Taking off over San Diego.
Sheila and I are aboard a Delta Being 757 above the battleground state of Arizona just hours after Vice President Kamala Harris named a former high school civics teacher and football coach as her running mate in this 2024 campaign to lead our republic for the next four years. He is also a former Congressman of 12 years who has been elected twice to lead the people of Minnesota as their Governor.
So the presidential tickets are all set and, I think, the basic issue is very clear; it is a race between two weird celebrities and two pretty-normal American citizens.
This is a race between the very strange sourpuss 78 year-old child billionaire criminal and his nouveau riche sidekick (who is nearly as crazy) against two pretty normal cheerful patriotic Americans who are just trying to live up to the ideals we have all grown up with…
- Working to make the America we leave to our children better than the one we inherited (perfecting our union),
- Making sure everyone is treated fairly (establishing justice)
- Keeping our families and neighborhoods safe (ensuring domestic tranquility)
- Protecting our homeland from foreign threats (providing for the common defense)
- Working together to make life better for us all (promoting the general welfare)
- Making sure our freedoms and those of future generations are rock solid (securing the blessings of liberty)
Donald Trump and JD Vance have very little experience in any of the practical skills required of a chief executive. One is a TV celebrity who is the leader of a fraudulent business enterprise (proven in court to the satisfaction of at least two juries) that has seen many of its subsidiaries go bankrupt while the other is a short-term US Senator whose previous experience is primarily as a celebrity author. Both are fixated on bitter resentments over a fictional past with little understanding of what America is all about. What are the chances that Donald Trump or JD Vance could even name the basic six goals of our republic (above) that are the first sentence of our Constitution?
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz know those basic goals of We the People, respect them, and have repeatedly and seriously pledged to uphold them. She has had a long career as a prosecutor, California’s Attorney General, a US Senator, and Vice President of the United States. She has been in the situation room as life and death decisions were made. Walz has had the responsibility of representing a rural districts and of planning budgets and making the tough decisions necessary to administer a large state government. They are serious, patriotic, and future oriented.
Somehow this is still a very close race, but I am excited to have two enthusiastic folks who are forward focused but grounded in the principles that we have tried to promote in America, imperfectly of course, since the beginning.
America as a landscape is wonderfully varied and beautiful — there’s the stark beauty of New Mexico out my window now. I love the purple mountains and the alabaster cities. We are equally diverse as a people. I have taught children of many ethnic backgrounds, religious customs, poor and rich and a lot of in-between, all colors. I love all of that. But first and foremost, America is an idea. Think of that wonderful first sentence of the Constitution again.
I don’t think the other ticket even appreciates that most basic sentence of our founding documents.
Our ruler is us, We the People! And our republic is always supposed to be working toward those six goals.
I believe Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will keep those goals in mind always.
They certainly have my full support!
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