Scott Johnson Sees… At Least “One True Thing”, Overnight…

Don’t get it garbled — he’s still got his knickers in a twist, over the star power, and joy — of the Chicago love fest — in contrast to the dark, “we as a nation… are going to Hell” messaging that oozed from Milwaukee, last month.

But even he admits that Oprah’s may have been the “best” speech of the Convention. He thinks so, on the basis that she is not seen as a rabid pro-Democratic partisan — at least not in the luncheon circles, of deeply suburban whyte, nominally GOP-leaning, college educated women, whose husbands likely all voted Tangerine in 2016 and 2020.

Scott well knows, even before last night, lots of them didn’t tell their husbands or older sons, but they did go in secret — and vote for Biden in 2020 — and will do so for Kamala here in 2024. [Personally, I think Michelle Obama (of two nights ago) was by far the most impactful, for people who aren’t living in the deep, deep whyte suburbs.]

But I do think Oprah’s earnest but forceful oratory will bring many more of them into our fold, for at least this November — in fact, I’d predict that some portion of of them may “come out of the closet” now, and tell at least their closest friends, in confidence, of course — that they will vote with what they imagine is their “Black girlfriend“.

It is an odd irony that (as widely validated research showed in the late 1990s) many of these same women know not a single Black man or woman, even in a passing fashion… but many of them said Oprah represented a “friend“.

They seemed (in the 1990s, at least) to think that that’s enough exposure — it was safe, and controlled. Just as they liked it.

Now this odd sociological effect is being deftly-repurposed by Team Harris/Walz — Oprah’s immense and enduring goodwill among these women (lots of whom may have voted Tangerine in 2016 — but far fewer of them in 2020).

She urged them to stand for decency, empathy and do “what they KNOW is right”. For themselves, and their daughters. She offered them… renewed joy.

I think she may have flipped many purple counties last night — some of them in the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina and maybe even Nevada. And she extended Kamala’s absolutely rock solid/certain leads in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona.

Excellent! Harris | Walz might see a 10% surge, nationwide now — coming out of this absolute banger — of a convention / dance party!

And the curtain is falling, as we speak, on the sad, three penny farce that was… Trumpism.