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440505 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 09:50:19
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: She Is Whatever You Want Her to Be |
URL: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: She Is Whatever You Want Her to Be |
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Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: She Is Whatever You Want Her to Be
As Chicago made clear, Harris’ gifted nomination gives her a chance to be
whatever people want her to be.
As much as Vice President Kamala Harris has deep links to California and
political money in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, many top Democratic
donors don’t know her well. | David Hume Kennerly for POLITICO
By Matthew Kaminski
08/31/2024 07:00 AM EDT
Matthew Kaminski is editor-at-large, writing regularly for POLITICO
Magazine on American and global affairs. He’s the founding editor of
POLITICO Europe, which launched in 2015, and former editor-in-chief of
POLITICO. He previously worked for the Financial Times and Wall Street
Journal, based in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris and New York.
They say you gotta dance with the one that brung you.
Now, American politics is giving us the Kamala Harris exception.
The old rule that the pol picks up important debts to certain
constituencies and VIPs on their rise doesn’t apply the same way to her.
This is one of the most unusual features of the Harris ascendance and for
now gives her unique advantages.
Coming out of the convention in Chicago, Harris has built as wide a
coalition as any Democratic nominee in memory. Everyone there claimed
her as their own, with arguably the exception of President Joe Biden’s
family and a few of his staffers. The manner of her ascent — the
replacement of the octogenarian incumbent, the lack of a primary, the
single-minded obsession with beating former President Donald Trump,
the coming together of Democratic powers around her candidacy in barely
48 hours last month — means that no one can claim to have brought her
this far.
What does it mean to owe few explicit debts? You can design a
convention, like the one in Chicago, with little of the identity politics or
Gaza passions that tore up your side for years. You can stay ambiguous on
policy prescriptions when you want to — no one’s in any position to deny
her a check or an endorsement in exchange for a promise to adopt this or
cancel that. You can tack as you wish: hence the new centrist, strong-on-
crime, strong-on-defense, strong-on-business Harris who, before this
summer, didn’t present any of those attributes strongly to the nation.
Most magically of all: You somehow come across looking like the
newcomer. The other guy, in a trick like none seen before, went from
beating the aging incumbent in Biden to finding himself as the aging
incumbent.
The Harris campaign has nine weeks to play out this strategy against
Trump.
The party is so relieved to get a candidate who has a hope to win this race
that no one inside the camp seems to mind that she is hard to pin down. In
the moments after her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention
in Chicago, I ran into a Third Wayer who gushed over all the centrist
policies and the absence of familiar lefty dog whistles. Bill Clinton or even
John McCain could have given that speech. Defense hawks loved her use
of “lethal” to describe the importance of American military power. The
leftists respected the patriotism of the immigrants’ child. A tech
entrepreneur was sure she was the first presidential nominee to invoke
the word “founders” and AI and tech. Her call for an “opportunity
economy” sounded vague enough to satisfy everyone.
As much as Harris has deep links to California and political money in
Hollywood and Silicon Valley, many top Democratic donors don’t know her
well. Before she got the nod, people worried she might have a hard time
raising money. One of her friends, a top bundler, said that the last few
weeks were spent “on building bridges” to the establishment donor and
policy classes. Someone who was with Doug Emhoff at a recent fundraiser
noted, with admiration, that Harris’ husband was still getting over “his
imposter syndrome.” They are new to a stage this big.
The past month’s money gusher washed away any concerns about her
ability to collect the money — and she didn’t have to flesh out a 300-page
governing plan. As the “alternative” without much definition, Harris raised
more ($520 million) faster than anyone ever. She did it by raising money
from more donors in 10 days than Joe Biden managed to in 15 months of
campaigning.
“The way this played out so quickly, and so late, averted the usual process
of building support over a drawn-out campaign,” said David Pepper, the
former head of the Ohio Democratic Party. “Which could be liberating. She
would enter the presidency with a lot fewer IOUs than the previous guys.
They pile up in a primary, which Harris didn’t have to win.”
It has for sure been liberating for her at this stage of the campaign.
Barack Obama once wrote, “I serve as the blank screen on which people
of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” The line from
Obama to Harris was the leitmotif of Chicago. The comparisons of historic
candidacies of the first African-American to first woman, who is also of
mixed race, are obvious.
But the differences are telling too. In 2008, Obama was the outsider
insurgent whose personal story and world views were well defined by his
own telling of them in best-selling books and a long primary fight against
Hillary Clinton. Obama had to carve out a niche to Clinton’s left, defining
himself with certain policies (opposition to the Iraq war, a pledge to
negotiate with Iran, sweeping health-care reform) that quickly became
fodder for general-election attacks from McCain, his GOP rival. Harris is,
remarkably, the insider who is less defined than Obama was at this point
16 years ago. Yes, she is part of the Biden administration, and for the past
three-plus years she was sent out to reinforce relationships with the party
base that helped her get the nod this summer without any challengers.
But Harris is largely free to craft her own agenda, unencumbered by the
kinds of commitments to special interests that accrue during a primary
fight.
If Democrats could project their hopes of national redemption on Obama,
what’s projected on Harris is the fervent desire to keep Trump out. 2008
for the Democrats was about their guy, this year it’s the other guy.
The short, European-style campaign will see Harris try to continue to run
the outsider race. Trump will try to force her to own the Biden record and
put out specifics. His campaign wants more policy-specific speeches like
Harris gave before the convention on the economy and price controls;
that’s when Trump’s “Comrade Kamala” nickname started to stick. Her
first televised interview, done jointly with her vice presidential candidate
Tim Walz this week, offered no similarly prime targets. But she has a
tendency to speak on when she doesn’t have much to say, which is a
vulnerability at next month’s debate. She has been successful this
summer when she is somehow both crisp and vague.
There’s more upside for her in staying unowned and loosely defined for
the duration of the race. Then, if she wins, her lack of a specific mandate
may reignite Democratic factionalism and make for a messy start to a
Harris term.
The nice thing about having a date for the dance is you know what you’ll
do once you get there. This is a problem, naturally, that the Democrats
would love to have.
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Responses:
[440517] [440518] [440532] [440549] [440557] [440534] [440535] [440533] [440536] [440527] [440537] [440520] |
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440517 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 13:03:30
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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"this year it’s the other guy"
No. Your writer has it wrong. This year isn't about
"guys" it's about systems of government.
To vote or not to vote. That is the question.
"The nice thing about having a date for the dance is
you know what you’ll do once you get there."
You think by making this election about guys and dates
the true issues will be diminished as well. You are
trying to pretend this is about the color and style of
a corsage. It's about whether in the future there will
even be music to dance, if the band will be able to
play and if there will even be a "there" there.
Democracy or Dictator.
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Responses:
[440518] [440532] [440549] [440557] [440534] [440535] [440533] [440536] [440527] [440537] [440520] |
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440518 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 13:44:57
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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i realize you feel that way but do you realize that isn’t a majority opinion in
this country? do you realize independents are actually looking at issues to
make their decision? votes will be counted because to most americans it
isn’t as simple as democracy or dictator
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Responses:
[440532] [440549] [440557] [440534] [440535] [440533] [440536] [440527] [440537] [440520] |
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440532 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 19:12:13
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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Democracy or Dictator IS an issue.
Can a woman care for her own body? Dictator says no.
Does the government owe a decent education to children?
Dictator says no.
Will the government allow children to be hungry?
Dictator says yes.
Will the government lower drug costs or help make
pharma more insanely wealthy? Dictator says no.
Same for food companies. Dictator says no.
Can we entertain ways to save the planet and our
people? Dictator says no.
Do we respect our military and veterans? Dictator says
no.
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Responses:
[440549] [440557] [440534] [440535] [440533] [440536] |
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440549 |
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Date: September 01, 2024 at 10:31:58
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
URL: Swing-state ‘deciders’ trust Trump more than Biden to protect democracy: Poll |
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haven’t seen a detailed poll on this question since biden stepped aside
but just 2 months ago people trusted trump more than biden on
protecting democracy
Swing-state ‘deciders’ trust Trump more than Biden to protect
democracy: Poll
BY LAUREN SFORZA 06/26/24 09:22 AM ET
(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps/Morry Gash)
Voters in key states who will likely decide the election trust former
President Trump more than President Biden to handle threats to
democracy, according to a survey released Wednesday.
The poll, conducted by The Washington Post/Schar School, surveyed
voters across six swing states and identified a subgroup of respondents
labeled as “deciders.” It found that 38 percent of “deciders” said Trump
would do a better job of handling threats of democracy to the U.S., while
29 percent said Biden and 23 percent said neither.
Roughly 60 percent of the group also said they are not satisfied at all with
how democracy is working in the U.S.
Those labeled as “deciders” include respondents who voted in the 2016 or
2020 election, are under the age of 25, have been registered to vote since
2022, are undecided and may not vote or someone who changed the party
they support between 2016 and 2020.
Among all swing state voters, 44 percent said they trust the presumptive
GOP nominee more to protect democracy, while 33 percent said the
incumbent. About 16 percent said they trusted neither, and 7 percent said
they trusted both equally, per the poll.
Nearly three-quarters of “deciders” said they believe Trump would not
accept the results of the election if he lost in November, while 33 percent
said the same of Biden. Nearly half of the subgroup said Trump would try
to be a dictator if he won, and just 15 percent said Biden would.
The recent poll comes ahead of the first 2024 presidential debate, where
Trump and Biden will face off for the first time since 2020, as the two
prepare for a rematch election in November. The forum, hosted by CNN
and moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, will take place Thursday at
9 p.m. EDT.
The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average shows Trump leading
with 45 percent of support to Biden’s 43.8 percent of support.
The poll surveyed 3,513 voters across the key swing states of Arizona,
Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin between April 15
and May 30. The pollsters identified 2,255 “deciders” from the
respondents.
The margin of error for “deciders” was plus or minus 2.5 percentage
points.
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Responses:
[440557] |
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440557 |
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Date: September 01, 2024 at 12:38:49
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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ahh, another poll. Goody lol.
May I remind you that during the primaries, nearly all
of them showed that Trump was underperforming the polls
by about 8pts, and Biden was overperforming by 5-10pts
(and that was with an unexcited blue base for Biden).
This is why these silly things should all be taken with
a large grain of salt.
I'm hoping anyone that thinks they can trust
Trump...ever...will receive free mental health care in
the next administration. Their problems are bigger than
casting a vote.
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Responses:
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440534 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 19:40:33
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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Democracy or Dictator, imagine being a swinger at that party. It's unfathomable
that there'd be that sort of fence sitter. But that's what it all comes down to.. a
few 'undecided' in a few states.
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440535 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 21:26:31
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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I can understand in general the caution of an
independent, but not this year, as far as voting.
Now that voter rolls are online, it is not safe in many
communities to list an affiliation.
For example, there are reeeeaaallly crazy people out
there, and for safety I don't dare put out a Harris
sign. There are very few yard signs for miles, unless
they are clearly nuts for Trump with multiple flags.
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440533 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 19:34:37
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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over 50% of people polled say saving democracy is their #1 concern in this election...
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440536 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 21:28:40
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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And those are the ones they could catch.
Apparently it's hard to reach educated people because
they are just too busy.
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440527 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 18:12:09
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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I'm going to sit with Mitra on this one.
This American agrees with her.
Enough Americans sit in those stands and, yeah..it's
most Americans.
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440537 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 21:32:11
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris Wahoo!! |
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440520 |
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Date: August 31, 2024 at 15:46:53
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Kamala Harris’ Secret Power: it's not about Kamala Harris |
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yes, at the point in time it is a majority opinion...stop lying...
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