I really disagree with Sarah Longwell, whom I admire tremendously, on Harris’s prospects. Sarah underestimates how the vote is driven by the current news cycle. I was Harris’s greatest fan when she was AG and senator of California, and relished her speech and debate style. It is no fault of hers that I have had to dig for her speeches in…
I really disagree with Sarah Longwell, whom I admire tremendously, on Harris’s prospects. Sarah underestimates how the vote is driven by the current news cycle. I was Harris’s greatest fan when she was AG and senator of California, and relished her speech and debate style. It is no fault of hers that I have had to dig for her speeches in YouTube for the past four years. She is, moreover, the only person besides Biden with access to the huge amount of campaign money.
I watch Sarah’s focus groups attentively, but what they seem to me to register is an extreme distaste for Trump. Many good things have happened in the last four years, and her crossover voters don’t seem to register this. Kamala is smart, personable, with plenty of experience under her belt both within the administration and beforehand. She is furthermore logistically Biden’s only possible successor. Let’s all concur on this before the ballots are printed. Sarah Packard (Durham, NC)
Kamala Harris's biggest problem is that the Biden administration has not shown confidence in her, and has therefore not given her opportunities to prove herself and has not highlighted her contributions. Because of this, most voters' views of Harris are based on her failed 2020 presidential run. If the Democrats had held an open primary, she would have had a second chance to prove herself to voters, but that didn't happen.
Well, sure, but the news cycle turns on a dime in the U.S. It is established by now in the popular media that she is logistically his easiest successor, and one month, four months, plenty of time to make the circuit of news shows.
Well…mostly I look at focus groups within this podcast, which confirm that two-time Trump voters who were taken aback by Jan 6 were still throwing up because of Trump, post debate. As far as Harris goes, she hasn’t been very visible. Yes, she will need to project gravitas to people who aren’t convinced, but you can’t deny she is light on her toes. I happen to like her a lot personally, but I don’t think agreeing with me is all that critical. I don’t want Trump to win, and a brokered convention would feed into his habitual narrative of chaos which we are right now feeding into. There are of course people who say Biden will make a sudden recovery. But when even the surgeon general, a man for whom I have a lot of respect, says he would urge cognitive testing, I’m afraid.
Biden should throw down the gauntlet with Trump: challenge him to a duel of cognitive tests. They both take the same test on the same day, administered by the same doctor, and the results of both tests are released to the public at the same time. If Trump refuses the challenge, it could help to neutralize the issue for Biden.
While they're at it, they could also take drug tests. I'm sure Trump would refuse that one!
She is not much covered. I think the cliche in 2020 was that the black sororities had her back and as a prosecutor in CA she locked black men up. She did of course do a lot of other stuff, with sexual traffickers and other violence. Nowadays she does seem to have the youth vote, gives powerful speeches on bodily self-determination. Myself I’d think she’ll be more at a disadvantage on account of misogyny, or internalized sexism, than racism, as was Clinton. The difference being that more voters fear a Trump administration than did in 2016, at least if you follow along in Sarah’s focus groups.
Hey neighbor (Raleigh here). I think the one thing that is preventing a blowout for Trump is that he is a uniquely bad candidate. If he didn't have the baggage, the Republican candidate would be leading by double digits. I agree that Kamala has gotten a bad rap for a variety of reasons -- she was a bad candidate in the primaries, racial/sexist bias, etc...but would be perfectly comfortable voting for her for POTUS. There may be logistical and financial advantages too (rather than having to move campaign funds to a new ticket....not sure about this). I am also of the opinion that a candidate born after the Korean War will have a build in advantage. I'm with the Bulwark team ... beating Trump is more important than any single candidate.
Agree with your last sentence. Ezra Klein has a good piece today, "What is the Democratic Party For?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mylX_uMaX8k). He says this: "(In the past) parties subsume(d) individual ambition . . . you commit(ed) to the party and to the cause, never to the man.
"Parties lived up to this imperfectly, but at key moments, they did live up to it. Famously, it was a delegation of Republican members of Congress who persuaded President Richard Nixon to resign. There was more to the Republican Party than Nixon’s ambitions. There is not more to the Republican Party today than Trump’s ambitions. I would have told you that the Democratic Party was different, that it was not just a vehicle for Biden’s ambitions. Now I’m not so sure."
I don't think we are there (at least not yet). The party is doing what a healthy party does ... disagreeing and (I'm sure) evaluating polling data and other factors in making a decision. I don't see blind loyalty to Biden. I'm open to the possibility that it could happen. There are quite a few people on Xitter and other platforms saying the Dems are behaving like MAGA but I don't see it. The Republican Party would never be having this debate no matter how Trump performed.
I really disagree with Sarah Longwell, whom I admire tremendously, on Harris’s prospects. Sarah underestimates how the vote is driven by the current news cycle. I was Harris’s greatest fan when she was AG and senator of California, and relished her speech and debate style. It is no fault of hers that I have had to dig for her speeches in YouTube for the past four years. She is, moreover, the only person besides Biden with access to the huge amount of campaign money.
I watch Sarah’s focus groups attentively, but what they seem to me to register is an extreme distaste for Trump. Many good things have happened in the last four years, and her crossover voters don’t seem to register this. Kamala is smart, personable, with plenty of experience under her belt both within the administration and beforehand. She is furthermore logistically Biden’s only possible successor. Let’s all concur on this before the ballots are printed. Sarah Packard (Durham, NC)
Kamala Harris's biggest problem is that the Biden administration has not shown confidence in her, and has therefore not given her opportunities to prove herself and has not highlighted her contributions. Because of this, most voters' views of Harris are based on her failed 2020 presidential run. If the Democrats had held an open primary, she would have had a second chance to prove herself to voters, but that didn't happen.
Well, sure, but the news cycle turns on a dime in the U.S. It is established by now in the popular media that she is logistically his easiest successor, and one month, four months, plenty of time to make the circuit of news shows.
Media attention turns on a dime, but voter opinion does not.
Well…mostly I look at focus groups within this podcast, which confirm that two-time Trump voters who were taken aback by Jan 6 were still throwing up because of Trump, post debate. As far as Harris goes, she hasn’t been very visible. Yes, she will need to project gravitas to people who aren’t convinced, but you can’t deny she is light on her toes. I happen to like her a lot personally, but I don’t think agreeing with me is all that critical. I don’t want Trump to win, and a brokered convention would feed into his habitual narrative of chaos which we are right now feeding into. There are of course people who say Biden will make a sudden recovery. But when even the surgeon general, a man for whom I have a lot of respect, says he would urge cognitive testing, I’m afraid.
Biden should throw down the gauntlet with Trump: challenge him to a duel of cognitive tests. They both take the same test on the same day, administered by the same doctor, and the results of both tests are released to the public at the same time. If Trump refuses the challenge, it could help to neutralize the issue for Biden.
While they're at it, they could also take drug tests. I'm sure Trump would refuse that one!
Sarah, what role does Harris being a Black woman play in the vote? Is it just lack of coverage by the press?
She is not much covered. I think the cliche in 2020 was that the black sororities had her back and as a prosecutor in CA she locked black men up. She did of course do a lot of other stuff, with sexual traffickers and other violence. Nowadays she does seem to have the youth vote, gives powerful speeches on bodily self-determination. Myself I’d think she’ll be more at a disadvantage on account of misogyny, or internalized sexism, than racism, as was Clinton. The difference being that more voters fear a Trump administration than did in 2016, at least if you follow along in Sarah’s focus groups.
Hey neighbor (Raleigh here). I think the one thing that is preventing a blowout for Trump is that he is a uniquely bad candidate. If he didn't have the baggage, the Republican candidate would be leading by double digits. I agree that Kamala has gotten a bad rap for a variety of reasons -- she was a bad candidate in the primaries, racial/sexist bias, etc...but would be perfectly comfortable voting for her for POTUS. There may be logistical and financial advantages too (rather than having to move campaign funds to a new ticket....not sure about this). I am also of the opinion that a candidate born after the Korean War will have a build in advantage. I'm with the Bulwark team ... beating Trump is more important than any single candidate.
Agree with your last sentence. Ezra Klein has a good piece today, "What is the Democratic Party For?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mylX_uMaX8k). He says this: "(In the past) parties subsume(d) individual ambition . . . you commit(ed) to the party and to the cause, never to the man.
"Parties lived up to this imperfectly, but at key moments, they did live up to it. Famously, it was a delegation of Republican members of Congress who persuaded President Richard Nixon to resign. There was more to the Republican Party than Nixon’s ambitions. There is not more to the Republican Party today than Trump’s ambitions. I would have told you that the Democratic Party was different, that it was not just a vehicle for Biden’s ambitions. Now I’m not so sure."
I don't think we are there (at least not yet). The party is doing what a healthy party does ... disagreeing and (I'm sure) evaluating polling data and other factors in making a decision. I don't see blind loyalty to Biden. I'm open to the possibility that it could happen. There are quite a few people on Xitter and other platforms saying the Dems are behaving like MAGA but I don't see it. The Republican Party would never be having this debate no matter how Trump performed.