How good would Harris be in the general?

Politics & Elections
141

(Bolding added.)

Exactly. I’m chronically annoyed by this rote assumption from so many opiners that all policies promoted by a presidential candidate (or at least those candidates they’ve decided to disdain) are motivated by cynical political calculation. I always assume that a policy promotion is at least mostly sincere, and reflects the general philosophy of government or issue prioritization of the candidate. That seems to offer better utility as an evaluative tool for me than the assumption of amoral political positioning.

I understand the appeal of the assumption; it certainly excuses one from having to consider competing ideas in terms of their actual real world effects. I just don’t understand why it has any appeal to anyone outside of the beltway media “horse race” analyses and he said/she said political mentality.

142

Agreed - it’s insulting, almost as if to suggest that Harris has no soul. I think she has a soul and is an authentic candidate. Yes she probably makes political calculations, but she’s no different than anyone else. Even Bernie Sanders makes calculations. If nothing else, “authentic” candidates are calculating that the time for their brand of politics has come. Nobody’s completely altruistic; nobody’s completely political, either.

143

My guess it plays well in Iowa and NH and possibly even plays better with a certain subgroup of white Democrats there than it does with a majority of Black Democrats. This sounds bad and ungenerous but Iowa leans to a farther Left white Democrat and for some being in support of this is the kind of thing that makes them feel better about themselves and can be a signifier. My WAG is that a greater share of Black voters are more attuned to what a load of crap this proposal is. Even with a D Senate this would never pass, and if it did a plan that is explicitly designed to help one race based on race alone would have a hard time in the current courts.

As to how this impacts the question posed in the op - running with her branding being “I was a disadvantaged little Black girl, my main concern is to fix issues that have disproportionately impacted people of color, and I am tough enough to take on Trump” is a general election loss of McGovernite proportions.

This, running as the disadvantaged person of color, rather than as the smartest most able of all the people running, running for all the people she would serve, was not the way she built her career. Yes it puts Biden in a place of having to defend the middle, always a hard place to defend in a primary season, but it, like her initial then quickly walked back condemnation of anything but forced mandatory busing, have placed weights on her neck that would sink her if she became the nominee and assure us of Trump getting four more years. If she became the general nominee she is setting herself up to make HRC’s performance with the non-college educated white demographic look wonderful! And she’d lose many of the suburban educated white moderates that both HRC and Obama won too.

The racial wealth gap is a very real issue and as a campaign runs on the issue of dealing with increasing wealth inequality throughout our society, including that as a group Black Americans have consistently been on the losing end of that increasing wealth inequality stick, and how to seriously address the structural factors that contribute to that in a serious manner, is appropriate and required. But one also has to include non-college educated whites, who are also on the losing end of wealth concentration and dropping fast.

What she is doing is not that serious approach and it is not something she has ever prioritized before. It is disingenuous posturing that will over time backfire on her badly, unless she fades otherwise before it can.

Not everything candidates trot out is insincere or put out for political purposes only. Some things however are and some candidates end up giving more of an impression of soullessness opportunism than others.

Of the top contenders she has become the top of my assessment for that soulless opportunism. Warren is at the other end with the other three, Biden, Buttigieg, and Sanders clumped not far away.

Is that insulting to her? Yes. But some insults are justified.

144

I’ve been reviewing what I know about Kamala Harris, her campaign and her public statements. And I still have no idea why DSeid is suggesting her campaign strategy can be summed up as “Disadvantaged black girl will concentrate her efforts for other disadvantaged people of color.” That’s clearly not the strategy she’s going with, based on, oh her public persona and her official campaign website which emphasizes her toughness and smarts and commits her to working for everyone, which DSeid for some reason doesn’t think she’s emphasizing.

DSeid, I think you’re taking two related tactical actions (the debate discussion which put Biden on the spot, and the plan for black home ownership -which she presented at the Essence fest) and extrapolating an overall strategy from those data points. If I’m wrong, please correct me.

As far as impressions of soulless opportunism go, I’m much more concerned about our candidates controlling their own narrative. Even if people tend to think it’s a calculated front, that will work much better for the candidate than the narrative the party of Fuck Democracy is going to push.

What matters is which (or what alternate) narrative the media pick up and run with. So far, that’s working pretty well for some of the lesser known faces (particularly Buttigieg and to some extent Julian Castro) but not so well for a few familiar ones like Biden and the suddenly hapless Beto O’Rourke. Others are generally positive right now but could break either way, Warren in particular.

The narrative on Harris at this point is largely of her own making. That could also break, but I think she’ll continue to punch it every chance she gets (there’s that soulless opportunism). I’d like to see Warren pushing something stronger than “I’ve got a plan for that” (even though it’s obvious she actually does have a plan for ‘that’), but she’s smarter than I am so I’m somewhat optimistic she’ll fine tune it.

145

Her big splash was the debate characterizing Biden’s past opposition to mandatory busing as “personal” to her, implying that if not for busing she, a child living in the working class Black neighborhood, would never have gotten the education that allowed her to succeed as she had (glossing over who her parents were and that she was in a quality Canadian school as the child of McGill Medical School faculty from Junior High through High School, not really in the underprivileged boat of multigenerational poverty), arguing that not supporting forced busing was wrong then and that forced busing is needed now (which she then backed down from a few days later). Yes the plan was to get Biden to fumble, as he did, but it was also to place herself as a champion of racial justice issues, as she had no record of strength there at all, and to try to build a following among Black voters as the one person of color in the top four.

And what has been her Big Idea since the debate? That event was chosen specifically to unveil her plan specifically to address the racial wealth gap.

Yes, when you get the spotlight with a specific play and you build on that play with another racial justice initiative, with no other new big things done with that spotlight on you, I will tend to extrapolate that there is a short term strategy (meaning through SuperTuesday) in process.

IF racial justice issues and their personal importance to her based on her identity as a woman of color had been a keystone issue of her career, nay even her campaign, to date then I’d be less likely to interpret her putting that as a key feature of her campaign as a cynical disingenuous (and over time to be shortsighted) move. The very fact that indeed her past career, past public persona, and campaign before this had not prioritized that as high on the list, is why it comes off as such soulless opportunism.

Racial justice issues are in fact important and they should be dealt with as more than a prop to try to get votes through Super Tuesday, then, assuming it works and she is a leader, to be dropped fast as she will be able to, as she pivots beyond that.

This to me is the same as Trump wrapping himself in the flag as a prop.

Control the narrative with what you have been standing for all along, not what is good for you to be perceived as standing for this moment and that you will distance from when it is no longer as politically useful.

You think the debate busing item and the initiative for Black home ownership are unrelated items and that she just never had the chance to be a forceful advocate on issues of racial justice before? It just happens to be in the context of a path that requires her to get strong support form Black primary voters? Okay.

I’m a bit more cynical than you I guess.

146

The only people I hear using the term “coastal elites” are people on the right who use the name derogatorily (with the exception of this thread).

147

…the “narrative” is set by the person spinning the narrative. And the person spinning the narrative “Disadvantaged black girl will concentrate her efforts for other disadvantaged people of color.” here is you. Its what you percieve from what you have consumed: but it is clearly at odds with what xenophon41 sees and with what I see as well. It doesn’t fit the information on the official campaign website, it doesn’t fit her recent public statements.

148

What you are is a bit less on the mark about what you’re responding to than you usually are. And I have been insufficiently detailed in my defense of Harris, so I’ll take the blame for that.

I think the debate busing item was a planned and rehearsed approach (a debate tactic) that paid off for her, but also reflects her feelings that busing was and still is a valid tool for the federal government to mandate in specific cases of segregated school systems. I think she’s been very clear on this. And I think the black home ownership initiative, rolled out how, when and where she chose (in front of a [mostly] black American audience at a conspicuously black American cultural event, at the probable peak of an approval surge precipitated by that busing discussion) is a sincere, honestly considered proposal that was opportunistically presented in the manner the Harris campaign thought would most capitalize on the political moment.

Nothing about these two things are unrelated or “just happened.” They are both informed by cold hard political calculation and by the sincere political leanings of the candidate, and both are intended to further the portrait of Harris that Harris herself and her campaign want the public to see. And that’s what I approve of.

149

I think your analysis is largely correct, but I’d suggest a third alternative: that the recent-days emphasis on busing and black home-ownership are not necessarily indicative of the Harris strategy for the next year, but instead are a shorter-term response to the social-media-bots/right-wing push to say ‘Harris Isn’t Black’.

This “birther-style” initiative has been much remarked on in the days since the debate, and quite clearly was rolled out in reaction to Harris’s unexpected leap forward (in polling and in fundraising) since the debate.

So the Harris campaign had to decide whether to ignore this onslaught, or instead to address it not only directly (by talking about the bots, etc.) but indirectly, by demonstrating that she, well, is actually black.
I agree with you that an emphasis on serving one particular group above others is not a smart campaign strategy. I would expect that for the long haul, Harris isn’t planning to position herself as The Black Candidate, but simply wanted to spotlight her awareness of social justice issues to combat the ‘isn’t black enough’ tactics of the right.

150

Hadn’t thought about the “she’s not really black” thing in relationship to this… Interesting. I can’t think many black voters were buying that, any more than they did with Obama, but I can see this as an aspect of the political considerations.

151

I’m wondering if any of the polling organizations have questions that would touch on the effects of the effort; maybe something about ‘authenticity’ or such, before and after. (I don’t see any specifics online.)

But at any rate, the people rolling out the ‘not black enough’ campaign certainly thought it had a good chance of being effective.

152

It would be hard to parse out what was the result of the effort versus what is the result of her behaving in ways that come off as inauthentic. And I go back to HRC here - I think she was authentic but she very often gave the impression that she was not.

Reference has been made to hit jobs attempted on Obama. There is a huge bunch of difference between how Obama handled identity issues and how Harris is using hers.

There’s this wonderful 2016 interview of Obama by Ta-Nahisi Coates in The Atlantic. He always very clearly presented himself authentically, and has great section in there with Coates asking: “Do you recall the first time you were aware of folks saying, ‘Barack, you’re not really black’?” and the follow up, after he said not socially, never happened, but that it did as tactics against what he was trying to do politically, of “Were you hurt, though? Personally hurt? Did it bother you on any level?”

To whatever degree Harris self-identifies as Black an is identified by others as Black there is no questioning Harris’s real life experiences as an authentic Black experience. There is no single authentic Black experience; there are many individual authentic lived lives of people with identities, all valid and real. There is questioning if what she presents as her experience and her priorities are authentically her.

153

The splash back from her move has begun.

From various angles, both of today’s news cycle.

WSJ

To the progressive side, Ryan Cooper in The Week.

Besides polling the other biggish item in the news feeds today is another housing proposal.

I’m WAGing that the next two weeks of news cycle may not be so kind to her. If so how she handles it will be a good test of any possible general election mettle.

154

I wouldn’t say her victory was Pyrrhic at all; she climbed up from lagging well behind Warren and Sanders to being essentially tied. Joe Biden has recovered from some of the damage sustained on debate night, but Harris knew the odds of completely overtaking him just based on one debate performance had to be slim. She nevertheless achieved what she intended, which is to get recognized and to pull closer to Biden, and more importantly, to plant seeds of doubt in voters minds about Biden’s ability to fight Trump in a general election.

155

I am not sure if over time it will be Pryrrhic or not. Obviously I have my concerns. What is true is that the media narrative in the immediate aftermath was focused on the positive of this interaction for her. I am positing that a blowback is beginning and will gain steam. To some degree the more successful the play was the more inevitable the blowback was to be. The scrappy underdog gets the good storyline. Move up the ranks and you evolve out of that role and become a target instead. And how that is handled informs.

I’m thinking Warren outlasts her as the main Biden alternative. I’ve expressed why. But maybe Harris will surprise me.

156

I get the feeling that Harris is pretty good at being slippery, which is a quality that all effective and successful politicians have. Yes, it probably drives ideological purists nuts, but she doesn’t give a shit, and I don’t think we necessarily should either. She strikes me as a razor sharp woman. She’s probably got some ‘bitch’ in her, but that, too, is probably a necessary quality when you’re preparing to fight swamp creatures in the swamp.

157

Still looking for disagreement… :slight_smile:

My WAG is that her problem with that is not going to be the ideological purists but the larger number who see the differences on the issues as minor but are wanting to believe in the candidate’s “authenticity”.

Warren has likely told the same “the Dress” story hundreds of times but she comes off as having true emotion, fresh, and authentic, every time. Biden’s very fumbles are part of his authenticity. Sanders’ consistent one note makes him believable as authentic. To use that “lanes” bit- not sure how big the slippery lane is this time.

158

It may not be popular with the primary electorate. So we will see if she gets through. IMO her slippery political savvy is exactly why she is the only suitable nominee out of the top four.

159

I dunno, man. I thought “That little girl was me” was pretty authentic, which is what made the attack so devastating.

160

I thought so too, until she started selling Litte Girl T-shirts the next day.