It was just “pick a well-known Senator,” and since I still have a residence in New York. But Senators with long records - Biden aside - tend to carry a lot of baggage they can be attacked on. Plus Netanyahu will be saying he’s a bad Jew / not really a Jew, so no idea what other Senator’s have aspirations. Obama was nearly perfect as he’d risen in politics quickly and I believe hadn’t completed his first term or it was early in his 2nd.
Did we forget how unpopular the white male was last time? Harris almost certainly did better then Biden would have done, which makes blaming her loss on race and gender a pretty tough sell. Hillary got more votes than opponents. Is it for gender reasons they happened not to be the correct geography?
I am not saying that things gender and race can’t make things a little harder, but it is not a core problem of the Democratic party and I think focusing on it is big mistake.
It ignore the actual problems that most people have with the party (failure to make significant progress on people’s cost of living, particularly housing, failure to allow for voices of younger generations, failure to listen and communicate in a way that makes them like genuine people. etc) It is makes it seem like the party is picking the candidate who checks the most boxes as opposed to the one who can help people the most. It drives people away who legitimately voted for Trump for economic reasons (no really you were racist now come vote for me), the voters you need to win back if you want to win elections.
I probably wouldn’t vote for Harris, because she has not shown an ability to move away from traditional campaigning, when it is pretty clear it doesn’t work well anymore. If there is a new candidate who can navigate that better, I absolutely think they would be Democrats best shot regardless of race, gender, sexal orientation etc…
He had served as a state senator of Illinois’ 13th district for three terms but was indeed, in the third year of his first term as US Senator when he ran for President.
Of all of the reasons to not vote for Biden, him being a male Anglo is pretty far down on the list.
Right. I just don’t get when we switch from Biden to Harris, somehow people ignore most of those reasons, most of which are still applicable, and think she lost primarily due to gender/race.
Harris did not cause the inflation that voters claim they were afraid of.
Harris did not have a heavily-criticized pullout plan from Afghanistan
Harris did not come across as an angry old white man telling Americans to get off his lawn (at best) or starting down the path to dementia (at worst)
So what reasons to not vote for Biden also applied to Harris?
Harris was part of the Biden administration and it has been commented in many threads that she did not effectively communicate what she would do differently once she were the one in charge. This meant she did have to bear the burden of that administration’s legacy—or if we’d rather say, of the propagandized version of that legacy that was widely circulated.
All the factors against her added up. Both policy and prejudice. Heck, there were even some people who claimed they’d sit it out because of being “handpicked” as a candidate.
And I certainly agree that that hindered her. But even if I agree with everything you say, it still remains that being “not Trump” should have been sufficient for Democrats to go out and vote for her. It wasn’t.
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Alas, already known to not really work by itself.
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I’d take that up with the alleged “independents” and with the Democrats-lite who only show up for someone who excites them with vision.
You know what, there was a movement in 2024 of “Republicans for Harris” (I was one) that IIRC was a lot smaller that the advertising would have you believe. Was there a similar “Democrats for Trump” movement?
No, but he is black.
Last time he ran, he won.
Nor did Biden. That was a vote for ignorance, due to lies from trump.
Not gonna argue that. My point is if someone did blame him for his “Bidenomics”, how is that on Harris?
For whatever reason, too many people simply don’t vote “strategically” - they only bother to vote for someone who inspires them. God knows why, but lots of people are inspired by Donald Tump; conversely, lots of people were also inspired by Barak Obama. Much fewer people were inspired by Kalama Harris.
Whether that’s right or wrong is meaningless. It is what it is.
She was the one who said she couldn’t think of anything at all about the Biden administration that she would do differently.
I can’t think of anything either.
Maybe outlaw fake news?
remember even Black males voted against Kamala
Right here on this very board there are posters arguing that anyone in the Biden admin is “tainted”.
And of course, Biden did everything he could (which wasnt all that much) to lower inflation. And it was getting better. But still, Economics is hard and even Economists cant agree on how to “fix” inflation. So it is kinda hard to expect Joe Voter to understand that. They should have realized trump was lying to them, however.
No minority group votes as a 100% solid block see “Log Cabin Republicans”,
Biden recieved a larger percentage of the Black male vote than Harris, but it’s a bit ridiculous to say that Black males ‘voted agains Kamala’ when she won the demographic by 75% to 21%.
so there was no “race loyalty” by Black men when 20% voted against her just because she was woman, and their macho persona responded to Mr Man in charge