How did Harris’ 2019 position on fracking harm her?

Politics & Elections
1

This question isn’t so much specifically about her position on fracking, but on any past position she might have held that was used against her in the 2024 campaign. “Fracking 2019” is just a convenient example.

In the context of all—or even just some—of the absolutely insane positions Trump espoused, why was it so effective to harp on Harris’ shifts on various issues? Wasn’t he much more vulnerable to (sensible) attacks on his consistency, his coherence, his logic than she was?

More to the point, why did (do) Democrats have such a hard time showing how such tactics are just a weak gotcha position that can be easily laughed off by anyone with half a mind to do so, or with half a mind?

For example, regarding fracking, something like,

“You know, I’ve tried to be a loyal and supportive VP over the past 4 years, and part of that was conceding that some positions I took in 2019 running against other Democrats weren’t persuasive to the voters in the primaries. After having five years now to reconsider these positions, I’ve decided some were flawed positions, and others were good positions that I’m going to keep to myself for now in the interest of continuing to be a loyal supporter of the President. Fracking, for example, has always had certain financial, political, ecological advantages and disadvantages, and I’ve still got several months before I need to decide whether my former position or my current one on fracking make more sense at this point. I’ll consult with my cabinet and others after January 20th and reach a decision then. I’ve tried to be forthright on positions that need an immediate resolution such as X or Y or Z, but fracking isn’t something I’ve made a final decision yet. Next question?”

is a pretty simple, direct answer to a question about flip-flopping on fracking.

Arguing that every stance that one is open to change on, in other words, isn’t necessarily an outrageous flipflop, and every candidate has positions that he or she has changed over the years, for principled reasons or for political expediency, and Trump most of all left himself wide-open to any number of these. So why did Harris suffer from this accusation at all, or being accused of “word salad” when Trump was boasting of his masterful ability to “weave”?

There are answers, sometimes simple answers, to such attacks and it baffles me why this sort of accusation seemed to harm Harris and to leave Trump utterly untouched.

2

While many people disliked or distrusted Harris, when Trump relentlessly vilified her they believed what he said, and in turn ignored any criticism of Trump. When you have that biased a view it’s easy to see how her “flipflopping” on issues worked against her. Harris was trying to attract moderate anti-Trump independent voters, but that effort failed to make a difference in the election.

3

This suggests that focusing on her “wrong” positions, like fracking, is missing the point. It seems to me that anything she would have said on any subject would have been used by Trump as an example of her incompetence. This goes along with his attacks on her as “a low IQ person”–if she’s demonstrated anything over her career, it’s that she’s of at the very least normal or above normal intelligence.

Attacks work, in other words, and they don’t need to make a shred of sense. It was sufficient to attack her, and people disposed to favor Trump immediately bought into the attack as valid.

4

Rightly or wrongly, people distrust politicians who seem to be too calculated or pandering in their decision-making, so I don’t think an answer like that would help Harris, especially lines like “others were good positions that I’m going to keep to myself for now” (which would be perceived as her being secretive or dishonest) and “I’ll consult with my cabinet” (which would come across as “I’m going to defer to the kind of people you already dislike and distrust”).

Trump gets away with it, I think, because he has the reputation of shooting from the hip and saying exactly what he thinks (and, some of the time, is actually doing so). And some of his changes in position genuinely seem to have taken place after he discovered by accident that something he said at a rally got a big reaction. People are OK with that because a) it feels spontaneous, not calculated; and b) nobody minds a bit of pandering if they believe THEY are the ones being pandered to.

Stuff like appointing a bunch of the architects of Project 2025 after claiming he didn’t support it is harder to explain, but most people just aren’t paying that much attention.

5

It wasn’t that effective.

Harris kept it close when incumbent parties around the world were losing in near or actual landslides (Mexico an exception).

This thread assumes that the election was decided by campaigning. I’ve posted before that campaigning does not work. But I read somewhere (will post link if I remember) that this election was a bit of an exception. Harris did better, relative to 2020 Biden, in swing states, indicating that not only did campaigning make a difference, Democratic campaigning was more effective than that of the GOP.

6

The reality is that Trump probably won just because he’s so fun. I mean if you look at the list of what is important in life for most people, it’s their family, their homes, etc. and sports. Everything is practical and makes sense in the realm of what people care about…and then there’s sports. Why is sports on that list?

Mankind boated halfway around the planet and subjugated millions of people in order to have a guaranteed flow of cinnamon and tea. Having plentiful access to flavor, excitement, and drama is the guiding light of humanity.

So when we’re saying that Harris was willing to consider fracking in situations where fracking makes the most sense…well, yawn. Now, you tell me that she’s going to let the oil pumpers let it rip, tear up the land, poison the wells, contaminate a few towns, and mint several new American playboy billionaires, well hell, now we’re talking about something worth putting on TV.

Stupid sells because it’s fun. Smart is boring.

Now this isn’t to say that you can’t overcome stupid. Biden did. But it was just barely and Trump was presiding over lockdown. You usually have to wreck a bunch of shit before people are willing to listen to the smart folk and that’s - emotionally - where we were after his first term. Biden had the opportunity, because of the moment on history that it was.

I’d also point out that, in terms of the smarties, if your solution to political craziness is to be willing to frack sometimes, but you’re still not mentioning any laws that would reduce corruption, tame the will of the people, allow Congress to have supermajorities again, and so on, then I’m still not going to be very excited by you.

You can’t tell me that you’re the adult, but somehow you’re still just playing the same game as yesterday, hoping that Trump’s horribleness will be enough to get me to donate to Team Less Corrupt and that I’m going to overlook the flaws that empower the extremism, the partisanship, and the two party system.

Trump puts the screw to my thumb, to be sure. He puts it to yours as well. At any point in time the Democratic party can lead on fixing the system. If you think that fracking is what the smarties want to back you, then you need to go back to the drawing board.

7

The raw data needed to decide whose campaigning worked best, as a whole, is here:

Trump won about 2.5M more votes this year than he did in 2020. This is where he did it

I think this shows that where the candidates both campaigned the most (swing states), Harris did less badly. Now, we do not know if this was because Trump’s fracking claims failed, or something else.

Median voters dislike candidates changing their positions, but this did not differentiate Trump and Harris.

8

In the grand scheme of reasons why she lost, I believe that any effect it had was minor, at most.

9

Voters have two sets of expectations for candidates. The Democratic candidate must spell out precisely where he/she stands on every possible issue, and each voter will reject any Democrat who fails to reflect their views on any single one. The Republican candidate need only give his/her interpretation of what the Democrat stands for, and for the Republican base that is all they need to earn their vote.

10

Correct.

About zero. An insignificant amount.

11

This seems right to me, and is my entire point. Dems are held to a grotesquely obvious higher standard, so it’s foolish to speculate on why she lost. She didn’t lose because of her position on fracking or anything else. She lost because the voters were eager to find some ludicrous excuse to vote for Trump over her, and it didn’t matter what she said or what he said.

Which brings us back to “sexism” and “racism” as the underlying causes of her loss. Voters will never admit it out loud, and we’re talking only about a small but crucial group of voters, the “undecideds” in a few states, who didn’t like who she was (black and female) rather than anything she said or did.

In the country I grew up in, Harris or any other Democrat would have creamed Trump. I don’t live in that country anymore.

12

I believe the effect was zero. I doubt fracking moved any measurable number of votes at all.

Had Harris taken the opposite stance she’d have won a few votes by doing so and lost a few votes by doing so. It made zero difference.