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WASHINGTON — Labor Day marks the unofficial start of the home stretch of campaign season, when yard signs proliferate, airwaves are choked with campaign ads and office seekers are very likely to knock on your front door, asking for your vote.
The political din is inescapable, especially in this presidential election year when the race is extraordinarily tight. And there are gushers of political money that might make this year’s race even more expensive than the Trump-Biden matchup in 2020, which cost more than $14 billion and was at that point the most expensive in U.S. history.
Presidential politics will loom large in Congress, which returns to work next week after a summer break.
Republican-led committees in the U.S. House that had been spending time and resources on investigations of President Biden and his son Hunter, as well as Biden administration officials, will now turn their attention to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled several hearings next week, both in D.C. and Santee, California, to further claims that Harris is to blame for what they characterize as a chaotic U.S.-Mexico border.
And the House Education and the Workforce Committee issued subpoenas this week to the Walz administration over the Feeding our Future fraud, in which contractors collected millions of dollars in federal funding meant to feed children when schools were closed during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has launched a probe into Walz’s “long standing connections” to China.
When he was 25 years-old, Walz signed up for Harvard University’s WorldTeach program and was one of the first American educators in modern-day China. He later took his Mankato high school students to China on summer trips.
The oversight committee is also focusing a hearing on Harris’ role “in effectuating the worst border crisis in American history.”
Not to be undone, the House Armed Services Committee has targeted Walz’s time as a member of the military, asking the Pentagon for records regarding the governor’s 24-year career in the National Guard.
But the marquee political event next week will be held on Tuesday evening, when Harris debates Donald Trump on ABC.
Trump went on a Fox News town hall hosted by Sean Hannity this week to slam the rules of the debate, a tactic that he hopes would blunt the impact of a bad performance.
“They are the most dishonest network, the meanest, the nastiest, but that was what I was presented with,” he said, adding that he only agreed to the ABC debate “because they wouldn’t do any other network.”
Without presenting any evidence, Trump also accused ABC of giving Harris the questions that will be posed during the debate.
The Harris campaign, meanwhile, wrote ABC that the decision to mute the mics while the other candidate is speaking during the debate is a disadvantage to Harris because it would “serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President.”
Warning signs on the economy
The Federal Reserve’s latest edition of the “Beige Book,” which tracks the nation’s economic activity, shows a slowdown in employment and consumer spending in Minnesota and neighboring states.
The Beige Book said economic activity “fell slightly” in the Minneapolis district, which monitors economic activity in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, northwestern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“Employment was flat and hiring softened, while wage growth was moderate,” the Federal Reserve report said. “Price pressures eased as overall prices increased slightly but at a slower pace.”
While the Beige Book said consumer spending fell slightly, there were bright spots in the region’s economy – “tourism held up and vehicle sales increased.”
However, the report said manufacturing and construction activity declined and “agricultural conditions remained weak.”
“Low prices for crops continued to weigh down incomes, while livestock and dairy producers were faring better,” the Beige Book said.
Walz watch
Deployed to swing state Pennsylvania this week, Walz slammed Trump’s rhetoric as pessimistic and dystopian.
There is “a deliberate effort by some people to make them believe that our political system is broken … that things are pessimistic.”
“My God, every time I hear Donald Trump give a speech, it’s like the next screenplay for ‘Mad Max’ or something,” Walz said. “They are rooting against America.”
Walz has been on a whirlwind of campaign and fundraising events since he was chosen to be Harris’ running mate last month.
And the governor’s campaign schedule is about to get even more challenging.
A group of centrist Democrats in the U.S. House, many of them belonging to the centrist New Democrat Coalition, have asked Walz to campaign with them.
Some of those House Democrats are in tough races, others are in safe seats.
“People love to spend time with him and they know that he’ll be effective in their districts, and I think that’s really important,” Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-New Hampshire, the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, told The Hill.
Kuster said the kind of voters they are trying to reach can “relate” to Walz and they are “people who may have voted for Donald Trump in the past and are disaffected by that, by the vitriol and by the chaos and by the fear that they have about a future with him.”
A poll from USA Today and Suffolk University released Thursday determined Walz has a fairly high popularity rating. It also found that those surveyed said Walz is significantly more popular than GOP Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance.
The poll determined 48% of likely voters found Walz favorable and 36% found him unfavorable, compared with 37% who found Vance favorable and 49% who found him unfavorable.
In case you missed it:
-Gov. Tim Walz was once under fire from the Trump-Vance campaign because he misidentified a fertility procedure that he and his wife used to conceive their daughter Hope. Walz mistakenly said it was in vitro fertilization, or IVF, but he has brushed aside the gaffe to become an IVF champion and provoke Donald Trump into promising to provide the very costly fertility treatment for free.
-Although Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, and her GOP challenger Joe Teirab have similar positions in support of Israel, the American Israel Political Action Committee has picked a favorite in the race, collecting more than $200,000 in donations for Craig.
-The latest campaign finance reports in Minnesota shows that millions of dollars have been raised for the fall campaigns, with Democratic groups outperforming Republican organizations.
-State Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, thinks much of the opposition to the return of land to Minnesota tribes is based on a lack of historical knowledge about why those tribes lost their land. While some land has been returned, Kunesh has vowed to reintroduce bills that stalled in the Legislature in the last session.
Your questions and comments
A reader said she was puzzled over objections by conservative Republicans who oppose IVF because unused fertilized eggs are often disposed of in the process and they believe life begins at conception.
“I wonder if the backers of the Life at Conception Act have thought of this:
How does a couple know that their “coupling” results in fertilization at that moment?” the reader wrote. “If life begins at conception, shouldn’t babies be nine months old when they’re born? How will age be determined for premature babies?”
She also wondered: “How will life at conception affect age-related life transitions? When you’re eligible to drink? Vote? Eligible for Medicare?
Many, many questions.”
Another reader defended Tim Walz for misidentifying the fertility procedure he and his wife Gwen used.“When you get into the particulars of how either technique is accomplished, IUI in particular is so highly personal – !! I can completely understand the Walzes’ preference for the “catchall” term ‘IVF’ rather than ‘IUI’ …which would then require an excruciatingly detailed explanation,” the reader said.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at aradelat@minnpost.com.
