I did? I guess “whoever they are” doesn’t mean what I thought it did!
But aren’t you kind of feeding into that yourself right now? Because, let’s face it, this is almost purely a theoretical discussion. Kamala Harris is going to be the VP candidate, full stop. Let’s say about 98% probability. So getting heated about this is kinda fruitless at this point. If Biden/Harris loses in '24 (God forbid), I’m pretty sure Harris won’t be competitive in '28. If Biden wins she will be the presumptive (but not guaranteed) nominee as either the incumbent president (if Biden doesn’t make it) or the sitting VP. At that point we’ll have to see how things look - 5+ years is an eternity in politics. Harris might well surprise. Her law enforcement background might be red flag for some progressives, but maybe it will help her with some moderates (then again, maybe not - she IS from CA).
I think she’d be an entirely adequate president in somewhat the mold that Hillary Clinton would probably have been. Harris is NOT a progressive any more than Obama was and I’d be willing to guarantee that at some point in a Harris presidency she will take a shit on some progressive notion or other. But, mostly she’d likely be fine within normal parameters. I’m pretty sure she’d also champion some progressive program at some point as well, performative or not. But any port in a storm. She may be to the right of Elizabeth Warren, but she’s still functionally a CA liberal - she’s still far to the left of a Manchin.
Her important concrete flaws are the charisma issue, her poor internal campaign management in her nomination bid and her lack of standing with progressives. The last probably isn’t a crippling problem and may even have an electoral upside, the middle can be corrected with the right team, the first will be a hurdle to overcome, but hardly impossible. People severely bothered by her race and gender were mostly not going to vote for any Democrat and those issues can actually be of help in terms of generating enthusiasm in certain quarters (maybe help counteract that not-a-progressive thing).
My hope is that we can get two terms from Biden and then run AOC or someone seriously Left in 2028. It’s risky, but keep in mind history says we’re probably losing anyway. The strategy of “Let’s run someone closely associated with and ideologically akin to the outgoing President” has proved itself to be a failure many times over.
It’s almost like there’s context to the thread which informs the meaning of individual posts!
My thanks to Tamerlane for an excellent piece refocusing on the matter of VP Harris’ electability on the merits.
And Thing.Fish’s position of, “OK, once we restabilize the system then go for a big score” is something perfectly respectable — provided of course the progs are in a position to pick the nominee in ‘28.
Have read this thread with interest. I am particularly surprised at the comments around her stiffness as a speaker, lack of charm, inexperience. Not suggesting such a subjective assessment can ever be wrong, but I have quite the opposite perception.
She always struck me as likable, charming, and a reasonably good speaker. Love her laugh and smile, which seem genuine. I recall fondly her masterful (to me) questioning of Bill Barr. I remember a spot on TV where she made some dish in her kitchen in playful outrage over how one of her colleagues did, schooling him over Zoom. I smiled and it was charming.
I acknowledge that much of this may well be performance art and divorced from political skill. But it worked on me. And if 8 years of combined experience in the Senate and as VP is insufficient, then I am shocked. The only example I can think of for a VP prominently and regularly in the news is Cheney, and that was as a puppet master. Most VPs are just in the background, from the general public’s perspective, even if they’re spinning gold in the back room.
I like her, and I would have no problem voting for her, and not just because nothing could make me vote for a Republican.
The world isn’t the same place it was when Obama was elected. A whole lot more of the racist contingent has been inspired to vote who previously did not. Republicans are back to deliberately courting the bigots openly, without fear of repercussions. And there’s a sizable contingent of people who used to care about not being seen as racist who now consider caring about that stuff to be “woke” or “virtue signaling.”
Is that enough to tank Harris’s chances? I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s wrong to believe it is. Especially if you also throw in that she’s a woman, and the fact that she’s not a darling of the progressives, either.
A whole lot of the stuff I remember about her being a bad candidate back in the primaries was the argument that the conservatives hated her for her minority status, and the progressives hated her for her law enforcement history.
Plus the idea that throwing away the incumbent advantage is a good thing seems so weird to me. Things are still quite tight. You don’t want to send the message that the guy your party supported last time failed by kicking them out. And you especially don’t put up someone who lost to that guy.
That is a very knee-jerk reaction. You know it IS possible to recognize the unpleasant realpolitik reality without being racist and misogynistic.
I thought the Dems elevation of Obama and Hillary to the top of the heap in 2008 was insane. How could they toss up a Black man and a woman as candidates and have any hope to win?
Then Obama won. But he was a once or twice in a lifetime candidate. An amazing man. He shredded my prediction. But Kamala Harris can’t touch Barrack Obama. Many other POC and/or women can’t touch Obama either. We need to promote candidates with a good chance to win.
If a hypothetical Black man is an idiot, a liar, a cheat, and corrupt as hell and I call out for those negative attributes, am I a racist? Can a POC do no wrong?
Or, if a POC is called out for not being easily electable is it racist to bring that up or must we all keep our mouths shut lest we be seen as racist?
I’m not the one eliminating candidates based solely on skin color.
Right. So first you thought the Black guy couldn’t possibly win. Then when he did win, you didn’t revise your thinking about Black people in general, you just decided he was a magical unicorn. Cool.
If you were on record BEFORE the election as thinking Obama was a brilliant political genius whose mad political skills would enable him to overcome the insurmountable barrier of his race, OK. But if you only came to that conclusion AFTER he won, and insist that the insurmountable barrier still exists…not so much.
But what if they did?
If they are that good than they should probably be the nominee.
Anyway, the Democrats will have a very competitive primary in 2028. Whoever wins out will be electable, and we better make sure they are elected. I don’t think anyone here disagrees with that.
Preemptively closing off options now is draining the pool.
QFT, and this is very important: Harris will be the day zero frontrunner but the Democratic Party cannot be conducting a “coronation”, she will be challenged and that will be the test.
Yep, but we don’t need to participate in others’ racism and misogyny by overemphasizing it, being cowed by it, etc. (not saying you’re doing those things).
They elevated themselves. Obama won.
Obama is a truly great speaker and was a good (but not transformative, IMO) president, but I think other candidates can bring different things to the table than he had when he first ran, such as more experience and greater familiarity to the American public. Biden is an example of that. In 2028, Harris will be a lot more experienced than Obama was in 2008. She could even end up being a better, more effective president (I think Biden has been).
There was no support for Herschel Walker among the Dems here. That’s hardly the attitude.
There’s a big difference between calling out a specific candidate and saying, generically, that POC/women can’t win.
If you want to talk realpolitik, talk about the amazing coincidence that the people who tend to be in the “now isn’t the time for a person of color” brigade just happen to also be people who would be comfortable voting for a pre-Trump Republican’s political values in a future election.
How about we do a very knee-jerk reaction about the fact that there’s a group of people on the national stage whose policy preferences (on average) skew far left of the median Democrat, and that specific group is the group these fellas think we shouldn’t risk giving too much support to? Conservative thinking, from a conservative bloc.
Bigots were openly courted in the 2008 Democratic primary, much less the campaign the Republicans ran. There was no golden day of yore when America wasn’t racist. What happened was Obama beat the racists.
Did someone in this thread express a reprehensible position?
Who? Which post?
See posts 72 and 74.
Hillary Clinton is (was, maybe, for the decade between 2004-2016) the most well known female politician in the nation. She has had support from very powerful people, including but not limited to her husband who is a former president. She is extremely experienced and intelligent. She has opinions that she states freely that many voters share. She lost the Democratic primary to a black man who was barely even known at that time. She lost a general election to Donald Trump, who is, well, Donald Trump. Apart from her gender, Clinton is a shoe-in for president considering her experience. But for some reason, people are turned off by her attributes which would be considered positive in a male candidate. For the record, I dislike her as a candidate but she has been abused for being female just like Obama was abused for being black. No way can Kamala Harris win, although I wouldnt mind being wrong.