FITSNews Political Stock Index – 8/28/2024

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Ever since Democrats effectuated a coup which removed their standard-bearer from the 2024 ticket – and replaced him with a purportedly more palatable choice – conventional wisdom related to the upcoming November election has been tossed out the window faster than a beer can in blue lights.

Everything has been reset…

In this unprecedented election cycle, tracking the fortunes of those seeking to pull the levers of power in our country has been alternately exhilarating… and exhausting.

Who is rising? Falling? Holding? These days, it literally depends on the minute.

As we were going to press with this edition of our index, new criminal indictments were dropped against the GOP nominee – while the new Democratic nominee agreed to sit for her first interview since being anointed by party bosses as the nominee.

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For more than a year, our founding editor Will Folks and political columnist Mark Powell have been monitoring the chaos via our FITSNews Political Stock Index.  As noted, each installment is an assessment of how our subjects fared over the previous week. Positive reports don’t reflect endorsements, and negative ones aren’t (necessarily) indicative of vendettas.

We just call ‘em like we see ‘em…

To view the most recent index, click here. And to get your historical fix, click here.

Got a hot “stock tip” for our consideration? Email Will (here) and/ or Mark (here). Just be sure to include “Palmetto Political Stock Index” in the subject line.

Where should you invest your political capital this week? To the index…

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ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

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STOCK: TRADING SUSPENDED

Leave it to The New York Post to perfectly sum it up in one pithy headline: “Just when you thought you’d seen it all… a Kennedy endorses a Republican.”

Kennedy. The mere name screams “Democrat.” Yet there we were on Friday afternoon as the nephew of a Democratic president and the son of a man who might have become one suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Republican Donald Trump. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was always the longest of long shots at best. He entered the 2024 contest as a Democrat, but quickly found that with the party establishment firmly entrenched behind president Joe Biden, not even his fabled last name could open doors. So, he left the Democratic fold and soldiered on as an independent. But in this über-polarized moment in time, there simply wasn’t enough political oxygen available to sustain his candidacy – and the media outlets which could have catapulted him to relevance chose instead to ignore him. Kennedy noted that when Ross Perot ran for president as an independent in 1992, he had nearly three dozen network television appearances over ten months. Kennedy had two such appearances in seventeen months.

After getting the cold shoulder from the MSM and having run out of cash, he did the sensible thing and called it quits. 

The question now becomes: Where will Kennedy’s supporters go? While he was only polling in the mid-single digits nationally, that could be enough to make a deciding difference in a race as close as this.

Also of interest? Democrats who were fighting to keep Kennedy’s name off of the 2024 ballot are now desperately hoping to make sure he stays on – especially in critical swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

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KAMALA HARRIS

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STOCK: RISING

The vice president currently seeking promotion to the top job continued to ride a pleasant political tailwind this week. The Democratic National Convention accomplished exactly what it needed to do by showcasing a unified party overflowing with optimism. It quickly sent Joe Biden gently off into that good night, where party honchos hope his disastrous presidency will now fade from the public memory. It successfully rode herd on the young pro-Palestinian protestors who had threatened to put on a messy and disruptive sideshow. And it papered over, for the time being at least, differences between the party’s rival factions: the Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Bernie and AOC/Squad camps.

Kamala Harris got what she needed from her high-profile acceptance speech, too. It wasn’t especially inspiring rhetoric – as Democrats grew accustomed to under former president Barack Obama. In fact, her speech relied heavily on age-old political cliches. She also veered far afield of the truth on multiple occasions, such as when she accused Trump of wanting to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and intending to jail journalists, political opponents and basically anyone he dislikes.

Still, it accomplished what Harris needed to do. She got through it without delivering one of her notorious “word salad” mashups of the English language and likewise avoided one of her cringeworthy cackles.

Now comes the usual post-convention bounce in the polls, which, according to 538’s aggregate polling, has her leading Trump nationally by 3.6 percent. Not particularly impressive as post-convention bounces go, but a lead is still a lead – and the $370 million ad blitz Democrats are unleashing could nudge her numbers higher soon.

We’re about to see what kind of campaign Team Harris has planned. Will it opt for Biden’s successful Basement Strategy 2.0 – endeavoring to keep the candidate under wraps for as long as possible? Or will Democrats throw caution to the wind and go big in a bid to keep the White House and gain full control of Congress? Or will they try for something in the middle? Hold on to your seat; we’re about to find out.

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RUSSELL FRY

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STOCK: RISING

We told you a few weeks back that the inaugural “Russell’s Freedom Fry” would be held in North Myrtle Beach this month. The timing for this shindig was fortuitous as outgoing congressman Jeff Duncan‘s signature “Faith and Freedom” barbecue is expected to be retired when he leaves office at year’s end.  

By all accounts, Russell Fry‘s affair was a success – so much so it now has people talking from Columbia to Mar-a-Lago.

Fry maintained a relatively low profile as he tended to his new duties during his first term in Washington, D.C. But now that he is coasting to an easy reelection in November, folks around the Palmetto State — and elsewhere — are openly speculating what the future might hold for the 39-year-old attorney.

Fry has been been a MAGA supporter all the way. Trump endorsed him in 2022, a move that helped him defeat incumbent impeacher Tom Rice and the rest of the GOP field without a runoff. And Fry has remained faithfully in Trump’s corner ever since.

Could that loyalty soon be rewarded?

We’re hearing increasing buzz that the folks at Mar-a-Largo have been calling various SCGOP stalwarts, asking their opinion of Fry – and generally hearing positive reviews.

So, just what is behind those calls? Speculation swirls around two possibilities. One suggests that should Trump return to the presidency in January, Fry might be in line for a high-profile position within the administration. The other is more intriguing. Could Mar-a-Lago already be shopping for a candidate to primary incumbent senator Lindsey Graham in 2026? Maybe. 

If so, it would be a daunting undertaking. The four-term incumbent has a finely tuned political operation in place. Many Republicans around the state are already being bombarded by text messages from Graham in preparation for the 2026 campaign. On top of that, his campaign war chest exceeds the GDP of several South American countries. Challenging him is an undertaking no politician should take lightly…

Add to that Trump’s mercurial personality. He could wake up one morning and decide he wants to take down Graham – or he could just as easily decide their on-again, off-again frenemy thing (which appears to be off-again at this moment) is back on for good.

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DONALD TRUMP

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STOCK: HOLDING

Could the impossible be underway right now? Is Donald Trump finally learning to tame his tongue? Recent events suggest a sea change in the infamous Trump temperament is possible. 

The former president said uncharacteristically nice things last week about Georgia governor Brian Kemp – not once, but twice. You’ll recall Trump unloaded on his one-time ally during a rally in Atlanta four weeks ago. Dissing a member of your own party — on his own turf, no less — is a huge no-no in politics. The Peach State’s status as a “must-win” battleground for Trump only compounded the error.

What changed over the last three weeks? 

Perhaps it was the fallout from Democrats trading in their old presidential nominee (Biden) for a newer model (Harris). This switcheroo recalibrated the electoral calculus, prompting Trump to start making nice with a guy whose help he desperately needs in November.

Other changes have been made as Trump World struggles to regain its equilibrium. Exhibit A: Corey Lewandowski has returned to the fold. Lewandowski has a stint as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016 and has been part of his kitchen cabinet ever since. Trump veterans Tim Murtaugh, Alex Pfeiffer and Alex Bruesewitz are back on board, too, in senior capacities. 

To date, Trump has refused to learn anything from his predecessors, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Reagan firmly believed the old show biz axiom, “always save something for the third act.” There’s nothing new in Trump 2024. It’s Trump 2016 warmed up and re-served after eight years in the fridge – and it’s as stale as overdue leftovers, too. These days, the erstwhile agent of change comes off like an angry, rambling old man. He doesn’t deliver the one thing Americans crave above all others: Something new and different. Which is why what worked so well for Trump 2016 isn’t working for Trump 2024.

Likewise, Trump learned nothing from Nixon. He understood that after eight years as Ike’s understudy and the 1960 presidential campaign offering a continuation of it, he needed something different for ’68. And so he was rebranded the “New Nixon.” (Frankly, he wasn’t all that much different from the Old Nixon. It was just new packaging. But that was enough to satisfy the citizenry.)

Trump stubbornly plods on the same as always, blissfully unaware many Americans now see him as a one-trick pony whose day has come and gone.  His saving grace? The escalating radicalism of his rivals – and the perception he is the only thing standing in the gap between the imposition of a socialist economy in America.

It’s too soon yet to tell whether Trump’s recent campaign trail course corrections are cosmetic – or whether they reflect a serious shift in strategy. Two things are for certain, though — significant changes are needed, and time is not on the former president’s side.  

Back in 2016, Trump turned American politics into must-see reality TV. But a new season has debuted, and suddenly, The Kamala Show is getting top ratings. To date, Trump has only given Americans stale reruns from the 2016 season. Can the master showman rise to the occasion and infuse a new wrinkle into an old act?

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THE POLITICS OF JOY

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STOCK: FALLING

A final note before we consign the 2024 Democratic National Convention to the annals of history.

There was much talk in Chicago last week about the “politics of joy.” You heard it over and over again like a yodel’s echo coming back for more. 

Clearly, Democrats hope to draw a sharp distinction between Kamala Harris to differentiate her from the growly, grumpy, septuagenarian Donald Trump. Which is why we heard the “politics of joy” ad nauseam last week.

But they conveniently left out an important part of the story about that phrase. 

It was coined by another Democratic vice president seeking to succeed an equally unpopular president. At his campaign kickoff in 1968, vice president Hubert H. Humphrey vowed he would practice “the politics of happiness, the politics of purpose and the politics of joy.” The phrase stuck and became almost a second campaign slogan for him.

Yet, it struck millions of Americans as an odd time to be talking about joy. The worst rioting since the Civil War was in full swing, with major cities burning. The country was still reeling from two major assassinations, senator Robert Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The ever-worsening Vietnam War was ripping the nation in half. Racial unrest seethed. 

Yet there was VP Humphrey prattling on and on about “joy…”

The issues are different today, but America is more divided – and despairing – than ever. Malaise is back, people. Is this really the time to he harping about joy? Especially seeing as the Biden/Harris administration is responsible for much of the division and despair?

How did the “politics of joy” strategy work back in 1968? Perhaps that question could be answered thusly: Have you visited the Hubert H. Humphrey Presidential Library lately?

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