Claire- closer than any large population in WI. But it's clever strategy. If the start up had been a little rocky, the campaign would still have a packed venue to show in a competitive state and 90% of Americans have no clue about the finer points of upper mid-west geography. Given the response in Det it appears they didn't have to worry.

we are roughly back to April - the AI run up of the last couple of months had to capitulate.

Looking back it appears the IF glove was never much anyway. His fielding %, going all the way to A ball was never better than 950 at 2B or SS.

well if he did just lose it that's just bad luck and nobody's procedural error.

so is it logistically/legally possible for Trump to jettison Vance at this point? He has to be wishing there was a way he could fire his way out of this.

definitely

it makes perfect sense. The problem is always doubt about whether communication was received by the other party. If all communication is one way, doubt can remain about whether hearing footsteps means a guy is backing you up or about to collide with you. Parker said he knew he should have caught it. But it was pretty clear he had stopped so in reality in real time he thought Wenceel was taking it while Wenceel was also ducking out. "I got it, you take it!"

I have seen a lot of speculation about techniques Iran/Hamas might use to try and increase their hit rate in another attack on Israel. What I haven't heard speculated on at all is whether the US has told Iran that this time it and Israel will feel free to counterstrike bases of origin and IRG facilities inside Iran at the first volley. Seems the obvious gambit.

the common denominator in these plays is Perez, even though it's not obvious how he's at fault - though of course we aren't hearing the call.s

looks like Brieske warming up. Can't I say I feel a lot better about that either...

Vest shakes off the mistake and gives up nothing.

Nice start for Montero. Tigers BP (Vest) puts the 1st man on - HBP.

should have gotten something out of that.

One of Keith's worse ABs

Keith goes to sleep on the back side of a potential steal of home.

Turns out I have friends who knew Sheila H. when she was being an incognito ordinary parent of nursery school age kids in A^2. They had no clue she was Ford, except long after the fact they figured out where a bunch of contributions to their charitable org had been coming from.

Akil Baddoo carries an 840 OPS at Toledo, can't stay above water in the majors. The ultimate AAAA player? He's currently 25. Will he be back with the Hens's next season with one more shot?

the old flag had to go due to issues with the native american depicted and the general complaint that it was too detailed to figure out. It is a little unexpected they used an 8 point star. Obviously to keep the symmetry of the design, but it is true that the Minnesota North Star you see on or in at least half the houses in MN is invariably a 5 point. Of course if they had used a 5 point it would have been closer to the comparison they're trying to draw.....🤷‍♀️

more projection of his own fears

he does channel Obama - he's learned the soul cadence.

No - I meant over the last few months of apparent but minor Russian gains

Has Ukraine been playing rope-a-dope?

Just in case anyone thought Netanyahu was the only one who can double-down on stupid, Hamas just elevated Sinwar to run the show. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/06/world/israel-iran-hezbollah-gaza It's like you have two fanatical sides locked in a mutual death embrace. Netanyahu probably knew full well that if they killed Haniyah and Sinwar was still alive, Sinwar would emerge the leader and that would would make the militancy of his approach that much easier to sustain politically in Israel.

There is something to just running on a 'trust me' campaign *if* you think your candidate can connect at that level. If you can persuade the electorate you care about them you do not need to be as specific on policy. But it's tricky. I did not agree with R Reagan's politics on almost any issue, but I still trusted his instincts on the international stage and even domestically to do what needed to be done when it had to be. As an example, in spite of his tax-cutting mantra, Reagan did start raising taxes when he saw how badly the deficit had ballooned under his original program. And he made mid-course corrections on some environmental issues once the facts got through to him. So I still 'trusted' him in a way I didn't trust Carter, whose heart I knew was always in the right place but whose policies were mostly feckless or ill-conceived and who was often too captive to his beltway consultants in ways that were not authentic to who he was. Reagan absolutely did start a movement in the wrong direction on economics in the US - but the difference was that Reagan believed conservative policies could help the poor and if he had lived long enough to see they didn't, I think he would have changed course again, as he did to become a Republican in the 1st place. He was not like this generation that just wants to punish people for the circumstance of their birth. That's why people voted for him then, when today we look back and say they were voting against their own interests.