 | By Calder McHugh | | | Former U.S. President Bill Clinton waves after speaking during day two of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
| THAT 90S SHOW — When Bill Clinton steps onto the stage this evening, it will mark his 12th time addressing a Democratic National Convention crowd. Many Democrats can’t even imagine a convention without him. Yet quite a few don’t think he should be there at all. More than three decades after he was first elected president, his party isn’t looking back at Bill Clinton with nostalgia and adoration anymore. It views him more quizzically, as evidenced by his second billing tonight, not entirely sure what to make of his legacy. He remade the party’s image after it spent more than a decade in the wilderness. By 2012, then-President Barack Obama dubbed him the “explainer in chief” after Clinton’s much lauded convention speech, a nod to his rare talent for distilling policy — and its consequences — into language anyone could understand. Clinton’s ability to emote and speak directly to the kinds of working class voters who have left the party en masse makes him a powerful party voice, yet his personal conduct and some of his policy priorities as president have aged so poorly that it’s limited the party’s appetite for deploying him. “I’m not looking forward to his speech at all, I’ve offered my credential to one of our alternates when he speaks,” said Will Thompson, a delegate from North Dakota who says Clinton is the only speaker at the convention who he hasn’t looked forward to hearing. “The primary reason is because there are very credible rape allegations against him.” During his presidency, Clinton coined the term “safe, legal and rare” to define his policy on abortion, a message that’s been distinctly out of step with pro-choice advocacy organizations for years — the Democratic Party nixed the word “rare” from its policy platform on abortion as far back as 2012. The punitive nature of his 1994 crime bill — and the era of mass incarceration it sparked — also puts him at odds with the modern party, as does Clinton’s economic policy of deregulation and free trade. “The guy was a unique political talent and had the ability to talk policy detail and sell people on it,” said Alan Minsky, the executive director of the advocacy organization Progressive Democrats of America. “He’s not someone who I think progressives feel — given his legacy — should be in any way a central author of the party going forward.” There are some vestiges of Clintonism that still seem to be in vogue. The strategic “triangulation” — positioning oneself in opposition to the left and right in order to claim the center — that Clinton popularized remains present within Kamala Harris’ campaign, as she moves to the center on issues like crime and immigration. Hillary Clinton herself remains a revered figure within the party, as seen in the reception her speech received Monday in the convention hall. Clinton will certainly be met with applause this evening. But it’s unlikely it will be as rapturous or as adoring as what the Obamas received on Tuesday. After decades of casting a long convention shadow, from the oratory to the macarena , the love fest is over. He’ll always be recognized as a brilliant, singular party figure, worthy of gratitude, but perhaps no longer in step with his ever evolving party. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Calder_McHugh . PROGRAMMING NOTE : Nightly is taking its annual end-of-summer hiatus starting Monday, Aug. 26. We’ll be back Tuesday, Sept. 3, just in time for the election homestretch.
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| | A message from Johnson&Johnson: We’re restoring the true meaning of healthcare—developing advanced treatments and smarter and less invasive solutions for today’s most complex diseases. See how we're connecting the best of Health&Care for every patient and provider. Learn more. | | | | | — Oath Keepers lawyer pleads guilty to obstructing Jan. 6 investigation: A lawyer who advised members of the far-right Oath Keepers to delete their text messages in the aftermath of their leaders’ role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol pleaded guilty Wednesday to obstructing federal investigators . Kellye SoRelle, who had a romantic relationship with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, admitted that she advised others in the group to destroy evidence. She also pleaded guilty for being present on Capitol grounds during the riot, though she did not enter the building. — Justice Department signals plan to salvage obstruction charges in some Jan. 6 cases: The Justice Department said Wednesday it plans to press ahead with obstruction charges against two Jan. 6 defendants despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that limited the scope of a federal statute that makes it a felony to obstruct many government proceedings. Prosecutors contended they can still prove that the two defendants, a married couple from Ohio, are guilty of obstructing Congress even under the high court’s narrow interpretation of the law. The defendants, Don and Shawndale Chilcoat, are accused of surging with the mob onto the Senate floor during the riot at the Capitol. — U.S. job totals will likely be revised down by 818,000: The Labor Department said on Wednesday that the number of jobs the economy added in the year ending March 31 was likely 818,000 less than what was reflected in the monthly reports during that period . Wall Street analysts had projected that the department’s preliminary revision would cut as many as 1 million jobs from the tallies reported between April 2023 and March 2024, when average monthly job growth was a robust 231,000. The revised estimate slashes that by nearly 70,000 positions per month. The final revision won’t be released until February 2025.
| | | Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro poses for a picture during the Democratic National Convention Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) | Matt Rourke/AP
| DEM HEARTTHROB — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the first-term swing-state governor who was a finalist to join Kamala Harris on the Democratic presidential ticket, has been a hot commodity at the state delegation breakfasts this week , hitting at least three on Wednesday alone. He’s been mobbed for selfies, asked for autographs and, well, frankly, just fan-girled over by delegates. At Nevada’s breakfast, the crush of delegates hoping to snag a pic with one of the party’s biggest rising stars was so great they took a group photo just to help Shapiro stay on schedule. Shapiro is at these breakfasts to talk up the ticket. But he’s also promoting his own governing style — one he says Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz emulate — and delivering personalized messages to delegates in states where he’ll need connections if he aims for higher office one day. CROSSTAB DIVE — Kamala Harris’ surge in recent national polls is a stunning political turnaround. The story behind her burst of momentum, as told by the polling crosstabs, is even more remarkable. While Harris has closed the gap at the topline level — in national polls, the race is essentially a dead heat — Harris has made eye-popping gains with traditional, core Democratic base voters while also appealing to independents . Harris has registered gains across a wide range of demographic categories, but the improvement has been especially pronounced among young voters, non-white voters and women voters. Taken together, the numbers suggest that the Harris swap has largely repaired a fraying Democratic coalition, has repaired the party’s image presidentially among independents, and has dragged the election back to a tossup, at the minimum. In short, she has managed to do something that every candidate can only dream of: appeal to her base without turning off swing voters. BIG SPENDER — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign spending more than doubled last month as he dropped big money on ads attacking his new opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. But he continues to significantly trail Harris in terms of campaign infrastructure that could help him turn his war chest into votes, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission. Those reports underscore just how much Harris’ ascendance upended the race, including putting Trump behind once again in terms of campaign cash. RFK’S PATH FORWARD — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is weighing his next move in the presidential race amid a dramatically changed electoral landscape , according to an all staff email from his campaign manager. “There are several potential paths forward — not only two. And I can bear witness to the care and examination that Bobby is investing in consideration of each,” said the Wednesday message from campaign manager Amaryllis Fox Kennedy. Kennedy’s running mate, tech attorney and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan, said on a podcast interview on Tuesday that there were two paths that the campaign was considering: staying in the race with the goal of receiving 5 percent of the vote to qualify for federal matching funds for the next election or joining forces with GOP nominee Donald Trump. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he will address “the present historical moment and his path forward” on Friday in Phoenix. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT — Here’s the roll call playlist to Kamala Harris’ official nomination at the Democratic National Convention, including each state’s musical selection and the logic behind each song.
| | MPOX VACCINE PLEA — The Democratic Republic of Congo has called on Europe to share more of its mpox vaccines as the country faces a growing and deadly epidemic. The mpox virus outbreak, which has killed more than 500 people in Africa this year and infected more than 17,000 Congolese alone, has spread to other African countries, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. Europe has announced it will send more than 215,000 mpox vaccine doses, while Japan has pledged 3 million, Kamba said. The U.S. has said it will send 50,000. THE COMING TRADE WAR — EU leaders may be crying over spilt milk this week after the Chinese government launched an anti-subsidy investigation into imports of EU dairy on Wednesday, the latest salvo in an escalating tit-for-trade trade war between Brussels and Beijing. Coming a day after the European Commission unveiled its final draft duties on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), Beijing’s probe will cover almost all shipments of dairy from April 2023 to the end of March 2024, with a longer period for industrial damages from January 2020. The move is widely seen as political payback for the EU’s investigation into Chinese EVs and follows earlier Chinese probes into imports of EU pork and brandies. In June, Beijing had threatened inquiries into dairy and wine as well. DRONE RAID — Russian air defenses shot down 10 drones over Moscow and its outskirts , Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a Telegram post early Wednesday morning. “The echeloned defense of Moscow against enemy UAVs made it possible to repel all attacks. This was one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow with the help of drones of all time,” Sobyanin added. Overall, 45 drones attacked different regions of Russia overnight, with 11 shot down over the Moscow region, 23 destroyed over the Bryansk region, six over Belgorod, three over the Kaluga region and two over Kursk, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement, blaming Ukraine.
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$410 million The amount Minnesota has so far directly garnered in announced federal grants from the Inflation Reduction Act , according to POLITICO’s analysis of Invest.gov’s tracking of announcements through June 11. That figure puts it roughly in the middle of the pack nationally and behind various other red and blue states, including high-population giants such as California, New York and Texas and those with larger industrial sectors, such as Michigan. |
| | | ON THE MAP — Men in same-sex couples don’t always live in the same parts of the country as women in same-sex couples, according to 2020 Census data that show where same-sex couple households live within each state by sex. San Francisco County, California, was No. 1 for male-male couple households (5.9%) while the District of Columbia had the second biggest share of male-male households (5.7%). Hampshire County, Massachusetts, topped the list for female-female couples (3.9%), followed by Multnomah County, Oregon, (2.8%). Amara Jones-Myers and Lydia Anderson write about the map of where same-sex couples live for the Census Bureau’s America Counts series .
| | | On this date in 1991: New York City police scuffle with a protester during a march through the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Confrontations between police and protesters marked the third day of violence sparked by a car accident Monday night that left a 7-year-old child dead and a Hasidic man stabbed to death in the melee that followed. | Joe Major/AP
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