Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration and Harris campaign. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren CHICAGO — We’re now more than half way through the Democratic National Convention, which means we’re at that point when the thought of staying up past 2 a.m. to see JOAN JETT sounds truly painful. Perhaps you’ve already tried every entrée item at the CNN-POLITICO grill and have had your fill of chicken tender baskets from the United Center and tacos from the media file food trucks. Maybe you’re starting to run into SOPHIA BUSH so often that you no longer bother to ask for a photo. Hang in there, y’all. We’ve got one more day of this. But for now, here’s what’s in our notebooks from day three of the DNC: SEARCHING FOR THE QUEEN: The buzz around town is all about whether BEYONCÉ will make a surprise guest appearance on the final day of the convention. Democrats here have fully convinced themselves it’s going to happen. We heard about a cab driver who told his customers on Tuesday night that he’d just dropped some passengers off at a “secret Beyoncé performance.” But we’ve also heard there is no sign of her at The Peninsula hotel, her usual Chicago landing spot. These are the sorts of whispers that have some staffers scouring social media for clues about Beyoncé’s whereabouts. Group chats have been popping off about it, with Dem staffers trying to convince friends involved in convention planning to give just the smallest indication about whether she will, in fact, be performing Harris’ walk-on song, “Freedom,” tomorrow evening. DEMS’ OTHER QUEEN TAKES THE STAGE: Perhaps you’ve seen HEATHER PODESTA handing out black “The Godmother” lapel pins with former House Speaker NANCY PELOSI’s outline on the famous black and white motif from the classic film. On Wednesday evening, Pelosi will take the stage to make the case for Harris. Although we’re obliged to remind folks getting carried away with the Nancy-as-DON CORLEONE in all this that the speaker who worked behind the scenes to get Biden to end his campaign — for the children, we know — told colleagues and donors that she’d wanted an open process to figure out a new nominee and certainly did not foresee the party’s closing ranks around the vice president or the surge she has sparked. THE WEIRDEST HAPPY HOUR OF THE WEEK? Some 20 years after he was the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, former North Carolina Sen. JOHN EDWARDS has been in Chicago this week and … no one seems to know why. Edwards remains something of a pariah within the party 15 years after revelations of his lengthy extramarital affair and fathering of a child with mistress RIELLE HUNTER while his wife, ELIZABETH, was dying. And yet, the word went out about a happy hour the former lawmaker organized on Wednesday at a bar in the West Loop for former staffers. One attendee texted West Wing Playbook that “everyone was curious but horrified to go.” CHARCOAL PIT: President JOE BIDEN shared a video on X of him and Vice President KAMALA HARRIS backstage after his Monday night convention speech enjoying milkshakes from the Charcoal Pit diner in Wilmington, his go-to hometown spot since he was in high school (you can find West Wing Playbook’s review of the spot here). “Oh, this is so good,” Harris says in the video. “Mmm. Oh my god, this is perfect.” Naturally, we had many questions. How did White House staff get the shakes the 750 miles from Wlimington to Chicago without them melting? Sure, you can put them in a cooler. Air Force One does have a fridge. But Biden left Washington at 2 p.m. ET on Monday and didn’t get off stage until around 11:15 p.m. CT. No way the shakes’ thick consistency could hold up for that long. JACOB SPREYER, can you please explain? TODAY WE’VE GOT THE BALLPARK: About 200 Democrats wrote checks to the Harris campaign for a chance to take a couple swings on the field at Wrigley on Wednesday morning. Despite our cajoling, West Wing Playbook was not allowed to attend. We asked one source inside the yard how people did at the plate. “Mostly badly,” they replied. Except for second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF, who attended because of course he did. Emhoff, our source tells us, rocked a sharp line drive (just foul) down the third base line on the first pitch he saw. (Emhoff’s communications director LIZA ACEVEDO posted the video). We’ll try to forgive the metal bat. Our source also tells us that right when the second gentleman walked onto the field, he and the other attendees were asked to stay on the warning track around the field and not to step onto the grass. Emhoff was understandably vexed when, right then, the woman next to him walked out onto the crisply cut bluegrass. “Why can she walk on the grass?” he quipped, apparently not recognizing that it was Democratic megadonor LAURA RICKETTS. “Because she owns the Cubs,” the staffer replied.
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