FBI Examines Fresh DNA Evidence In Nancy Guthrie Case

There is an old rule in American politics that survived Watergate, survived the Clinton years, and survived a decade of social media: you go after the candidate, not the spouse. Abdul El-Sayed decided the rule didn’t apply to him. On Monday in Michigan, JD Vance disagreed, on camera, at volume.

The vice president’s message was brief and it did not require interpretation: keep my wife’s name out of your mouth. He prefaced it by noting that El-Sayed’s associations and public record are entirely fair game — that’s what Michigan voters will judge him on. But the constant sniping at Usha Vance, he said, is the part people find strange.

He’s right, and the strangeness has been building for months.

It started in April, when El-Sayed used a podcast appearance to psychoanalyze the Vances’ parenting. He suggested the vice president must be tormented every time he hugs his own children, that he’d eventually face an awkward conversation with them about a career built on hating people who are different. He worked in some material about Vance having the charisma of a doorknob. That’s ordinary campaign nastiness, mostly, except for the part where he brought the kids into it.

Then this month it escalated to Usha Vance. After the vice president invoked his late grandfather in a speech criticizing socialist candidates, El-Sayed posted a sneer wondering whether Vance would be taking his wife along on the trip back in time to meet Papaw because Vance has ‘brown’ kids.

Then, in Michigan over the weekend, the vice president landed the knockout blow:

“Keep my wife’s name the HELL out of your mouth, because she’s WAY out of your league.” Brutal. And spot-on.

Usha Vance, for her party, has essentially laughed all of this off. That’s the gracious move, and it was probably the correct one. Her husband made a different calculation, and there’s a reason political consultants tell you to leave the family alone: attacking a spouse doesn’t move persuadable voters, it just hands your opponent a moment where he gets to be a husband instead of a politician.

El-Sayed apparently read months of restraint as an absence of spine. He’s now in a Senate race against GOP candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers where the clip of a sitting vice president telling him off will run in Michigan living rooms on a loop.

He picked the fight. He picked it about someone who wasn’t running. And it’s going to cost him a lot more than it cost the Vances.

Five days ago, Hillary Clinton explained why democratic socialism has become attractive to young Americans. Their prospects, she said, look bleak. They can’t get ahead. The economy isn’t working for them.

This week, her office posted an internship. It pays nothing.

The listing, for a position at her Madison Avenue office, asks for 25 to 29 hours a week of research, memo drafting, office management, speech transcription, mail handling, and archive maintenance. Compensation: academic credit. In Manhattan. Where the median studio apartment costs more per month than most of these applicants will earn all year.

Bill’s side of the operation is technically more generous. The Clinton Foundation is looking for a “special projects associate” to draft meeting agendas, edit briefs, and coordinate between his office and the foundation. The posted salary range is $50,000 to $55,000. In New York City, that’s a number that qualifies you for a roommate and a long commute, not an apartment. This is a foundation that has moved billions of dollars over its lifetime and hosted heads of state on three continents.