This post captures why that Harris profile drove me nuts. Astead Herndon is a good, professional reporter, definitely not a hack, but he is also very clearly *not* out to get Kamala Harris. She should have seen his piece as an opportunity to reintroduce herself to the public. (She may *think* he's out to get her because he accurately covered the embarrassing collapse of her presidential campaign.)
*I* think she should go in the Yglesias/Barro direction, but if she wanted to double down on some kind of upper class lefty identity politics positions she could have done that as well. Instead she was annoyed that a sympathetic reporter was asking her questions.
Hillary Clinton had limits as a politician and hated the press. But she at least knew how to use this kind of interview to inspire the sort of people already disposed to be inspired by Hillary Clinton. If you can't do that...
Great comment - and also wanted to point out that Hillary was a better politician than a lot of people want to acknowledge - she increased her vote share for NY Senate from 55% to 67% and flipped a lot of counties from red to blue.
I'm not a fan of HRC, but she really, really wanted to win. When she was losing to Obama she went to West Virginia and did whisky shots at a rural bar.
She thought she was running away with that election and would win more decisively than Obama had against McCain.
This wasn't nuts, a lot of people thought the same thing after Access Hollywood, including Trump himself. He was visibly shaken and uncertain when he gave his victory speech.
I still think it was a disastrous choice to pick Hillary. Biden or even Bernie would have done better and won. But I do understand what she and her supporters were thinking in 2016. Whereas the Harris pitch is: Harris will lose and it will be your fault.
Why does everybody seem so sure Bernie would have won? I see zero evidence of that. His "revolutionary army" or whatever couldn't even be bothered to show up for him in the primaries - Hillary won those fair and square. He didn't even do particularly well. What makes people think he would have won a general?
For what it's worth, though, I'm also skeptical Biden would have won in 2016 too. It was too much of a "f*ck you" election, and the Obama backlash was just too great.
It was a really close election that she almost won. I sort of agree with the initial poster that she might have won it herself if she'd realized how close things were. (It isn't like she was being lazy, almost everybody except Sean Trende misunderstood this, on both sides.)
Trump would have been a uniquely well-suited opponent for Sanders because the sort of wealthy, educated swing voter who would pick Romney over Sanders would have been trapped in the Democratic coalition by hostility to Trump. At most they would have voted third party. I do agree that Bernie would have lost in 2020.
I don't disagree, but she's the VP and she seems to believe in the stuff. She should at the very least be able to get sympathetic reporters to write glowing profiles in the NYT, and not have her aids tell the press she won't return Elizabeth Warren's phone calls. People *loved* Stacey Abrams long after Abrams had become a political liability to Georgia Democrats.
Harris seems to think that Warren and Pelosi and well-respected Black reporters dismiss her because they are racist and/or sexist, and that it is a good political strategy to call these people out. But call them out to whom? Warren, Pelosi and Black NYT reporters represent the 20% of the country that should be over the moon about Harris.
"A mistake we see over and over in Democratic politics is the conflation of the interests and preferences of demographic groups with the interests and preferences of Democratic Party insiders from those demographic groups..."
This is the most succinct distillation of the problem.
Josh makes a great point about Harris’ background as a trial lawyer. She has thoroughly wiped that perspective from her personality (or perhaps she never had it and was bad in front of juries). Harris seems much more the product of an academic committee room than a courtroom.
Harris is a replacement-level or sub-replacement-level politician and her performance in the 2020 Democratic primary proved that out. Whatever political instincts she had when she was elected as DA have clearly been replaced by the preferences of Democratic Party insiders. Maybe if she had to tell "a clearer story about who she is, what she is for, and what she believes in" it would just reveal she's in it for power.
I think your overall assessment of Harris and what she should be trying to do, and your point that minority activists often conflate the interest of the communities they should be trying to represent with that of their own coterie, are spot on.
I would only add that I sense that Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton have one thing in common. As firsts in so ways, they are highly self-conscious, used to striving to be perfect in order to succeed, overly afraid of making mistakes, and trained to bite their tongues. This makes it hard for them to relax and establish rapport in the moment, as politicians need to do. As the only woman or Indian-Jamaican-American in the room, they don't trust that people will respond to their authentic selves. This unease undermines confidence in their leadership.
Thus I think being a lawyer isn't the only reason Harris avoids answering questions. She's too afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting slammed, or being rejected for who she is. Obviously a more gifted politician would overcome this
I think your analysis is right, but I also think you may be giving Republican congresspeople too much credit. I think there is a decent chance the crazies wait them out until the government shuts down.
At that point, without a speaker, I don't know how anyone brings a bill to vote to reopen.
But there's a chance that not all of the Republican caucus is completely terrified of getting crosswise with their base, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I don’t see Harris as a future president. I think replacing her on the ticket would lose more votes than would be gained. Lots of presidents did not first serve as VP first.
If she remains on the ticket and Biden is re-elected she is virtually certain to be president. You don't need to be a republican to see what a huge majority of Americans see, Biden can't make it through another five years in the White House. He may live that long, but he can't remain plausibly functional in the job for that long. There is no chance that the Woodrow Wilson experience could be repeated in today's information environment, particularly since we now have a constitutional amendment speaking to presidential disability.
How many people reluctantly voted for Biden and were surprised by how well he has done? If Biden were to die in office, that’s a new ball game entirely. It’s not a reason to take Harris off the ticket and piss off needed voters.
This post captures why that Harris profile drove me nuts. Astead Herndon is a good, professional reporter, definitely not a hack, but he is also very clearly *not* out to get Kamala Harris. She should have seen his piece as an opportunity to reintroduce herself to the public. (She may *think* he's out to get her because he accurately covered the embarrassing collapse of her presidential campaign.)
*I* think she should go in the Yglesias/Barro direction, but if she wanted to double down on some kind of upper class lefty identity politics positions she could have done that as well. Instead she was annoyed that a sympathetic reporter was asking her questions.
Hillary Clinton had limits as a politician and hated the press. But she at least knew how to use this kind of interview to inspire the sort of people already disposed to be inspired by Hillary Clinton. If you can't do that...
Great comment - and also wanted to point out that Hillary was a better politician than a lot of people want to acknowledge - she increased her vote share for NY Senate from 55% to 67% and flipped a lot of counties from red to blue.
I'm not a fan of HRC, but she really, really wanted to win. When she was losing to Obama she went to West Virginia and did whisky shots at a rural bar.
If Hillary had run in 2016 with the same kind of intensity that she ran against Obama with, she would have won.
She thought she was running away with that election and would win more decisively than Obama had against McCain.
This wasn't nuts, a lot of people thought the same thing after Access Hollywood, including Trump himself. He was visibly shaken and uncertain when he gave his victory speech.
I still think it was a disastrous choice to pick Hillary. Biden or even Bernie would have done better and won. But I do understand what she and her supporters were thinking in 2016. Whereas the Harris pitch is: Harris will lose and it will be your fault.
Why does everybody seem so sure Bernie would have won? I see zero evidence of that. His "revolutionary army" or whatever couldn't even be bothered to show up for him in the primaries - Hillary won those fair and square. He didn't even do particularly well. What makes people think he would have won a general?
For what it's worth, though, I'm also skeptical Biden would have won in 2016 too. It was too much of a "f*ck you" election, and the Obama backlash was just too great.
It was a really close election that she almost won. I sort of agree with the initial poster that she might have won it herself if she'd realized how close things were. (It isn't like she was being lazy, almost everybody except Sean Trende misunderstood this, on both sides.)
Trump would have been a uniquely well-suited opponent for Sanders because the sort of wealthy, educated swing voter who would pick Romney over Sanders would have been trapped in the Democratic coalition by hostility to Trump. At most they would have voted third party. I do agree that Bernie would have lost in 2020.
Looking back at this from after the 2024 election, that last sentence was exceedingly prescient.
The problem with doubling down on upper class identity politics is that it's a crowded field and the supply greatly outpaces the demand for it.
I don't disagree, but she's the VP and she seems to believe in the stuff. She should at the very least be able to get sympathetic reporters to write glowing profiles in the NYT, and not have her aids tell the press she won't return Elizabeth Warren's phone calls. People *loved* Stacey Abrams long after Abrams had become a political liability to Georgia Democrats.
Harris seems to think that Warren and Pelosi and well-respected Black reporters dismiss her because they are racist and/or sexist, and that it is a good political strategy to call these people out. But call them out to whom? Warren, Pelosi and Black NYT reporters represent the 20% of the country that should be over the moon about Harris.
"As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?"
-Martha Coakley
"A mistake we see over and over in Democratic politics is the conflation of the interests and preferences of demographic groups with the interests and preferences of Democratic Party insiders from those demographic groups..."
This is the most succinct distillation of the problem.
Josh makes a great point about Harris’ background as a trial lawyer. She has thoroughly wiped that perspective from her personality (or perhaps she never had it and was bad in front of juries). Harris seems much more the product of an academic committee room than a courtroom.
Harris is a replacement-level or sub-replacement-level politician and her performance in the 2020 Democratic primary proved that out. Whatever political instincts she had when she was elected as DA have clearly been replaced by the preferences of Democratic Party insiders. Maybe if she had to tell "a clearer story about who she is, what she is for, and what she believes in" it would just reveal she's in it for power.
I think your overall assessment of Harris and what she should be trying to do, and your point that minority activists often conflate the interest of the communities they should be trying to represent with that of their own coterie, are spot on.
I would only add that I sense that Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton have one thing in common. As firsts in so ways, they are highly self-conscious, used to striving to be perfect in order to succeed, overly afraid of making mistakes, and trained to bite their tongues. This makes it hard for them to relax and establish rapport in the moment, as politicians need to do. As the only woman or Indian-Jamaican-American in the room, they don't trust that people will respond to their authentic selves. This unease undermines confidence in their leadership.
Thus I think being a lawyer isn't the only reason Harris avoids answering questions. She's too afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting slammed, or being rejected for who she is. Obviously a more gifted politician would overcome this
I think your analysis is right, but I also think you may be giving Republican congresspeople too much credit. I think there is a decent chance the crazies wait them out until the government shuts down.
At that point, without a speaker, I don't know how anyone brings a bill to vote to reopen.
But there's a chance that not all of the Republican caucus is completely terrified of getting crosswise with their base, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I don’t see Harris as a future president. I think replacing her on the ticket would lose more votes than would be gained. Lots of presidents did not first serve as VP first.
If she remains on the ticket and Biden is re-elected she is virtually certain to be president. You don't need to be a republican to see what a huge majority of Americans see, Biden can't make it through another five years in the White House. He may live that long, but he can't remain plausibly functional in the job for that long. There is no chance that the Woodrow Wilson experience could be repeated in today's information environment, particularly since we now have a constitutional amendment speaking to presidential disability.
How many people reluctantly voted for Biden and were surprised by how well he has done? If Biden were to die in office, that’s a new ball game entirely. It’s not a reason to take Harris off the ticket and piss off needed voters.