# What could the Harris campaign have done differently? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 6, 2024, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798 "2024-11-06T16:37:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/102 "2024-11-07T19:09:52Z")
One thing that drove me crazy pre-election and is now a regular feature of post-election hot-takes, including here, is that Harris was not “specific” enough in her policies. I called bullshit then and I call bullshit now. Related hot-takes: “she didn’t focus on the economy enough” or “she didn’t talk about inflation/prices enough.” It’s all bullshit - she talked about it plenty, if you bothered to take the time to listen. For example, [here’s her 75-page economic policy book](https://kamalaharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Policy-Book-Economic-Opportunity.pdf) (pdf). Not specific enough? Bite me. And what’s the first section? “Lower Costs for Middle-Class Families.” What are the 6 sub-sections? 1. Cut taxes for working people 2. Lower food and grocery prices 3. Lower health care costs 4. Lower prescription drug costs 5. Lower energy costs 6. Lower costs by protecting consumers from fees and fraud Plenty of details to follow. Of course, she didn’t dig deep into all of this in every speech or interview, but the themes were completely clear and the backup details were right there for anyone who was _actually_ interested and not making excuses. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/103 "2024-11-07T19:12:27Z")
I agree. And it’s another case of holding her to one standard and Trump to another. Everyone, even his supporters, understands that Trump has no policy nor the capability to form or even understand policy. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/104 "2024-11-07T19:13:49Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Because Trump never underestimated the intelligence of the American public. Indeed. He seems to have nailed the estimate. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/105 "2024-11-07T19:20:16Z")
> [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > The election was lost on what _didn’t_ happen the last four years, and what didn’t happen was…any consequences for the people who orchestrated crimes and such during the Trump administration, up to and including Trump himself. I’m not a Supreme Court justice and many here would call me a dumbass but when people started discussing the 14th Amendment / Section 3 I said that he would need to be convicted of insurrection first and people were saying self-executing or Colorado’s verdict was enough. On March 12, 2021 Biden should told have Merrick Garland that he WILL pursue a charge under 18 USC 2383 against Trump. And guess what, SCOTUS said exactly that. Hey, you didn’t convict him under 18 USC 2383 so he’s still eligible. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/106 "2024-11-07T19:21:12Z")
I don’t think anyone is arguing that Harris wasn’t appealing to people who research the details of candidates’ platforms on the internet. Many feel she didn’t stress the economic message in such a way that it resonated with the sort of voters who won’t listen to anything that doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/107 "2024-11-07T19:30:39Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I don’t think anyone is arguing that Harris wasn’t appealing to people who research the details of candidates’ platforms on the internet. Oh yes? > [@Manlob](#): > > She needed to talk about some specific plans that most Americans could get behind instead of vague platitudes. That took me 2 seconds and it’s from this thread. I can find you 100 other examples of people saying she wasn’t specific enough (or you could Google it). Supposedly “undecided” voters talked about this again and again. It remains bullshit. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Many feel she didn’t stress the economic message in such a way that it resonated with the sort of voters who won’t listen to anything that doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker. That’s a different criticism than what I am talking about, and could well be true. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/108 "2024-11-07T19:38:02Z")
She could have grown a penis. Thats the only thing that would have made a difference. Theres no way you can look at the way each candidate thinks and behaves and honestly choose trump. Add inwhat happenend to Hillary and it becomes obvious ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/109 "2024-11-07T19:38:55Z")
> [@Manlob](#): > > She needed to talk about some specific plans that most Americans could get behind instead of vague platitudes. In my experience, the people saying this were also saying they don’t listen to her so they don’t have to listen to her laugh. No wonder they didn’t hear her plan. > [@bengangmo](#): > > Add inwhat happenend to Hillary and it becomes obvious I will disagree with this. In 2016 you did not know how Trump would be as President so both were devils you don’t know. In 2024 we know exactly what sort of President that Trump would be yet people still voted for him. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/110 "2024-11-07T19:43:57Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I agree. And it’s another case of holding her to one standard and Trump to another. That’s true. The _electorate_ holds Democrats to a different standards. Do you want to whine about how unfair that is, or figure out a way to win elections regardless? ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/111 "2024-11-07T20:16:20Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > She could have grown a penis. Happened to turn male? ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/112 "2024-11-07T20:25:49Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > She could have grown a penis. Now THAT would have made for some interesting attack ads! ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/113 "2024-11-07T20:30:10Z")
The message Kamala got across was : " Cackle cackle. word salad word salad, cackle cackle, you betta! Cause imma cackle cackle" And: " I wouldn’t have done different anything Joe did, and I was the last person in the room." Also: “Joe is sharp as a tack.” Also: “Dick Cheney is courageous” That may not be fair. And it may be blown out of proportion. It may be taken out of context, but I PROMISE YOU thats the message millions of fence-sitters got. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/114 "2024-11-07T20:41:25Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It would be easier to redefine the question. What could the Democratic Party have done differently. > > Starting with the Democratic Primary for the 2020 election How did Harris do?. She pulled out in Dec of 2019 without much support. > > Biden vowed to pick a black woman as VP which at best is a condescending criteria. He Chose Harris. Why? > > He then assigns her the task of dealing with the flood of immigrants that he himself created and by doing so throws her under the bus. > > This flood of immigrants dilutes the job market and provides cheap labor at the expense of other people in the market. Union workers, Black and Hispanic people. In other words people in the Democrat base that were considered a given. The Teamsters would not support Harris and Trump was able to siphon off Black and Hispanic voters. > > Biden’s failing mental capacity was hidden by main stream media until it was so painfully obvious in the debate that the party calculated he would fail against Trump. But it was so late in the campaign it paints them into a corner. Now they’re stuck with a candidate that polled worse than Biden in the previous Primary. > > The Democratic Party could have tasked the Media outlets with stories about Biden and forced a Primary to get rid of him. It would be easy to unleash a torrent of “reliable sources” that said Biden was in decline. > > It was not Harris that created this situation, it was the people behind the curtain and a willing Media that did their bidding. In the space of a couple of weeks Biden went from a leading candidate to a doddering old man. That is something that didn’t just happen overnight and it was kept from the public. There was no time to reinvent Harris and she did nothing to distance herself from Biden. Quoted for truth… I do not normally hand it to this poster, but the above is like 99% correct. At every turn the Dems made short-sighted choices to keep the wheels on the Biden wagon. In the moment it seemed like any other approach was too risky, but in hindsight that risk aversion added up an even bigger risk that Biden himself wouldn’t run out of steam. It failed. Part of this was the neglect of the border situation. I don’t really know what a VP was expected to do as border czar, but apparently she didn’t do it. She didn’t need to do much, as she wasn’t the presumptive candidate. Meanwhile every week another GOP figure was flying down to the border to be photographed in front of it, grim look on his face, running with the caption “Where’s Kamala”. This flank was totally neglected, and the GOP developed the opening and then drove the knife right into it. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/115 "2024-11-07T20:50:52Z")
I think it might have helped with minority voters if she had talked more about race, a topic she largely avoided. For example, Democrats were factually rebutting the claims about Haitians eating pets, but they weren’t explicitly calling those claims racist, and using that as an opportunity to connect the dots to other ways in which Trump and the GOP are racist. Of course, white fragility is strong, and many swing voters perceive pointing out blatant racism as being “angry and radical”, so that approach could have backfired. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/116 "2024-11-07T20:52:23Z")
We definitely need a better communications strategy in the era of insurgent fascism. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/117 "2024-11-07T21:00:50Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Biden vowed to pick a black woman as VP which at best is a condescending criteria. He Chose Harris. Why? Because Jim Clyburn made him promise to do so in order to get his endorsement, which Biden needed in order to win the South Carolina primary and stop Bernie’s momentum going into Super Tuesday. So if your conclusion is that the Democrats should have nominated Bernie instead, I don’t disagree. 😉 Otherwise, once Biden made that promise, what other option was there? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/118 "2024-11-07T21:05:02Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Part of this was the neglect of the border situation. I don’t really know what a VP was expected to do as border czar, She had a specific mandate, which was to travel to South and Central America and negotiate with those countries to do things like set up processing centers to handle claims of asylum for America while the migrants are still abroad. She did that, and it worked, to an extent. But it wasn’t enough to address the issue, and it got her strongly associated with the immigration issue, with disastrous results. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/119 "2024-11-07T21:06:07Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I think it might have helped with minority voters if she had talked more about race, a topic she largely avoided Many of those minority voters went for Trump this time around, so I really don’t think tsk-tsking about racism would have been effective. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/120 "2024-11-07T21:07:04Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > which Biden needed in order to win the South Carolina primary and stop Bernie’s momentum going into Super Tuesday 🙄 What a strange telling of events. It seems to imply that Berndawg ever had a chance of getting the nomination over Biden. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2024, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/121 "2024-11-07T21:07:59Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Biden’s failing mental capacity was hidden by main stream media until it was so painfully obvious in the debate that the party calculated he would fail against Trump. But it was so late in the campaign it paints them into a corner. Now they’re stuck with a candidate that polled worse than Biden in the previous Primary. Clearly Biden should have dropped out earlier, but it’s a ridiculous conspiracy theory to accuse “the media” of “covering up” his decline. And given that Biden _won_ the last primary, literally everyone “polled worse than Biden”, so not sure what the point is there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798.md?page=7)