Everything's complicated and my hesitation about replacing Biden up to now has been informed by polls showing other candidates not doing much better. But a lot of people seem remarkably certain that Harris specifically could not win a general election for reasons I think they should say out loud.
To be fair, the last time she was in a national election, everyone thought she would be a formidable candidate but she did terribly, and was widely considered a surprisingly poor campaigner. So there is a data point.
Yes, but that campaign was a primary which means that data point was comprised of people who read Jacobin and were ride or die for Bernie Sanders, and old people.
Full disclosure: I maxed out in 2020 for Harris and for Secretary Mayor Pete (because I have a friend who was a Notre Dame law prof and said he’s a good guy).
I would take your political acumen with a grain of salt as you just publicly admitted to spending thousands of dollars to support a McKinsey consultant on the hearsay of a friend
Fair, except I’ll double down on your purported reason: I also liked the things he said. To say nothing of: at the time he wasn’t a McKinsey consultant, he was a mayor, and I’m a lawyer so am very ill-situated not to like other professionals.
I will take a second post to make another point to you, a person who no doubt thinks of themself as a smart thinker: there are character limits per skeet that can lead people to omit things that intelligent adults can assume by context. My skeet immediately above spells those things out for you.
I can tell you no doubt think of yourself as a "smart thinker" because you made sure to include your law school credentials which very much impressed me.
If you actually liked the things he said then I disagree with you further. He had nothing to offer than neoliberal platitudes worked over by focus groups and delivered in a dollar store Obama impression. He also lied about supporting universal health care and falsely claimed victory in IA.
I actually met Mayor Secretary Pete during reserve duty many years ago; he was in Naval Reserve Intel and unit drilled at Ft. Sheridan where my unit drilled. Short interaction, but he always seemed like a decent individual.
She was weak in the primary for reasons that could help her in the general. Primaries are about attracting key constituencies in the party. Kamala was too moderate for the left wing, the right wing wanted a safe old white guy, and Black and women voters were divided.
She wanted to be all things to all people and as a result appealed to no one. But in a general election all those groups are united behind her and she’s appealing to swing state voters. She would be better in that context.
Go watch her at any event --find videos on CSPAN. Maybe I am too critical but this made me nervous about our chances with her. I truly do NOT CARE anymore who is the candidate. Anyone with a better chance than Biden is fine. MANY people are probably at this point.
Everyone had to pull punches in the primary because no one wanted to damage the eventual nominee too much. She did much better once positioned as a Veep candidate since her direct opponent was fuckin Pence.
she was fucking great on the debate stage though. I don't really like her that much (about the same as Joe, not knowing where she lands on israel) but I LOVED seeing her debate
she was also up against, well, Joe. and Warren, and Bernie,
who had been much more well known and had significant followings before she even entered the primary race
