Senate It's Joever: The 2024 US Presidential Election Thread

In other words, Harris is a ****ing cop

 

A couple things here. In the first place, there are in fact articles about her behind the scenes views on Palestine versus Biden. That's just factually incorrect. More broadly, whether with regards to her time as a prosecutor and attorney general, or in her national political career, it seems like the underlying complaint is that while she embraces some liberal positions, she's not actually a true progressive and is somewhat moderate. That's a fair point, but is again true of many Presidential contenders or others with national profiles. To make a specific point of comparison, on many of these points she was certainly not worse than Biden. Arguably a little better on each. How, then, does or did she maintain a more negative approval rating? Prior to the October 7th attacks, it was at least my impression that she was mentioned negatively more often than Biden was. That is all odd.

I am aware of the stories about her campaign mismanagement. But by the same token, that is clearly not what is driving the impression of most voters, and the broad dynamics I am describing were apparent even very early on in the Democratic primary, so I don't find them very explanatory.

 

I think the most reasonable complaint about her is that she isn’t a particularly good campaigner. It may seem harsh, but I think they need to go for someone who gives the perception of strength and confidence in order to really counter Trump. He has a cult of personality, meaning the goal should be to lock him out of power until he ages out. He’s no progressive, but I think Newsom is the right candidate for the situation.

 

Those are all fair points Philosopher. There are lots of reasons she might not (or should not) be the next Presidential candidate. My question was more about the level of vitriol in commentary about her.

 

They would need somebody fresh who could grab the attention of the entire country right out of the gate and carry that momentum all the way through election night. Kamala is simply not the person who would be able to do that.

Another interesting thing to consider is that all of mainstream media has already completely turned on Biden. There's no undoing that. It's not like they've remained neutral since the debate. So if Biden continues as the Democratic candidate, what does the next four months of political news look like? They can't back track and start supporting him again. It'll be this slow dredge of just reminding everyone that Biden is our candidate, with the elephant in the room being that the Democrats could have easily replaced him, and how we still have to vote for him in order to make sure that awful Donald Trump doesn't take office. That's not exactly going to rally the base to vote blue in November. I think the media knows they've kind of forced the Democrats hand now.

I also saw a good point somewhere about who of the viable candidates to replace Biden is actually going to step in and risk a potential colossal loss to Donald Trump, which could completely derail their own career from that point forward.

 

Fair enough on Palestine, though anyone fighting for it should be a lot more aggressive.

And I didn't call her cynical just because she's "moderate." She pretends she's further left than she really is when it's convenient. She was a co-sponsor of Medicare for All and her campaign made it clear she didn't believe in it; she was far from the only person in Congress to sponsor that legislation without meaning it, but that doesn't make it any better. She also famously called out Biden for his pro-segregationist positions, perhaps her best public speaking moment in my opinion, and then she joined his campaign without getting so much as a "I'm sorry, I was wrong" out of him. She responded with a shrug when asked about her flip-flopping.

I could be wrong, but you seem to be implying racism informs some people's opinions about her. Of course it does, along with sexism, especially on the Republican side. The Obamas were far more popular despite the same prejudices. I was trying to outline the substantive reasons why she isn't popular, and I think her law enforcement past (tanked her support among black people in the primaries, IIRC), her cynical politicking, and awkwardness in public speaking all play large roles in that.

 

Huh? On policy, Harris is most certainly to the right of both Biden and Pete. And she’s just an incredibly ineffective speaker. Biden at least comes across as very genuine. She doesn’t. I still wish Biden had chosen Tammy Baldwin as his VP. She would now be posed to wipe the floor with Trump.

 

It's a good point. Harris just isn't ready for national politics. She's just utterly without charisma and, whether its true or not, she seems unserious and shallow. She's probably smarter than she seems, because she'd almost have to be, but then again, Sarah Palin. But she just seems goofy and not serious.

 

Mullet, I'd be interested to have you flesh that out.

Well, that was sort of what I was trying to say. She's on the one hand "far from the only person" with this problem but also there seems to be this idea that she's especially bad. If it's pretty typical it's not also uniquely terrible.

As one point in this discussion where race does come into play, I will say I don't think this would mean anything. I don't expect that Biden or any other politician of that era would apologize. Just for a point of comparison, the Republican "apology" for the Southern Strategy was completely insincere and followed by even more nakedly racist appeals. I'm not interested in someone releasing a press statement that immunizes them from future criticism for things they've done but may not have any practical implications going forward. I wouldn't have made this a precondition of my participation, and instead favored private or more substantive promises.

Here, on the other hand, I wasn't really saying as much. As you said, those things of course play a role with any public figure that has her background. But one of the bigger questions for me is whether something anticipatory is happening/has happened. That is, because Harris was seen as more of potential threat politically than Buttgieg or others, she received an outside portion of the criticism to clear the way for an alternative. In the same way, Trump focused disproportionately on first Bush, and then DeSantis, because he saw them as the chief threats to his dominance, not because they were particularly worse or different than the other people in the primary.

 

You understand I was absolutely not serious, right? Like... it's me?

 

yes, I only mentioned you since you were the only other one to even mention Sanders

 

I don't know why we are talking about this, Wocky came out with the discussion out of the blue.
Anyway, Harris' campaign was garbage.
And she still became VP, and very close to president. In fact, a case could be made that if the campaign were better and thus more long lasting, her chances at VP would have been lower rather than higher.
So, overall, I'd say things have gone pretty well for her. She's far from being the textbook victim you claim her to be.

 

Who are you talking to? I don’t think anyone’s called her a victim at all.

 

You said she was subjected to a particular level of hatred or something.
I don't see that. In fact, I'd like to see actual data but I don't think she is even unpopular among Democrats at all.
Sure, we tend to trash her in here, but honestly who's the politician that the JCC does not trash?

 

One of the main arguments for replacing Biden on the ticket is that a younger more energetic candidate is better prepared to pull through a highly watched campaign-trail summer/fall and gain a better position vs Trump. Nominating Kamala - who is known for not being great at retail politics and campaigning - kind of defeats that purpose.

 

Ah. Yeah, I was saying that in opinion polls* and on the JCC, she's viewed (and here, talked about) more negatively than similarly situated politicians.* It's just an oddity I wondered about idly.

*On this point, her approval rating is underwater. Even Mike Pence's was not. In that light, it's a little wild, and it's hard to say what specific thing she would have done to provoke that. Vice Presidents are not terribly visible, and there was no event like Hillary Clinton leading a failed push for healthcare reform in the 1990s. For another comparison, it is within the margin of error for Joe Biden himself. Why is that, exactly? Again, as with the whole campaign post-mortem thing, while more people are tuned into politics than in the past, I don't think they're reading the 8 page insider analysis of the Vice President's office and making their judgment off that.

I would agree. But either because she's the current Vice President, or because of the support she was able to garner in the 2020 run, she has quite a fair chance of capturing the nomination regardless. And this might in part be some of the hesitance about trying to replace Biden: who would they get that's clearly better? While there are theoretically better campaigners or whatever, they don't have as clear a path in that they haven't developed national donor networks, don't have as high name recognition, and don't already have people already lined up to endorse their bids.

 

Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation is preparing to challenge any new nominee getting on the ballot in whatever states have strict deadlines- at least three.

And this is what I mean about it being too late. Joe Biden is the nominee. Anything else at this point is a chaotic legal mess- and who settles chaotic legal messes again?

One guess how they would rule.

 

All we have to do now is beat medicare.

 

In terms of name recognition I agree, there’s nobody in the Biden tier, aside from truly wild picks like Hillary or The Rock or something, which hopefully will not happen . . .

But in terms of donors and lined-up endorsements, that’s Gavin, he’s been getting his ducks in a row for quite awhile. Yes the money would need to come in very fast but I bet it would. Whoever might replace Biden would gain tremendous institutional support by default, simply because they are the challenge to Trump. That has to be very enticing for would be candidates, it’s a politician’s dream to be in a race where national news media says your opponent is an existential threat to the country.

 

I can’t find anyone but the Heritage Foundation saying this is something to be concerned about before the official nomination at the Convention.

AP suggests it’s a lot of hot air: https://apnews.com/article/biden-re...ot-dnc-rules-7aa836b0ae642a68eec86cc0bebd3772

 

Article for others:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/he...ges-case-biden-pulled-from-dnc-nomination.amp

 

That’s just the Heritage Foundation and some Fox News legal ‘analyst.’ Would the Democrats even be considering it if it was outright political suicide? Sounds like the Heritage Foundation is just trying to scare the Democrats into keeping Biden.

 

Given that the governor of Ohio had to force a special session to ensure Biden gets on the ballot despite the late convention, I wouldn't be shocked if they did challenge everywhere they could. They've spent 3 and a half years trying to pass laws that give them an edge in vote counting for a reason. A new candidate that has to be put on the ballot absolutely will be challenged. And I strongly question whether the Supreme Court will interfere or not- we'll have a pretty good idea where they lean if they give Trump immunity or not.

 

I didn't know that. If this is the case, then yes, it's bizarre.
She does not suck more than many others.

As for who to choose...
I thought that it had to be Harris for hierarchical reasons and because the position of VP kind of implies that the person is going to be the president's substitute, but if Biden drops out of the race without resigning the question of the legacy is a bit more complicated, I guess.