The Oct. 1 vanishing of Kamala’s golden vibe

Hearing a first-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention describe her experience as “golden” in an interview on the convention floor put me to pondering how long Kamala’s golden vibe might last.

Nothing gold can stay. Especially when the DNC’s gold – produced with slick, Rumpelstiltskin level skill – was spun from straw. All vibe. No substance. The joy that Biden was gone appeared to the Democrats pure gold. It’s already showing tarnish, though, proving that it was never gold in the first place.

I give the DNC’s golden moment, already showing clear signs of dissipating, exactly 40 days to disappear completely.

From the convention’s Aug. 22 grand finale, Kamala whipping up a post-Biden-ouster frenzy proclaiming her “new way forward,” the 40th day falls on Oct. 1, the day Vance and Walz get together to debate on CBS. By then, I predict a darker mood will have fully descended upon the Democrats, realizing the colossal mistake they made in crowning the radically left Kamala Harris their nominee, despite having received zero votes and being widely noted as the least popular vice president in modern history.

No prophet am I, nor do I claim expert status as a political pundit. My 40-day prediction playfully emerges from my post-DNC reflection on one of my favorite poems, Robert Frost’s 40-word masterpiece, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

Exactly 100 years ago, the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry was awarded to Frost for his collection of poems including “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” I’ve read, quoted and meditated upon those 40 words countless times, inviting its sounds and cadence to wash over me.

I urge you to read these 40 words, dispersed over eight lines, SLOWLY, as if fasting in the Judean Wilderness with Jesus for 40 days, or wandering in the wilderness of Sinai with Moses for 40 years. Pace yourself, and prepare for a lesson in the certain diminishment of the DNC’s golden vibe.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Over the last 40 years (at least), I’ve spent scores of hours leading discussions sparked by this powerful, Pulitzer Prize winning poem, especially during the church’s 40-day liturgical season of Lent.

Forty words for forty days.

Simple is sublime. Thirty-two of Frost’s 40 words are but a single syllable, while the other eight boast just two syllables. Nothing longer.

No word salad is this.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold

With Joe Biden’s expulsion, pushed to the bitter end of the long first night of the convention with most Americans already in bed, the long and chilly Biden winter came to an end.

Green now with the promise of spring, Democrats found their first green to be pure gold, the invigorating freshness of Kamalamania.

That gold though, as Frost artfully and alliteratively put it, would prove “her hardest hue to hold.”

Already the gold is losing its luster, as seen in the Babylon Bee headline, “Democrats Consider Replacing Kamala Harris with More Coherent Joe Biden.”

Satire is not alone in noting the gradual tarnishing of Kamala’s gold. Newsweek this week reported on the ActiVote polling since the convention, that Harris’ post-convention bump to a 5% lead began to hover, then dipped on Sept. 2 to a mere 1.6% lead.

Her early leaf’s a flower,
But only so an hour.

On display at the DNC were the “Southside Blooms of Englewood,” planted on a once-vacant lot in dreary Chicago to blossom as a symbol of opportunity and hope.

The convention’s early leaf indeed bloomed as a flower, but only for an hour.

Already, with last week’s poorly staged softball interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, the Democrats’ new flower, which I christen “Kamalabloom,” is withering like the flowers on my lakeside deck in the heat of an Arkansas August.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.

Despite a valiant effort by an in-the-tank mainstream media doing everything possible to unburden Kamala from her own past, her polling will continue on a downward trajectory, sinking at last, as surely as the once pristine hopes of Eden became a source of grief.

Frost’s line, “So dawn goes down to day,” seems particularly insightful and exquisitely appropriate, pointing to how Kamala’s golden dawn is destined to go down once exposed to the bright sun of the campaign’s long, hot afternoon.

The Democrats, of course, know this, which is why she is being shielded as much as possible from any extemporaneous exposure to media, even if from friendlies like Bash.

Note what Frost accomplished with the precisely placed middle words of these last two couplets.

Subsides
Sank
Goes Down

These set the stage for the last, climatic line, “Nothing gold can stay,” a line of five syllables breaking the consistency of six syllables per line, startling the reader with its dissimilar cadence to note its blunt assessment.

On Oct. 1, expect the ever-brightening sun of the 40-day campaign from Aug. 22 to have fully revealed the DNC’s gold to be, as it always was, merely straw.