Existential Debate

Existential Debate

Kim and I are getting on a 6:30am flight to Philadelphia tomorrow morning. That means our day will start at about 3:30am and roll into an Uber pickup at 4:00. I’m sure we will get to the airport with time to spare, but one thing I have learned post-COVID is not to underestimate the resurgence of the American travelers once you’ve kept them down for a while on the COVID farm. I think that it could have gone either way, and indeed it may have. I’m sure there are some people less prone to traveling after COVID and those who feel they have a lot to make up for…or worse yet, feel there is no point in saving for a rainy day since we can all just go up in a puff of Invermectin at any moment. The fatalistic end-of-the-world philosophy is, unfortunately, less far fetched than normal. I’m wondering if the New Yorker has published more cartoons with the guy walking around in a robe with a sign that says THE END IS NEAR? Maybe their editorial policy is to trash all of those on the theory that its bad to call a spade a spade when the spade is up against our collective throats.

That fact that we’re flying onto Philly and driving down to Lewes, Delaware has nothing to do with Joe Biden or this debate, but it is interesting that we are heading straight into the area at Camp David where he is assiduously preparing for the debate on Thursday evening. My son Roger and his wife Valene live in Lewes and yes, it is decidedly Biden country with Biden’s summer home nearby at Rehoboth Beach. On Thursday, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be working their way south towards Atlanta where they will hold their debate in the confines of the CNN studios there. While they are both heading south, we will as well, driving the three hours down the Lankford Highway going the length of the Delmarva Peninsula through the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia down to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel complex that is formally called the Lucius J. Kellum Jr. Bridge-Tunnel and spans the 17.6 miles across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay down to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. This engineering wonder took 7.5 years to build and is named after one of the commissioners of the project who persevered to keep it on track. It was built with revenue bonds in the early 1960s and it still only costs $21 in the peak season to get across. They even have a good round trip deal but only Roger and Carolyn will get that benefit as Kim and I leave on Monday morning from Norfolk airport for our flight home (strangely enough, through Atlanta, where the debate hub-bub should have died down I would hope.

Kim and I will be well-ensconced in our Marriott Virginia Beach Oceanfront Resort hotel room in time for the start of the 9pm debate, so we should be able to have time to get ourselves situated and teed up with the new TV cable system that they have there. I’ve gone to the trouble to call and They tell me that their system accommodates both CNN and MSNBC, so we should be good to go. Actually, what they said wass that they THINK the TV will have both, but in case it doesn’t, they say that with the in-room WiFi, I should have no trouble streaming it. That makes a lot of sense. None of us really ever have to worry about being bound to the local hotel cable constraints anymore. We all have our streaming services and I know I have them teed up on both my iPhone and iPad, so I really am always connected to my favorite shows and news sources. Now that I think about it, that rental car probably has CarPlay in it, which means that I would be able to stream the audio of MSNBC no matter where I am whenever. The debate is scheduled to last 90 minutes, which means I will wrap that up just in time to get in my rental car and drive to the Norfolk airport to pick up youngest son Thomas & Jenna, who are flying in from Denver. They arrive at 10:53pm, and Apple Maps tells me I am 26 minutes away, so it will be close but doable if I leave during the last commercial break and hook the iPhone/CarPlay system on so I can hear the end of the debate and the after-commentary on MSNBC. Phew! This damn thing is just too important to miss for a second.

I’ve been listening today to all the punditry around the debate. It seems Joe BIden has been sequestered at Camp David for five days, running the world on the side while his team of staffers prep him day and night for both every imaginable policy question and every possible twisted Donald Trump reaction his team can think of. I am reminded on the Monte Carlo simulations that get run on investments. The Value at Risk analytics models have imbedded hundreds of awful disaster scenarios that mimic things that have gone off the rails in the past and things that people think might go off the rails in the future. By running simulations, you can know in advance exactly what your profile for that investment looks like under almost any scenario you can conjure up. I’m betting they are using similar technology for Joe Biden because the stakes of this debate and therefore for this election are so damn high. Trump, meanwhile, is off galavanting and running his mouth off as he does and doing what he has done his whole life, which is not studying to be knowledgeable and instead using his bluster and perverted sense of humor to try and bully his way through the debate. Therein lies the difference between a candidate who is serious and solid and one who is frivolous and thinks all of this is one big joke, right up until it ends up biting us in the ass.

They say there is one of two Trumps that will show up, the usual gunslinger who will just brashly try to bluster his way through the debate and take risks of looking stupid while he does so, and the Trump that can chasten himself and be serious for long enough to play it straight even if his answers are evasive and mostly non-answers. If the first guy comes, then it seems clear that if Joe Biden can keep it together, he will come off looking far more presidential and responsible (which he clearly is) than Trump and will score points with the undecideds for himself. If the more sensible Trump shows up, I’m sure one of the Biden team strategies is to try to rattle him by making fun of him on whatever topics are available. The good news is that there is a very rich trove of issues on which Trump can be made to look foolish based on his lack of preparation and his ridiculous rally commentary. And the even better news is that Trump’s ego just doesn’t allow him to stand and take it if its getting piled on him. So, the bet is that he will crack at least somewhat and show his nasty and venal side at least and his out-of-control side at best. The supporters who like that routine aren’t changing their votes anyway, so its all those in the middle that this is being played for.

AN interesting side note is that they say Trump may announces his Veep candidate the morning after to distract from what his team seem to think will be some form of damage control. The leading contender seems to be Doug Burgum, the ex-governor of North Dakota. He seems less risky than J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio, goth of whom have strayed off the Trump reservation at one time or another. In any case, it will be interesting, as only an existential, end-of-the-world show can be.