Professor David Stebenne admits the 2024 election cycle is keeping him very busy. He has written several posts on his Substack site and been a guest on All Sides with Anna Staver.

In "Harris Picks Walz" (Aug. 6, 2024) he writes, "The single most important rule guiding the selection of vice-presidential running mates, the experts say, is: 'Don’t pick someone who will hurt you.' Kamala Harris’s selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is consistent with that maxim.  Walz is a sixty-year-old, balding white male with a centrist reputation made during his earlier career as a member of Congress.  As governor he has tilted to the left since the Democrats gained control of both houses of the state legislature in 2022, but he looks and sounds more like a Midwestern moderate.  In that sense he seems to be a smart pick for Harris, given her somewhat more liberal image."

Read the full "Harris Picks Walz" post.

In his "From Biden to Harris" post (July 22, 2024) he states, "While that Democratic coalition has faded over the last sixty years, its successor likewise contains a somewhat unlikely mix of upper-middle-class college-educated professionals, working-class black people, immigrants, and middle-income Americans of all races, creeds, and colors who mostly live in the nation’s major metros. Coming up with presidential candidates and party platforms that appeal to all of those kinds of people is a constant challenge, which often produces friction, and sometimes sudden, disorienting changes in personnel and policies."

Read the full "From Biden to Harris" post.

"The Mood in Milwaukee" post (July 19, 2024) covers the Republican National Convention, "This year’s Republican National Convention was an odd mix of two basic themes. One was a call for greater national unity and calm in the wake of the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The second, in tension with the first theme, was an all-out attack on the Biden administration as a downright failure. What caused this strange mix was, of course, the shooting itself, which took place only a few days before the convention opened in Milwaukee. All of sudden, angry tirades seemed positively dangerous, and so speeches like that, written far in advance, had to be redrafted to tone things down."

Read the full post, "The Mood in Milwaukee."

On July 18, David Stebenne was a guest on All Sides with Anna Staver speaking about national politics.

Episode description: From last weekend’s attempted assassination of Donald Trump to the announcement of Ohio Senator JD Vance as his vice presidential running mate. We’re talking about the biggest headlines in national politics on this hour of All Sides.

Listen to the podcast episode.