Subject: Re: The Harris interview with Bret,
From Bill Kristol at “The Bulwark”

It was an impressive event. Harris’s public remarks were excellent and our private conversation with her was heartening. It was moving to walk around the historic site and reflect that it was right here, almost 250 years ago, that Washington crossed the Delaware and helped ensure this whole American experiment could get launched.

I also took the chance at Washington Crossing to speak informally with several campaign operatives to try to find out what’s really going on in the election. And then last night, here in Philly, I was able to catch up with some Pennsylvania Democrats and interrogate them. It was a chance to get some inside dope on where the race stands, less than three weeks out.

What did I learn? It was all off the record, so I’m limited in what I can say. But the general gist is: The inside dope is pretty much the outside dope. The private story is the public story. Things really are as they seem. The race is insanely close. It’s on a knife’s edge. There’s no reason for either complacent confidence or dark despair. The insiders are on the same roller coaster as the rest of us, doing their best and hoping that it results in the right outcome.

So I have no blinding insights to report from Pennsylvania. But I had a couple of thoughts.

As I was there at Washington Crossing, I thought of Thomas Paine, whose great pamphlet, the first in his series titled The Crisis, was read to Washington’s troops there, before they crossed the Delaware.

These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink
from the service of his country; but he that stands it now,
deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like
hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with
us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.


Pretty impressive. And then I remembered our modern Tom Paine, James Carville.

James had texted me that morning with a couple of notes about campaign tactics. As always, he was terse and sardonic. He uncharacteristically concluded his text this way, referring to the whole Bulwark team and Republican Voters Against Trump: “U doing important work. Do not let up.” Carville’s text reminded me of something he’d written almost exactly four years ago, a piece he’d sent in unprompted to the Bulwark. It was titled “A Crusade for Something Noble.”

You can read the whole thing here. But the heart of it was this:

This is more than a campaign. This is a crusade for America.

What this moment has done for all of us is that it has given us a sense of common purpose. Common purpose which we will be able to recall forever: that when our country and our Republic were on the brink of collapse, when our fellow Americans needed us, we took a blow torch to our past differences, our former conflicts and our old rivalries, and we fought together.

As I sit here, I can say with certainty that in all my years, joining in this crusade to take America back from the brink of destruction is the greatest thing I have ever been a part of in my life.

I was moved by the piece four years ago. I was moved thinking of it yesterday, and rereading it last night.

And as I write this morning—despite the lack of easy reassurance from the operatives with whom I spoke—I really do believe this: Yes, the election’s on a knife’s edge. But voters are going to look at the dark future on offer from Donald Trump, and the hopeful one on offer from Kamala Harris, and do the right thing. We’re going to win the election.</i,>

Vote for the America we’ve known and loved since our childhood- imperfect, but still the world’s last, great hope.


There’s no excuse. Vote for chaos and retribution, or vote for a future marked by maddening bureaucratic obstinancy- but A future that tends toward justice for all.