Tim Blair: How to bluff your way through the US election

Study Tim Blair’s handy bluffing guide and you’ll soon be sounding like a complete expert on all matters relating to the 2024 US election.

Have you ignored all of this year’s US election campaign shenanigans?

Did you scorn the speeches, dodge the debates and even avoid knowing anything about two assassination attempts?

Well, congratulations. That must have been one hell of a nap.

But the day of election judgment now draws near, and you’re going to be a sad and lonely Joe if you’re unable to share a whole binload of background and information about current vice president Kamala Harris, former president Donald Trump and their battle to become the 47th president of the United States.

So let’s quickly get you up to speed, beginning with:

What is the correct pronunciation of “Kamala”?

Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Picture: AFP

According to her office, it’s “comma-la”. But even former Democrat president and White House dress decorator Bill Clinton still gets it wrong, referring in a recent speech to “cam-a-la”. To solve this dilemma, I’ve tried to popularise “Wino McCackleberry”.

No luck so far.

Maybe play it safe by sticking to Harris’s simpler surname. As for Donald Trump, his name is pronounced exactly as it is spelled. But if you have problems reading, just call him Hitler or Satan or whatever leftist scare-baby slur is currently popular at the ABC.

How does the Electoral College work?

The Electoral College assigns a number of votes for each US state that in total decide who becomes president. The target is 270 votes.

Leftists claim the college is undemocratic because it gives greater proportional weight to smaller, better states rather than to the likes of cesspool California or neurotoxified New York.

Rational people, however, recognise the absolute genius of the Electoral College for exactly the same reason. Nobody in the civilised US interior wants to live by San Francisco rules, under which public parks, public footpaths and public toilets are all the same thing.

Kamala Harris is from San Francisco, by the way. She was a public official there.

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the J.S. Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, on November 4, 2024. Picture: AFP

What are these seven “battleground states” all the papers keep talking about?

Because 43 of the 50 US states are assumed to be locked in for either Harris or Trump, it falls to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to decide this race.

It could be that one candidate or other narrowly sweeps all seven battlegrounds, thus achieving a landslide win via relatively tiny margins. That’s when the cheatin’ talk begins.

What’s the story with Tim Walz?

Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is a perfectly normal fellow with no peculiar mannerisms, no alarming facial expressions and no habit of putting his foot so far into his mouth that there are toe prints on the inside of his occipital bone.

Also, Walz’s wife Gwen is completely stable. There is no need to check this on YouTube. Carry on.

Republican nominee for vice president JD Vance. Picture: AFP

But isn’t Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance meant to be the weird one?

As mentioned in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Vance is from such authentic hillbilly stock that his grandmother once shot a man who was trying to steal the family cow. She was just 12 years old at the time.

To anyone sharing my level of white trash DNA, children shooting a cow thief sounds powerfully relatable. Weird would be buying an EV.

Help! I need election trivia to stall people when the count goes quiet!

Easy as, my friend. Keep these up your bluffing sleeve: Minnesota, where Walz is governor, was the only state not to vote for Ronald Reagan in his 1984 re-election victory.

Reagan carried 49 states and brought home 525 Electoral College votes during a period of history now known as “the best of times”.

Study our handy bluffing guide and you’ll soon be sounding like a complete expert on all matters relating to the 2024 US election, just like your columnist, shown here in a recent accurate illustration. Picture: ChatGPT

By rights, 33rd president of the US Harry S Truman should never have an abbreviating full stop after the “S”. That’s because the S is his full middle name, Truman being born poor.

As of the current date, Truman remains the only US president to have both run a haberdashery and obliterated two Japanese cities with nuclear weapons. Bonus trivia points: the haberdashery was in Kansas City, which isn’t in Kansas.

What happens next?

Depends on the winner. If Harris is elected, there may be speculation in certain areas about voting discrepancies and the like. There definitely will be speeches about healing – a natural follow-up after smearing opposition voters as Nazis.

If Trump is elected, there will also be speeches about bringing a divided America together. Then, if Democrats are to be believed, everyone who ever criticised Trump will be rounded up and put in camps.

There you have it, people. Please enjoy the show here at The Daily Telegraph and at Sky News. Zero bluffing zones, both of them.