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Tonight’s vice presidential debate in Farmville, Virginia, will feature two comically basic dudes who have, at least one point in their lives, probably looked over a newspaper they were reading and uttered, “You’re not going out looking like THAT, young lady.” Politicos stumbled over themselves trying to make the best “FarmVille” jokes, but none compared to the zingers emanating from the 2012 VP debate in Clash of Clans, Illinois. And the media debated whether vice presidential debates matter, despite the fact that we’ll all just be talking about Donald Trump’s live-tweeting of it tomorrow. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, October 4th, 2016:
ARE YOU READY FOR THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE!!!!! *EXTREMELY KILLER GUITAR SCREECH* - Come for the guys who remind you of your principal, stay for the Bill Weld live-tweeting. Arthur Delaney and Sam Stein: “After 16 months of the political equivalent of Burning Man, voters will likely get a night at the bingo hall Tuesday when the two vice presidential candidates debate in what many expect to be a drowsy affair. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) represent perhaps the blandest pair of veep candidates in a generation. Neither is well-known to voters, and both men have folksy, ho-hum dispositions that make them easy to overlook in the current political climate.... The 2000 vice presidential debate between Republican Dick Cheney and then-Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) may be more analogous to the Pence-Kaine matchup, at least to the extent that Pence is a sensible counterbalance to his less-polished running mate. The Cheney-Lieberman debate is remembered for its civil tone, and Goldstein suspects it may have helped the Bush-Cheney ticket.” [HuffPost]
But this matters, if not in a political sense: “[T]heir running mates aren’t exactly the picture of youth (one recently had a bout of pneumonia, and the other is an overweight 70-year-old man clearly suffering from sleep deprivation.)” [Ibid.]
Matt Fuller has helpfully cataloged the best Tim Kaine dad jokes.
I HEAR AMERICA’S HEAD SCRATCHING - Not to mention one-too-many replays of Lloyd Bentsen’s “I knew Jack Kennedy” burn. Janie Velencia: “[P]olls reveal that voters don’t know enough to have much of an opinion of either candidate. According to the HuffPost Pollster favorable rating chart, Pence has a net positive rating of 6 percent, with a 37/31 percent favorable/unfavorable score. A significant number of voters ― 32 percent― are undecided on how they feel about him. Clinton’s running mate is in a similar position. Polls show Kaine with a net favorable rating of just over 1 percent. His favorable/unfavorable rating sits at about 32/30 percent. Kaine is far more popular among constituents in his home state compared to Pence, however. A Morning Consult poll of Senatorial approval ratings conducted in September found 54 percent of Virginians approve of Kaine and about a quarter disapprove. Comparatively, a September Morning Consult poll of Gubernatorial approval ratings finds Pence with a 45/45 percent approval/disapproval rating among Indiana constituents. “ [HuffPost]
THE POLLS ARE ANYTHING BUT BIGLY - Janie Velencia: “Donald Trump dropped in the polls following the first presidential debate, allowing Hillary Clinton to open up a significant lead. History suggests that the Republican nominee will not be able to recover. The first presidential debate usually benefits the candidate who is running against the incumbent president’s party. In the 10 elections from 1976 through 2012, the challenger has risen in the national polls eight times, according to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight and HuffPost Pollster.… Heading into their first meeting, Hillary Clinton led Trump by just 1.6 points. That narrow margin meant Trump had a chance to shift the race in his favor. Instead, he slumped by a significant 3 points.... The HuffPost Pollster national chart, which aggregates public polls, finds him now trailing Clinton by 6 points ― 41 percent to 47 percent. And the HuffPost Pollster forecast model places Clinton’s odds of winning the presidency at 81.9 percent and Trump’s at 17.8 percent. “ [HuffPost]
Haircuts: Ben Dreyfuss (h/t Ben Dreyfuss)
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PAUL RYAN JUST WANTS TO GET THROUGH THE DAY SO HE CAN LIFT - *Child walks up to the House speaker, who is seated, head in hands, on the curb at Independence and First SE. Child hands House speaker a Muscle Milk* Matt Fuller: “Ryan has clearly been successful ― once again ― in painting himself as the Republican Party’s thought-leader.… When Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went before the press in January at a GOP retreat in Baltimore, both leaders spoke about the importance of getting appropriations bills done.... [O]n the metric that most congressional Republicans seemed to set for themselves at the beginning of the year ― passing all 12 appropriations bills into law ― they scored a zero.... Regardless, Ryan said last week he thinks Republicans understand the realities of divided government. ‘Having said all of that, we still have passed some appropriations bills. The Senate even has passed some appropriations bills,’ he said. Please clap.” [HuffPost]
Huffington Post Blogger Barack Obama on Merrick Garland and Congressional Republicans: “It’s been 202 days since I nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.... [T]his breakdown at the highest level is part of a bigger pattern.... Republican leaders in Congress have proven they won’t work with my Administration, but along the way, they’ve lost sight of their basic mission. They can’t even meet their own goals.” [HuffPost]
More signs of ennui from Planet Paul: “People close to Ryan said there is an art to crafting the perfect rhetorical response to one of Trump’s eruptions: They must be strongly worded enough for the speaker of the House’s condemnation to be taken seriously — but not so strongly worded that he’s left with no choice but to withdraw his endorsement. Capitol Hill staffers have expressed pity for Ryan’s well-regarded press secretary, AshLee Strong, who is often tasked with drafting and disseminating these statements.” [BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins]
CUOMO LINKED TO BRIDGEGATE You almost have to wonder whether they can loop in an Illinois lawmaker to get the corruption hat trick. Ryan Hutchins: “Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie personally discussed how to handle the fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane closures, even agreeing to release a report covering up the incident, according to the admitted mastermind of the political revenge scheme. Cuomo’s administration — referred to in testimony as “Albany” — told the top official at the bistate Port Authority to ‘lay off’ Christie following the incident, former Port official David Wildstein testified here in U.S. District Court. Wildstein said he was told of the conversations between the governors of New York and New Jersey by David Samson, the former chairman of the agency’s board, and Bill Baroni, its former deputy executive director and now a defendant in the case. Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, who was appointed by Cuomo and remains at the agency, had been investigating the September 2013 lane closures.” [Politico]
DONALD TRUMP PROBABLY CAN’T WIN A SUIT AGAINST THE TIMES - But the First Amendment will lose regardless. Cristian Farias: “If Donald Trump were to put his money where his mouth is, his lawyers should already be preparing to sue The New York Times over its weekend publication of a 1995 tax return. The document shows him declaring a loss so big, that it suggests his business acumen maybe isn’t as great as he claims. In that watershed report, one of the GOP presidential nominee’s longtime lawyers, Marc Kasowitz, is on the record warning the newspaper that going public with the tax return would lead to ‘prompt initiation of appropriate legal action.’ But legal experts with an in-depth knowledge of the First Amendment are highly doubtful Trump stands a chance in the courts ― especially if the Times did its due diligence and didn’t coerce the information from the person who anonymously mailed it to them.” [HuffPost]
@cristianafarias: So this happened: Justice Breyer introduced Kim Kardashian’s jewelry heist in Paris into the #SCOTUS public record.
NO, BUBBA DIDN’T JUST LEAVE THE RESERVATION - “Former President Bill Clinton caused a bit of stir Monday when he was quoted describing Obamacare as ‘the craziest thing in the world’ ― an opinion that would put him sharply at odds with Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.... Bill Clinton accurately described the status quo as one where people who get health coverage from government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and people who are eligible for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, are well-covered ― but where people who earn too much for financial assistance can face high premiums.... Hillary Clinton’s campaign proposals would help close the remaining gap and make health insurance more affordable for people who don’t currently qualify for financial help, Bill said Monday.... Despite its characterization...Bill Clinton’s assessment of the health care system and the Affordable Care Act mirrors Hillary Clinton’s and Obama’s own.” [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a cat and a baby.
EITHER GARY JOHNSON IS PLAYING 11-DIMENSIONAL CHESS OR HE’S REALLY BAD AT MESSAGING - Nick Wing: “Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, likely appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday in hopes of mopping up some of the embarrassment stemming from not being able to name a living world leader whom he admired. Instead of taking the opportunity to demonstrate a basic grasp of foreign affairs after last week’s gaffe, however, Johnson argued that such knowledge is a superficial metric for judging a candidate’s fitness to serve as commander in chief. ‘I still can’t think of a world leader that I respect,’ Johnson said. ‘I held a lot of people in this country on pedestals thinking that they were role models. I got to meet them up front and personal and found out that they were empty suits, that they weren’t about issues, they weren’t about doing what was best, they were about getting re-elected.’ Johnson went on to say that being asked to pick a favorite world leader was just playing ‘politics,’ and that he wasn’t going to partake in the exercise.” [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- Illustrating the unimaginably huge size of our universe with a GIF.
- Chicken plays the piano ― and yet there is evil in our world.
- Facebook’s new Marketplace seems like a lot of fun.
TWITTERAMA
TRUMP (12/15): Ban Muslims
TRUMP (7/16): The hero soldier is a terrorist
TRUMP (10/16): PTSD victims are weak
TRUMP (11/16): God is gay
@brianbeutler: Can I prove Michelle Obama said “whitey” in a cameo on a Bill Clinton sex tape? PayPal me $20 then go to my website at 3 a.m. to find out.
@morninggloria: If you’re ever tempted to believe we live in a world that makes sense, remind yourself that Al Gore and Three 6 Mafia both have Oscars.
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