Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - back in the saddle for another hour of questions from Steyn Clubbers around the planet. Our Clubland Q&A starts live at 3pm North American Eastern - which is 8pm British Summer Time/9pm Central European. If you chance to be elsewhere, do check local listings below.
America is now a fortnight from the launch of its uniquely unique "peaceful transfer of power". Kamala is frantically trying to shore up the male vote, the black vote, the Muslim vote, but is positively insouciant about kissing off those who believe Jesus is Lord, telling Christians "you must be at the wrong rally".
But is Kamala the one at the wrong rally? After she took Monday off to catch up on her drinking, the Democrat nominee will be spending one of the dwindling number of campaign days in, er, Houston. Which is in Texas. As Ed Morrissey puts it, "Houston? She Has a Problem":
Texas not only isn't a battleground state, it's not even close. We haven't seen a ton of polling here in the presidential race because Texas will be reliably red, but every poll aggregated in RCP shows Trump ahead outside of the margins of error. His RCP average right now is +5.7 and 51/45.3, right in line with his +5.8 margin of victory over Biden in 2020...
Why isn't Harris spending her time in the "blue wall" states exclusively at this stage of the campaign? That's where her biggest risk is.
Oh, I don't know. Right now, if America conducted its elections as, say, Denmark or Slovenia or Botswana do, Trump would win. So the Democrats are looking at two possible outcomes:
a) Kamala loses; or
b) The shenanigans have to be taken to a whole other level.
Day by day, Trump strengthens his position - so that most of the so-called "swing states" are slipping beyond the Dems' Margin of Steal. Right now, the New Hitler is leading in nine of the top ten swingiest states. So the shenanigans are going to have to be far more brazen than they were in 2020 - on multiple fronts, and having to more or less run the board.
If you're going to be that brazen, wouldn't it make far more sense just to steal Texas? Without which, the GOP can't win, no way no how.
It's easy to laugh at the palpable pall of gloom that has descended on a staggeringly inept campaign. As Kamala told fellow nanny-shagger's wife Maria Shriver at her latest fake-o "town hall", "We cannot despair." Is she going to use that line in Texas? Debbie Downer Does Dallas?
And yet and yet... The Deep Staters think outside the box, as they say. Which is why you're in a post-constitutional republic. And why this is the first US election campaign in which a major party nominee has been forced out a couple of the weeks before the convention, and the first in which the other candidate has survived two assassination attempts, and the first in which an (Afghan) CIA employee has been thwarted in his plans for an Election Day terror attack.
We're not out of plot twists yet. If the Dems are flying Kamala to Texas, it's for a reason.
On today's Clubland Q&A I'm happy to entertain your thoughts on that, or on anything else you want to raise. Whether or not you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, you can listen to our show live as it happens wherever you chance to be on this turbulent earth: Club membership is required only to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, and especially appreciate those who are having such a great time round these parts that they've signed up a chum for a Steyn Club Gift Membership. Among the additions to our ranks in recent days are newbies from around the globe - from Tennessee to Tokyo, Bigfork to Bath, and from Warwickshire to - wow! - Westmount, Kamala's home town in Quebec. Whether you've joined this week either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter, do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show.
But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in. So see you back here at 3pm North American Eastern - which is 8pm in London, 9pm in Paris, 10pm in Jerusalem; half-past-ten in Teheran; midnight-forty-five in Kathmandu; 3am in Singapore and Honkers (sorry about that); 6am in Sydney and Melbourne; 8am in Auckland, and an even more convivial hour for the kippers and kedgeree in His Majesty's Dominions eastward across the Pacific, where you're so far ahead I've probably already lost my appeal by now...