Kamala Harris has launched her campaign for the White House, after President Joe Biden stepped aside Sunday under pressure from party leaders.
The vice president has Biden’s endorsement, and is unchallenged as yet for the Democratic nomination, which will be formally decided at the Aug. 19 convention in Chicago.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
In her statement, the vice president paid tribute to Biden’s “extraordinary leadership,” saying he had achieved more in one term than many presidents do in two.
You know what? I felt the same way before today. But I've been thinking about it a lot since the announcement, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Harris is the best possible presidential candidate.
Like you, I don't think she'd make the best president. Hell, she wasn't even in my top 10. I'd have vastly preferred someone like Hakeem Jeffries. But here's the thing: the person best suited for the office of president isn't necessarily the best person to run for president.
Harris has all of the advantages Biden had: she can run on this administration's record, since it was her administration too. Every positive talking point about the stuff that Biden's done for the country can equally apply to Harris. Additionally, she gets his entire war chest, and with the president's blessing today, she's likely going to have 100% party support as well. To make matters even better, she doesn't have any of the flaws he sported: she's young, she's sharp, she's great in debates, and because she's the antithesis of Biden in all of these respects, all of the criticisms pointed at Biden (which could also 100% be applied to Trump) will now all be applied to Trump and Trump alone.
Lastly, I think that now is the most favorable moment in our country's history for a non-white, non-male person to become president. She's got the built-in support of everybody who dreads another Trump presidency. A significant number of people who would vote for Biden but not Harris due to sexism or racism will be rethinking that position when the opposition is Donald Trump. Also, something like 40% of people in the US just simply don't vote. Biden would never appeal to those people, but a black / asian woman who has succeeded in a mostly male dominated field could be very inspirational to a large number of otherwise apathetic non-voters.
I honestly think that Harris being endorsed for President is just an unalloyed good. I don't see any realistic downsides, and an incredible number of upsides. It actually has me excited, which is a feeling I haven't felt since 2008.
Don't forget that the fascists will push away moderates everywhere because they have no idea how racist and sexist they are, nor how to hide it, because it's their entire platform.
I don't know where all this "I don't like Harris" stuff comes from. Considering the presidents we've had lately, hahaha... if she won, it would be amazing. I'm sure there are better people in the world, but they don't even get close to the White House. We have to be realistic. She's a great pick considering current political realities.
Oh for sure. Don't get me wrong; she's not my ideal president, but she'd still probably be in the top 5 presidents we've ever had. That's not necessarily making a judgment about her without seeing her performance first, it's more of a statement about how bad most US presidents are. Still, I have high hopes for a Harris presidency. I think she'll do a great job. She's just not my #1 draft pick.
I'm personally a little nervous about Harris--I remember the 2020 primary where her only notable accomplishments were accusing Biden of being racist over opposition to federal busing policies, and then flaming out shortly after and shuttering her campaign two months before the first caucus and polling single digits in California. Admittedly, she doesn't have the same headwinds now that she had in 2020--she doesn't have to differentiate herself from over a dozen other candidates and she won't struggle to raise money--but she also made some unforced errors (e.g. coming out for total elimination of private insurance before revealing a plan that included private plans, or admitting her own policy on busing was essentially identical to Biden's).
Hopefully, she'll run a much tighter campaign now since she'll inherit Biden's staff and can focus solely on attacking Trump, but I do have some concerns.
Polling single digits in California might actually be indicative of her having a better chance. The same reasons why she want the top choice in a deeply blue state may make her a stronger choice in more "on the fence" voters.
Agreed with all that! But I have one caveat.
the most favorable moment in our country's history for a non-white, non-male person to become president
Look, I cried tears of joy when Obama won. I mean that literally. But guess when the conservative hate machine got dialed to 11?
Some will say it started earlier, but I disagree. Back then I occasionally listened to Limbaugh and Hannity on the radio while running errands at work. They actually had some sane takes now and again. Wasn't very political, but I had my ear to the ground. The entire machine, especially Fox News, went so far off the rails in response to a black President, I simply couldn't listen to any of them, not for a second.
Conservative brains take time to assimilate new social conditions, gotta chip away at 'em. I'm already hearing the, "Fuck them!" replies, but that doesn't change the fact that these people exist and vote. And they're going to get more and more violent.
Look at LGBT rights. We got them to begrudgingly accept gay marriage. Fresh off that victory, liberals asked for more and more acceptance. Too much, too fast, they went full-on berserk. Now I feel gay rights are perhaps worse than before.
Scared to see what a double-whammy of a black woman does to their brains. I used to laugh about conservatives choking on their outrage, same with Christians. "Ha! Losing ain't ya!" But now it isn't so funny. They're in a corner and lashing out. What next?
All, or at least the vast majority, of those people you're talking about are already Trump voters. They're going to continue backing Trump no matter who the Democratic party picks. They saw a black guy get elected president, and that radicalized them. They aren't coming back. Pandering to the imaginary demographic of racists who will surely see the light if we elect the right candidate is simply a losing proposition.
Will there be right wing violence in response to a Harris presidency? Of course there will be. Is there right wing violence now? Of course there is. I understand that you're tired of hearing the "fuck them" replies, but seriously: fuck them. They are a cancer on this nation. Holding back on doing something good just because you're afraid that the fucking awful people you share a country with will do something awful just means that you never make any progress.
The thing is, they've already turned the hate machine up to 11. There's not much farther they can go than here.
Too much, too fast, they went full-on berserk.
Raises a conundrum I struggle with:
No one should have to wait for rights, true.
yet
Idiots vote, true.
How should we act if we know fighting for certain rights means fascists have an easier time in elections?
Should we…:
A. Be publicly on the right side of history at risk of losing an election to the detriment of all.
B. Be publicly on the wrong side of a human rights issue in order to win, then try to privately backchannel to make up for the sin.
(Perhaps a false binary here, so ready to be corrected.)
Idealist in me says fight at all costs, maybe it’ll work out. Pragmatist in me says “win the damn election & backchannel the heck out of your term.” Feel guilty either way.
Edit: corrected word to “wrong” from “right”
when you factor in funding logistics
This is an incredibly important point. Unless rich donors said they'd fully make up the current campaign war chest for the new candidate, there would be a significant funding issue. Being able to use the existing funds is extremely important.
As to that 2028 topic....If Harris wins, it pushes all of them all the way back to 2032. Many of those hopefulf may like their odds right now, as opposed to 8 years later, unless those same people are confident Harris will lose against Trump.
If Harris wins, this election is proof that a competitive primary that knocks out the incumbent isn't a death knell for the general. I promise you, Harris will have opponents.
mainly because of her time as a prosecutor.
What didn't you like about it?
She wasn't anyone's top 4 even in 2020. Between what they did before Super Tuesday then, and now this, this isn't democracy. This is DNC controlling what happens to prevent something like Bernie. People aren't getting choice and primaries are pointless.
People could have voted for someone other than Biden in the primaries. That was always an option. Just because the incumbent was running again didn't mean the voters HAD to vote for him.
Quick poll
Please up vote if you had a chance (I did, that's 1)
Please down vote if you didn't get a chance to vote for someone else in the primary
I will never understand why we don’t just force Super Tuesday on all 50 states. My dipshit of a state is the week after and I hate it
Voted for Marianne Williamson who had already withdrawn because A) she was the only other choice on the ballot and B) She is actually great in interviews. Dont agree with some of her conclusions but you can tell she is studied on political theory..
Dont think that really counts. The primary was yet another illusion of choice by the DNC who has proven they will make backdoor moves to nominate whoever they want since the days of Debbie Wasserman shultz and hillary
I didn't, but I'm registered independent, so I don't vote in the party primaries in my state.
This is DNC controlling what happens to prevent something like Bernie.
I've gradually come around to "they'd rather see Trump than someone like Bernie" despite snorting at it the first few times I heard it suggested.
Bernie is too old now honestly. I'd vote for him, but I don't think he'd win. At least where he is he can push for what's right.
She has also gotten close to $100M in funding just in the last 24 hours. From small donators.
That’s a record of some sort
I believe she’s more progressive
Convince me brother. I think we just sentenced ourselves to 8 years of "we'll still move to the right, just more slowly than Trump." Yes I'm going to vote for her, but would have loved for someone actually progressive to have a chance prior to 2032. If you run the calculus differently, tell me how.
She's Pro-Weed legalization, Pro-Medicare for All, and Pro-PRO Act. By all measures, she's significantly more left wing than Obama, so I don't exactly know how she could be "moving us to the right" at all.
Because sometimes people change their views because of personal growth and other times they say they have changed them for political expediency, which is the viewpoint considered by the article I linked. You are aware she was a prosecutor who made a career out of locking people up, right?
Edit: Not in the branch of discussion I thought we were, I had not linked the article here. https://www.theatlantic.com/...
Edit 2: The most relevant bit:
I can forgive a politician a vote on a crime bill that looks ill-conceived two decades later, or a too-slow evolution toward marijuana legalization, or even a principled belief in the death penalty, something I adamantly oppose. I find it far harder to forgive fighting to keep a man in jail in the face of strong evidence of innocence, running a team of prosecutors that withholds potentially exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys, and utterly failing as the state’s top prosecutor to rein in glaringly corrupt district attorneys and law enforcement.
At best, Harris displayed a pattern of striking ignorance about scandalous misconduct in hierarchies that she oversaw. And she is now asking the public to place her atop a bigger, more complicated, more powerful hierarchy, where abuses and unaccountable officials would do even more to subvert liberty and justice for all.
It's attitudes exactly like this why American Democrats are center right, and why we have had almost zero meaningful legislation to help the normal people for 40 years.
If your family survives this coming shitshow of a fasist coup, I hope you beg their forgiveness and tell them your small part in helping start it.
SCOTUS, Congress, and POTUS have all, regardless of party have catered to corporate interest over the citizenry an OVERWHELMING amount my entire life, and I remember life before the internet.
Sure we get a few crumbs, cars for clunkers, a crippled ACA, a constant 'will they, won't they' over college loans.
Meanwhile Citizens United gave corporations near unlimited influence, the repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the housing collapse in 2008 and the banks were bailed out. Even recently in COVID those most benefitted were the corporations and ultra wealthy who netted a 1.3 FUCKINGTRILLION dollar payday with almost no oversight or pressure to pay back, and we are STILL seeing fraud cases from that show up.
So was your little 3k 'gift' that was meant for relief during A FUCKING PANDEMIC in any way commesurate with the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS the owner class (who was at no financial risk at any time) got to keep?
Do you feel all these little crumbs of social support they have doled out in meager and begrudging ways makes up for the fact that no matter what their party, NEARLY EVERY MEMBER of our top seats in government are more concerned about the interests of the wealthy than they are in normal people?
why we have had almost zero meaningful legislation to help the normal people for 40 years.
The Affordable Care Act is why I was able to take a year off work to focus on my mental health after the pandemic crushed it. The Inflation Reduction Act is helping keep the renewable energy company I work for afloat and offering an optimistic future.
No one expects to end up on government assistance or using FMLA to take a few months off for an illness. We support it on the left because we know it's the fucking right thing to do.
It's all good and fine to criticize programs as useless theoretically when you don't rely on them. But when you've actually experienced them and needed them, your perspective changes heavily.
Democrats have gotten good shit done for the average person, and I've personally benefited from it when I really needed it.
Do you think the ACA that passed was the ACA originally intended? Because it wasn't, and there's only one party to blame for why.
I hope that one party you mean is the obstructionist republicans.
That's irrelevant to your original point.
And there's actually only one person to blame -- Lieberman's vote was required to pass the legislation, and he refused to vote for it unless single payer was removed.
So the DNC gets to make this decision not me. This is a last minute situation that hasn't happened since the 60s, every ounce of divisiveness will only embolden the "facist coup". The time is up, whoever they pick we've got to unite behind and hopefully rally voters to the booths. Honestly the presidency needs to be D so it can't veto/ can veto, the VP can tie break, and executive orders. She will hopefully be a beacon to encourage voters to get more D in the senate and house. The house/senate flips and your meaningful legislation point becomes moot. Lastly I have no clue what you are saying in the 2nd paragraph, somehow voting for Harris makes a facist coup? No clue what middle steps are included to achieve that outcome but you must know something I don't. Regardless I have no worries about my family but I appreciate the concern!
Dude, take a breath. You're coming off as unhinged. You'll probably call me a shill or something, then continue to ignore people it. It isn't all a grand conspiracy against you.
Back to the lesser of 2 evils. It never ends
The only way you'll get a candidate that aligns with 100% of your personal beliefs, is if you run for office yourself
That being said, I'd love a real leftwing candidate
And sometimes you have to run on or embrace the ideals of someone else just to get elected. Unfortunate.
Both candidates are right wing so it's not really "BOtH sIdEs." People on the left would like some representation for once.
Yes, that's what rational people do, pick the less damaging choice.
What the FUCK is wrong with you people who actively choose the more damaging choice for lulz?
I never endorsed anyone
And that’s how we get pulled further to the right. When did I say I had chosen anyone for the lulz. What the fuck is wrong with you jumping to conclusions?
I have yet to meet a forum poster who unironically used the phrase 'and that's how we get pulled further to the right' in response to a reply about not voting for a fucking convicted felon pedophile fascist that wasn't a fucking fascist themselves.
Yes, that's how first past the post voting works.
If the Dems can pull off a black woman president, the Republicans are gonna blow a gasket. I'd love to see that.
I'm sure they'll find their footing eventually, but so far it's been pretty piss poor. Aimless. I think it legit never occurred to them this could happen.
They were always piss poor about Obama, because there wasn't any ammunition to work with
The biggest grievance about her has been that she was overly hard on criminals, and that would backfire on them if they echoed that sentiment to the right wing base. It can piss off leftists though, so astroturfing leftist Internet folks while trying to not say it too loud so people on the right won't hear it seems to be the game.
They're regressives. Thinking ahead is exactly what that isn't.
Which is hilarious, since Biden is old as fuck, and has one of the most stressful jobs in the world. You'd think they'd already have a contingency plan in place in case he kicked the bucket while in office with all of the hate talking points for Harris.
I wonder if the 'Black' part means less to the republican party than her being a pretty competent woman. I can see Harris pulling a LOT of single issue woman voters over the abortion rights issue. And that scares the republican party. It would kill the down ticket vote as well.
"Law and order" to Republicans means "use the law to enforce the order."
The "soft on crime" line is completely broken, though. They can't use it against her because the response is how she built a career around holding felons like Donald Trump accountable, and nothing else. There is zero comeback.
good point. funny how the "tough on crime" people are supporting a convicted felon. of course as with all of their issues it's just code for bigotry.
they don't care about crime, they want to oppress black people.
they don't care about the sanctity of marriage or family, they want to oppress gay people.
they don't care about the welfare of babies, they want to oppress women.
and as an obvious part of that of course they never cared about women's safety in public places or women's sports, they just want to oppress trans people.
she built a career around holding felons like Donald Trump accountable
I hope she gets a chance to say something like that to his face in a debate
I think I would shit my pants from happiness if that happened
I think we'd all shit your pants.
I'm next after this person!
Rumour has it that Trump shits his pants, or at least pisses his pants. There was a whole "real men wear nappies" thing in support of him when it was around.
I don't think we can have a president with one fucking ear anyway.
There's just no way.
It's all or bust for trump. He's not gonna choose bust.
Now we just need to get Trump to step down. Then we can have a less insane election.
If that hands the GOP nomination to Vance, then Vance would completely destroy any of the Democrats who the Dem establishment could possibly let run. This was obvious on watching about a minute of Vance's VP acceptance speech on the news. Dems should be careful what they ask for.
Yeah nobody here likes him
then Vance would completely destroy any of the Democrats who the Dem establishment could possibly let run.
Well...
In February, during an episode of Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Vance said that he cared more about the security of the US southern border than the Russian troop build-up near Ukraine. “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” Vance said.
"“Indigenous Peoples’ Day” is a fake holiday created to sow division. Of course Joe Biden is the first president to pay it any attention."
“I am as pro life as anyone, and I want to save as many babies as possible. This is not about moral legitimacy but political reality.”
“There are dozens of people who protested on J6 who haven’t even been charged with a crime yet are being mistreated in DC prisons. A friend suggested the below link if you’re able to support them.”
Vance said that Trump should “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat” in the US government and “replace them with our people.” If the courts attempt to stop this, Vance says, Trump should simply ignore the law. “You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it,” he declares. The President Jackson quote is likely apocryphal, but the history is real. Vance is referring to an 1832 case, Worcester v. Georgia, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the US government needed to respect Native legal rights to land ownership. Jackson ignored the ruling, and continued a policy of allowing whites to take what belonged to Natives. The end result was the ethnic cleansing of about 60,000 Natives — an event we now call the Trail of Tears.
Yeah, Democrats will sure have a tough time with him...
Well, maybe you're right, I had basically never heard of Vance until Trump picked him. But his acceptance speech was written to eat the Democrats' lunch, since they weren't willing to eat it themselves. And that stuff you quoted will delight Trump supporters, and maybe not bother too many Democrats.
"I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler" - JD Vance
He's no different from Ted Cruz. Was against Trump, then later supported him. Both of these guys grew a beard after flipping to be huge Trump supporters too.
And also the fact that he's an obvious ivy league elite who pretends to be a "common man."
I don't know, will Republicans vote for a gay man?
I’m going to need 4 months of how old trump is, starting right now.
Him being a fascist and all kinda overshadows that.
Apparently not for voters. But we did keep hearing about how Biden was too old to be president.
You can be too old to be president, but never too fascist!
Biden wasn't just "too old," he was showing clear signs of dementia... Trump just shows clear signs of narcissistic personality disorder and low IQ, but that's not new.
Sure. Trump isn't showing any sort of signs of dementia at all. Not any.
Last week, he appeared to refer to his wife Melania Trump as “Mercedes” during his CPAC remarks. The week before that he told Michigan voters to vote on the “very important date” of November 27, though the state’s primary election was on February 27.
“Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people,” Trump said.
He said that in-between getting shot and his acceptance speech, then went right back to the same old bullshit.
A turd is still a turd no matter how much you shine it.
If anyone is concerned that there is only 4 months until the election, remember Jacinda Adern became opposition leader 3 months before the 2017 election and won - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41675801
She was a kind, empathetic leader and was great at uniting the country in crisis... multiple times.
Unfortunately she was distinctly average as a stable environment politician. Wouldn't want her as PM now but would be great if we could hire her out on call when everything does hit the fan again.
I worked at a Sydney airport shop years ago and she would come through our area from time to time. She was approachable, easy to talk to and despite having big spooky security guys around, was happy to just go shopping and wait for her flight.
The Fijian PM at the time used to come through, crack jokes, run up a bill and then jokingly ask one of his security guys to buy all the stuff for him. He was a really funny bloke and he made our day.
Jacinda Adern wasn't just a good leader for New Zealand, she was a good leader for the world in the covid crisis. She's the reason several of my elderly relatives are still alive. Under Boris Johnson, the UK policy was initially "herd immunity" which basically means wait till everyone gets infected and then those that survive will be immune and it'll stop spreading and die out.
They actually moved covid patients from hospitals into care homes, which seems stupid on the face of it, but was at least consistent in persuing the maximum death policy. The Conservatives had heard that non white people, poor people, people with preexisting health conditions (who cost a lot in the UK's free health care system) and elderly people (who cost a lot in state pensions and state supported places in care homes) we're worst affected. I think they saw whole scale death as a cost cutting measure and we're never fans of ethnic minority folk or poor folk.
Anyway, along comes Jacinda Adern and implements lockdowns and travel restrictions and it works and it's seem as sensible, then the Scottish leader at the time, Nicola Sturgeon, does the lockdown thing and it's seem as responsible and then a fortnight later, Boris Johnson does it for England and Wales. We might not have abandoned our death first policy of it weren't for the international leadership of Jacinda Adern.
Meanwhile, Boris copied another policy from abroad where you give vast sums of picnic money to drug companies to jump the queue on vaccines. This worked out well for us and was the best thing he ever did in his entire self-serving lying life. Of course he lied about it by claiming that being in the EU would have prevented it (it didn't, and a few EU states went their own way on vaccines, facts never got in the way of what Boris wanted to say).
The whole VIP lane for masks and gowns, if you didn't hear about it was the most bold faced corruption enabling scheme the UK has done in my life. No tendering process, no checks, no process, you don't even have to be in a related industry, just, and I'm not kidding or exaggerating at all, literally if your company was recommended by a conservative mp, they were in the VIP lane and the government would order as much equipment as your company claimed you could supply. Guess what happened!
Anyway, I'll always be grateful to Jacinda Adern. I credit her with not losing any close relatives to covid.
Does the New Zealand system have a restricted 3 month official campaign period the way the UK does? A lot of Kiwi government shares similar structure with the British system.
The US doesn't, and normally campaigning spans a substantially longer period of time.
kagis
Yeah, this sounds like they do. Three months.
Friday 14 July
Regulated period for election advertising expenses begins
Friday 13 October
Regulated period ends. All election advertising must end. Signs must be taken down by midnight.
Saturday 14 October
Election day.
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/...
Four hundred and forty-four days prior to the 2024 presidential election, millions of Americans tuned into the first Republican primary debate. If this seems like a long time to contemplate the candidates, it is.
By comparison, Canadian election campaigns average just 50 days. In France, candidates have just two weeks to campaign, while Japanese law restricts campaigns to a meager 12 days.
You can argue whether the US should or shouldn't restrict the campaigning period (though I'm almost certain that doing so would violate the First Amendment and thus require a new constitutional amendment permitting it to put into force).
But the thing is, Trump doesn't have that restriction, the American system doesn't normally expect it, and Harris is going to be trying to run a British-length campaign with no lead time for prep in the American system when her opponent has no such restrictions. She is gonna have to hit the ground running.
Also, American presidential campaign spending and fundraising is very large compared to the European levels I've seen. Dunno what things are like in New Zealand, but I remember that when Hillary ran against Trump in 2016, each campaign spent about a billion dollars.
EDIT: I don't know if this is directly comparable, because it sounds like Kiwi rules don't have parties declare donations under $1,500 (and I don't know if these aggregate figures include individual contributions that don't have to be reported individually). I think so, because this is measuring spending, not donations. The Kiwi system is parliamentary rather than presidential and so the race for the executive is the same as the race for the legislature, whereas the spending above is only for the executive race in the US, excludes all legislative campaign spending. And I'm not clear on whether this includes donations to individuals, which apparently can differ from party donations, though the Westminster system is more party-centric than the American one, where candidates need to do a lot more of their fundraising and spending thenselves. But without my digging much more, some Kiwi numbers:
Labour spent $1m more than National to lose the 2023 election
The ACT Party spent more than National, declaring $2.77m in expenses. NZ First spent $1.51m on a campaign which returned them to Government alongside National and ACT, whereas the Green Party spent $1.33m on a campaign that achieved wins in key electorate seats.
Also, those are Kiwibucks, not American dollars, so the USD numbers are only something like 60% of that. Accounting for that, if the numbers are comparable, that'd be the largest-spending Kiwi party doing $1.6 million USD across all of their seats compared to the US presidential campaigns alone doing about $1 billion.
Harris has got to raise some -- or all, not sure whether she can get funds from the Biden-Harris campaign warchest -- of that in the time remaining, which means that she's gotta convince people that she is who they want to be president enough to pitch into the war chest so that she can spend that to sell herself to the public. She has to build a campaign, plan to spend the money, and do so to target voters. Not much time to iterate doing that.
And keep in mind that the first Republican presidential debate mentioned above, 444 days before the election, isn't when those people started campaigning, and certainly isn't when they started planning their campaign. It's just an early milestone in the campaign. Harris is gonna have to pull all of this off in about three and a half months.
The US presidential election is an awfully large and expensive marketing fight for voter minds.
EDIT2: One positive sign for her: this person says that she believes that Harris most likely can get access to the funds that the Biden-Harris campaign has, so that'll help get her some of the way there:
Harris can likely get immediate access to the Biden campaign’s roughly $96 million donation pot, according to Anna Massoglia, an investigations manager at the campaign finance research center, OpenSecrets.
“The general consensus among most people that I’ve spoken with is that she can use the funding,” Massoglia told CNBC in an interview.
And she picked up a little more after announcing:
But it wasn’t just the big donors who responded to Biden’s announcement: The progressive donation platform ActBlue initially said it raised $27.5 million from small-dollar donors in the five hours after Biden endorsed Harris. Later, the company announced it raised over $45 million.
Lucky for her she also has a significant national and international threat as her opponent. She isn't an unknown going in to try take 50% - she's already got all the votes for those who see what Trump is.
she isn't an unknown
I mean, that's true. But she's a not-terribly-high-profile veep. The regular crowd has been campaigning for over a year. Hell, Trump served as President, and he's got the visibility from that; he started campaigning for Trump-for-President like a decade ago.
Yeah, okay, Harris ran for Senate and California Attorney General, maybe they can draw some material from those campaigns or something, though running for President and targeting specially the Midwest isn't quite running to be a senator for California in terms of what material will work best, but they're gonna have to start getting people to put together a lot of content and to get it out there.
Harris has no campaign website, no volunteer network, no...like, I'm assuming that she has to be expecting to get at least a substantial chunk of the Biden-Harris campaign infrastructure, and hoping that Biden's endorsement will result in his volunteers volunteering for her.
checks
It looks like Biden's 2024 campaign website, joebiden.com, just redirects to ActBlue, a Democratic donations website, with a plain text message put up by him. They don't even have a graphic, campaign logo, anything. Like, they didn't have all this lined up and ready to go hot, or I expect that it would have redirected to a Harris campaign website.
looks further
They haven't even taken down the old website's content, just had the main page redirect.
Well, this is gonna be a historic campaign, win or lose.
She can campaign on access to abortion, healthcare and if she wants to really get radical, weed.
Who?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinda_Ardern
Labour prime minister of New Zealand. She was great, I was sad when she stepped down.
Also, she is a cop/lawyer. She's prolly pretty good at arguing as long as she can handle the big(ger) stage.
I wonder if she convicted anyone of falsification of business records? It would be interesting if she mentioned that as one of her past accomplishments while on the stage with someone found guilty of 34 counts of that crime.
Trump won’t debate her. He’s fucking stupid, but he’s not that fucking stupid.
Oh I quite think that he’d love to debate her! However his handlers will absolutely go bonkers trying to get him to shut up about it to keep that from happening.
Damn, this would be amazing to see.
About 30 seconds ago I felt a little smarter not knowing you exist, yet in so few words you've made yourself pretty thoroughly known.
Four months is plenty of time. Biden will be backing her. The DNC has voting wolves ready to kick their asses. Bernie and AOC both supported Biden and are wise enough to support Harris, and others will follow their example. Back to point #2, and to reaaaally highlight something obscenely important:
They listened.
Take that in for a meager second. Now ask yourself if we could get those prideful fucks to back down, and also get an old lifetime politician to step aside in a historical move, do you understand what we could potentially do if we complained half as hard as you do when so much shit isn't on the line?
Oh, and give us an alternative that matches three things:
- Not invisible
- Likely to have larger support
- Not old asf
I think you'll find 3 to be rather important for a LOT of people right now.
I'm saving this to use later, because it's amazing, thank you, "About 30 seconds ago I felt a little smarter not knowing you exist"
I prolly agree with you, and you seem to have a good handle on the current political climate (thus an intelligent head on your shoulders), which is why I think it’s worth my time to suggest some introspection w/r/t your first sentence. Thanks for your consideration.
No, I support the mockery. This isn't Fox News, not everyone gets equal time.
Before the Pandemic I would have agreed. However, because of people's stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to facts, proof, and the science itself, people died. Many of them died through no fault of their own, or the fault of others, which is bad enough. However, many died because of those we gave too much leeway and understanding to. If being hopelessly polite and stretching my own patience to unimaginable lengths cause ANYONE to die, I may as well be a part of the cause of their death. Tolerance is no longer an option. Like it or not, there are lives at stake this time as well.
I stood against the anti-vaccine and anti-mask fools. I am sure as hell going to stand against the people who in bad faith claim to be Democrats or left-leaning. Who claim to want what's best. Who shout their claims that their way is the only way when it clearly leads us down a dark path. I will stand against them.
Because it has to be done.
Lol yeah what are Bernie and AOC supposed to do? Not support anyone and take on the backstabbers on their own? It is too late for any alternative. It was go with Biden who has a chance to win and beat Trump before or just giving Trump the win on the silver platter. Now I just hope Trump is so incompetent that there will be a next election or at least that he doesnt care about the rest of the world and only focusses on the US so at least we are safe. I hope the betraying Dems will realize their mistake and be deeply sorry for it.
I disagree. Biden slowly eroded his chance. Key moments were the beginning of his reelection campaign, the debate, and the failed assassination attempt on Trump. Because this election period is all about image, Biden hasn't been able to keep up despite his intelligence and his strong and generally positive policies and record so far. In any other election year he'd be fine. At this moment he's missed his chances to come back stronger than before. If his team and the DNC ran PR for a large corporation we'd be laughing them off of Twitter. They bumbled and through their combined negligence Trump has gained a stronger foothold with specifically the Right.
I'll explain a little more: When you are in a position of leadership there is a default level of trust you should strive to maintain, and trust is very difficult to gain back. So...
Biden should have not sought reelection. However, because he did he should have come out and said that he believes he is best equipped to beat Trump. That if it became clear he wasn't going to be able to that he would step aside for the best of this Nation and the people who put their trust in him. Boom. A leader who tells us straight and reinforces that he's here for all of us.
Not sought any debate. It was always lose-lose without a monumental performance. Trump looks like normal Trump and ANY fumble lowers Biden's image. Had he had that showing 12 years ago people would have laughed it off and he'd recover and probably do okay. That isn't this timeline. Rather than going Dark Brandon and really leaning into his strengths, injecting caffeine straight into his bloodstream, and take a couple weeks of back-to-back calls, speeches, and talkshows with hard questions where he doesn't back down, he just...let it simmer. Recovery chance critically missed.
The attempt on Trump's life. This secured Biden in Trump's shadow. Not because he lost any voters in particular, it likely didn't shift the narrative and expectations. What happened is because Biden didn't have a strong reelection foundation, despite great strides while in office, he allowed Trump to essentially camp out on his front lawn. Trump is a show man, which idiots mistake for charisma. Biden has moments of great leadership and a clarity which makes people want to follow him...at times. He lacks that spark which makes people want to follow consistently.
This leaves us with three options:
Keep Biden in and hope his name is enough to pull him back up, or something happens and all but guarantees a win.
Find someone people want to follow and have them be in the constant spotlight for the next four months. I can think of maybe four people who have the charisma and political clout to make this work. None of them have volunteered.
Nominate an individual who can make strong arguments against every position Trump takes and who will have historical significance if made President. This leads us to Harris. She is not particularly charismatic. Far as I've been able to tell, she CAN argue like a mofo. Charisma inspires confidence because it inspires hope, or at least grants the hopeless a direction. Lacking that doesn't mean you can't lead, it does mean you need to be stronger in other areas, and more importantly it means you only have to lead better than the other guy. This means Harris's team needs a good writer for the moments where she needs to puff out her chest and square her shoulders, and also need to give her room to work her Prosecutor magic when needed.
So far as my information goes, this is where we're at. Dems need to play hard ball, which might be the most worrisome thing of it all.
I bet you were talking about how Biden was too old and needs to step down not too long ago.
Biden was going to lose. Do you really think they'd go through all this if that wasn't the reality of the situation?
According to the same pollsters cold calling boomers and then acting surprised reality doesn't match up
It's a huge advantage to her that she was invisible.
She doesn't have any baggage.
Perfectly choreographed.
After the debate and especially after the botched assassination attempt, I felt despair and a hopeless sense of certainty that our comrades in the USA would have to endure a Trump presidency and all of us around the world would suffer the consequences.
I'm genuinely optimistic now. I think Harris can win.
People who complain about her not being a socialist or how electoralism won't change the system are missing the point. Those are true things, but the alternative is a fascistic climate change denier with the Sons of Jacob as his cabinet.
The Americans are standing at a crossroads between an increasingly fragile status quo and tyranny. As much as I hate the status quo, I'm glad that the odds are now smiling far less at tyranny.
EDIT after the election: Lol
Thank you. Well said, rambling lunatic.
Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson rambling lunatic for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particulary glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
That might be the funniest outcome.
Who is Kelly?
I would not be surprised if John Glenn's failed presidential bid poisoned the idea of a former astronaut as VP candidate in the eyes of the DNC. They're all old.
Yeah, Democrats famously talk all the time about how much worse the election would have gone had it been John Glenn running against Reagan instead of Walter Mondale.
Senator, astronaut, navy captain, identical twin, and straight white man.
And his wife is Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived being shot in the head in an assassination attempt (and I mean actually shot in the head, not just a grazed ear).
AOC for running mate! AOC for running mate!
Okay I see your point. AOC is like a very young and sexy Bernie.
I very much am hoping that Gretchen Whitmer gets picked for VP. Trump picked Vance to draw in the Midwest votes, Gretch could easily kick him in the balls if picked
As much as that would be a neat historic thing, and probably a good pairing, the Midwest can be as backwater as the South and would lean Fighter Pilot over Two Women, unfortunately. Can't take risks chasing achievements when we need to play the game to win...and the harder trump fails, the better. I want him to see the entire country reject him in a landslide before he slips into the torment and constant fear of full blown dementia for the rest of his miserable days.
The only running mate for Kamala is Kamala
Read in another thread, and haven’t looked it up yet mind you, but apparently AOC is 1 year too young.
AOC is eligible. She would meet the requirements set forth in the Constitution at the time of her inauguration.
People continue to spread misinformation about her eligibility.
Thank you for confirming. That’s be one hell of a ticket. 😍
Huh, didn't know her birthday offhand. So she'll be 35 by Jan 20, 2025? And she of course is a natural born US citizen who has lived in the US for the requisite number of years.
Normally POTUS candidates pick VPs that in their minds shore up their perceived weak spots among voters to make them overall more electable. So who do you think Harris would do worst with and why would AOC draw that demographic in?
AOC is an actual progressive. I don't know very much about Harris, and I'm going to vote for her regardless, but I'm not a big fan of law enforcement in general. I'm reading through her Wikipedia page, which seems to be the only non biased source I can find that goes over her LEO career.
AOC is outspoken about issues that I care about, she seems to actually want something better for the working class. It's hard to feel that a former state prosecutor has the best interest of the working class in mind.
I could see two strategies.
Some leftist people who are hard core ACAB, for those AOC may be so appealing that they don't mind voting for a prosecutor.
However if they want to moderate concerns of sexists and racists, they would want to run some milquetoast white guy. While the full on sexist/racist is a lost cause, there are people who are more unconsciously racist/sexist they might think to get the vote of.
I'm guessing they see the latter as the biggest risk to mitigate.
Besides the obvious magas and Republicans, who would never vote blue anyway, Kamala will be weakest with progressive young people. And I know people like to say there's no use going after those people (now half the voting population!) because they don't vote, but they actually DO vote when you give them someone worth voting for. Their numbers are also growing, while the centrist boomer population is declining.
My problem is not that it is misinformation, my problem is that Republicans could use it to gum up the elections in the courts.
The three basic requirements are clearly laid out in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. Neither the 14th or 22nd Amendments apply.
It's cut and dried, with precedent. There is nothing remotely questionable about her eligibility. If the concern is that the opposition party doesn't care about precedent, then the rulebook is completely tossed out anyway and we're dealing with a different conversation altogether.
Anyone pushing the narrative that she does not meet the basic requirements is either engaging in pointless hand wringing, expressing ignorance about the requirements, or actively spreading a falsehood.
She'll be old enough before the inauguration, she's eligible.
NOW KICK THAT FASCIST FUCK OF A RAPIST PIG IN THE BALLS AS HARD AS YOU CAN
Right in the coconuts.
Wow, weird, getting red guard vibes. Didn't knew Lemmy was stuck in 1966
Is he tiling a shower?
Didn't like her in the primaries, still don't like her now but honestly she's the best shot Democrats have now. I'm just so pissed off that Democrats and Biden waited this long and now have to scramble like this.
It's absolutely infuriating at this level of incompetence.
Meh. Timing is pretty good imo.
4 months is loads of time for her to establish a brand.
Great distraction from everything that's gone wrong.
How long until a major Republican drops a hard R n-word accidentally?
I wouldn't doubt someone already has, on purpose, but behind closed doors.
I doubt they can keep it private now that a black (Asian?) woman is running. Someone will say the quiet part out loud and on record.
Accidentally? Could be years or decades. "Accidentally", it's probably already happened multiple times, let's be honest.
Is there any way she's not nominated? I'd like to donate to the Dem nominee as soon as humanly possible.
This is such a quintessential American question. Never in my life have I had to donate my hard earned money to a political candidate, it is such a strange concept to me.
Yeah I was reading the comments in another thread and multiple people were talking about donating money to the democrat candidate
They're giving money to politicians? Are they fucking insane?
Another article I was reading was about how one of their politicians has managed a 700% markup on her investment portfolio in the last decade and nobody was actually calling for this woman to be fucking jailed for insider trading, it was just "Oh yep, they're corrupt and that's how it is"
Then they want to donate money? 😂 Fuck me
The problem is their retail politics style being more costly.
It's not like I'm dying to hand my money over to someone who's probably a millionaire. But, you see, I really really really hate Trump.
Could turn out she's a convicted felon, sexual assault allegations may arise, or have conspired to commit treason.
Hahaha, yeah. Would be hilarious if it wasn't depressing as fuck.
Well that clearly doesn't stop nominations at this point.
Yup 😊
Doubtful that anyone else could get as much steam as her at this point. And the endorsement from so many have already rolled in, including POTUS. Though she might have to go through the formal nomination process, it's clear he's passing the torch to her. They broke the record for donations this year today alone!
It already seems like a done deal to me.
I questioned the idea of Biden dropping out via press release on a Sunday afternoon, but so far it has proven to be a masterstroke. They took advantage of a lull in the news cycle to completely control the narrative and present a united front in place of all the infighting we had just a day before.
I'm pretty sure the DNC and it's donors helped force this hand, so I wouldn't be surprised if they field a different candidate.
That being said, I'd actually like to see a non shill run who will actually fulfill his promises with legislation and not half ass executive orders that die after 5 seconds.
They'll never let Bernie in, but like cmon choose at least someone who can agree genocide is not good. Can't believe we're still scraping the bottom of the barrel for requirements here.
After all the shit they gave Biden about his age, do you think Bernie, who's even older, would be a good idea?
...which was due to his age. It can come on rapidly; he's noticeably less sharp than he was 4 years ago.
Through a horrific series of events I watched him debate with Desantos on Fox News. I was fairly impressed with the job he did. I still have no idea why Desantos agreed to debate him lol.
Kamala/AOC ticket could win it I think
The American public isn't yet ready for AOC in executive office, as great a she would be. Her time is yet to come.
Yeah I don't totally disagree there... This would be a great time to force it though... If it was someone like Romney rather than Trump then a lot of centrist Dem/Reps would probably shift to him, but with Trump, I don't think they'll do that, at least not enough to matter... They'll take anyone other than Trump. So AOC doesn't cost us all that many votes from the center (under these particular circumstances) but she WOULD bring in millions of young progressive votes that will probably just stay home or vote 3rd party if there's no progressive for them to vote for.
True, but there's also a VERY loud dissent against her on the right, which they would be happy to run with in their ads up to the election. The right - and the sponsors behind them (Russia, chiefly) - ate experts at loudly dispersing disinformation with their rhetoric (see: anti-vaxers, everything about trump, etc), and having AOC in the spotlight would give them a lot of ammo in the form of ThE rAdIcAl LiBeRaLs "talking over the executive office" etc. I just don't trust that the milquetoast voting public wouldn't buy into that loud rhetoric enough to not siphon more votes than they would gain. Unless that's too pessimistic of me?
No one who was going to vote for Biden is about to vote for Trump just because Kamala is a black woman... Stop worrying what the Republicans are going to think... They were going to think that about any "lib", and it doesn't matter because they were never going to vote for a Dem. The only people we need to worry about are the young progressives who still have no one to vote FOR and might stay home because of it... Throw AOC on the ticket and a lot of them will get excited enough to show up.
Yep probably... But that's the wrong move... Those people aren't about to switch to Trump just because they're uncomfortable with a black woman... Trump is just too much of a Trump you know? Like if it was Romney running as R... Then yeah, but Trump is different. The people who "always vote" are going to vote blue no matter who... It's the young progressives that need to be swayed to vote at all. And there are significantly more young people who could be swayed to show up than there are centrists who might switch to Trump instead of a black woman.
Honestly I think a Newsom/AOC ticket would do even better than Kamala/AOC... Just have to have someone actually progressive on there to get the young progressive left excited enough to show up
i really hope kamala gets nominated. Shes younger than most candidates, under my age range for politicians (just barely) and experienced enough to be capable for the position.
There is literally no better candidate you could pick other than her, but a white man instead, because that would assuage a few more voters lmao.
Oh no
Well I'd pick one of handful of progressive democrats the Dems have or Bernie but that ain't happening. I'd at least pick Newsom.
Pick someone that is willing to run. Because thats how things work.
Ok. But fuck, if you have to have a cop out, waffle house excuse to say newsom, i have a hard time believing you. Newsome is hard for the fact that hes a "hard D" california govenor and you take a good hit in the swing states. Thats a real liability. Thats fair. Stand by it. Say that. "But Bernie" my ass. Bernie doesnt want it now.
Dont say "oh no" and not have an honest opinion that you arent willing to put your nuts behind. Get on board, or gtfo.
I swear. As a dem, and ill be honest, what pisses me off the most is that we are our own worst enemy. We waffle and push for a vauge replacement with no game plan, and bitch and moan when the answer given "just isnt quite what we want".
We could have had an honest to god game plan a year ago. But we didnt get our shit together. Thats on you, thats on me, and its sure as fuck on the DNC. But we dont have that option now.
Fucks sake. Rant over. Sorry for being frustrated at a two word post and a half baked response. Fuck.
Bro what are you on about. Kamala came in dead last in the 2020 primary. She's has a enormous amounts of baggage like jailing kids and parents for skipping school.
She's more right wing that Biden. Why would anyone vote for diet Republican when they can have the real thing.
Trying to START a presidential campaign with less than 6 months is futile. We're doomed. By this time next year we will be living in a Fascist Theocracy
If the dems don't get their shit together soon the election will be over before they've even put someone on the ticket.
She's not Trump.
I promise that if elected, I will not be Donald Trump.
Funny, that's the platform Biden ran on!
I'd like a candidate that runs on a platform that can't be fulfilled by all dogs and most varieties of fungi please.
I agree, however, I'll take what we can get right now...
I’d love that too. But I’ll settle for this right now
I'd love for him to be the vp running mate, and I love Bernie, but he's the exact same age as Biden. He's still sharp and awesome, but you can't expect one 81 year old to have to quit, while putting in another 81 year old and think there's a chance of him winning.
Bernie is actually 82.
I wish he won in 2016, but I agree his time has now passed despite him being still with it.
I would suck a dick for a Bernie presidency, but that would require the DNC to do some aggressive shit to appoint someone that they have blatantly fucked over multiple times.
Hilary 2.0.
She doesn't have to worry about people turned off by Biden in general to win the nomination. She doesn't need to care about voters at all to win the nomination, she just has to appeal to a handful of DNC operatives because the primary is over.
Assuming the Biden can't simply reassign his delegates to Harris that is - in which case she's essentially already won the nomination before she even started running.
Now the election on the other hand...the election also isn't particularly about what she has to offer. The election is all about Trump. People are either voting for Trump or not-Trump, and the vast majority of not-Trump voters aren't all that concerned with what form not-Trump takes so long as it isn't Trump. It's entirely a matter of turnout.
I'm more curious whether she'll go for a milquetoast generic moderate Democrat or a progressive well to her left - if nothing else it will say something about what she sees as her bigger weakness. I'd put odds on a white guy either way to appease the lesser racists (aka the same reason Biden was Obama's VP).
I do think she still needs to be careful on Israel for the General, people were serious about the Uncommitted vote.
I am willing to vote for her (and I would not vote Biden under any circumstance), but I will never put it past Democrats to fumble even under the best conditions, let alone in this clusterfuck.
People are ready to compromise, hopefully she doesn't swallow her own tongue or tie her own shoelaces together or whatever.
So were you not going to vote at all or were you going to vote for Trump?
Kamala Harris is probably the second-worst candidate behind Hillary Clinton that the Democrats could field against Trump. She's disliked, she's a hypocrite (look at her current 'stance' on legalizing marijuana compared to her previous record as a prosecutor where she ruined thousands of lives with criminal convictions for smoking wacky tobaccy), and a vote for Biden was going to be a de-facto vote for her regardless, because we know that if Biden was going to fall seriously ill or die during his second term, she'd take over the presidency.
The Democrats have many better candidates to run. I hope they don't make the mistake of backing Biden's running mate.
Who exactly do they have who's "better", who ALSO would agree to run, who ALSO doesn't have a mountain of baggage saddled with them? I've seen Whitmer thrown around, but she's had a serious smear campaign and a credible assassination attempt against her already. Beshear's another, he said he isn't going to accept even if the DNC nominates him. Sanders also gets tarred with the "but he's old" brush, plus the GOP can run thousands of hours of "he's a literall socialist". AOC is also similarly divisive, and I don't think she'd accept anyway.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, plenty of good candidates.
Sanders would be a bad choice because he's too old and while he's certainly more compos mentis than Biden, he cannot escape that criticism. Michael Bloomberg would also be a similarly bad candidate for the same reason, plus also for running an incredibly expensive and half-assed campaign last time around.
Ladbrokes currently have Michelle Obama as the second-favourite to win the Democrat nomination. She would actually be a great choice because it means Barack gets another four to eight years in the White House, albeit as the First Man. She also seems like a very sensible candidate in her own right.
Alternatively, they could go the Reagan/Trump route and usher in a celebrity as their candidate. Someone like Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift, Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Fallon would be huge.
Yang? Already flamed out once, and had very few specific policy goals beyond UBI.
AOC? If she accepts, which I doubt, she'll face challenges of "she's too young" despite her being of-age by the inauguration, and would certainly see a federal or SCOTUS case trying to disqualify her. I could see BOEs in multiple states trying to boot her off the ballot because of it.
Warren and Buttigieg both are saddled with lots of baggage - Warren's already been tarred as a nut by mainstream media, and Buttigieg's performance as Secretary of Transportation is...lackluster.
Michelle Obama would be foolish - it would see the same challenges as Hilary in the "we're building another dynasty" angle.
Oprah is a poor choice, Taylor Swift, same. Colbert and Fallon would seriously be BAD choices.
Michelle/AOC would crush it... That would be awesome
They don't have anyone better right now.
At least now we don't have to deal with Republicans attacking Biden for his age and we can turn that around on Trump.
I could run a full list of pros and cons on the woman but at the end of the day we got an upgrade if this decision should have been made much earlier. Gotta always vote blue no matter who. Can't let Republicans get in.
Of course, they'll attack her for her gender and skin color.
not her gender or color
it is the fact that she wants her boots licked
Remember a couple of days ago where you complained about Biden not doing something and I showed everyone a screenshot of you complaining about it when Biden did do that thing 10 months earlier?
she is a prosecutor
her career was spent putting people in jail with Biden's crime bills
I am absolutely aware of her history as the district attorney of San Francisco and how she targeted young black men with nonviolent offenses throughout her career.
She was my least favorite out of the three options mentioned back in 2020 for VP but at the end of the day she's not Trump.
I won't agree with her on everything but Trump is this massive danger to society that can't be overlooked or allowed any ground.
Third worst candidate; fortunately the second-worst already stepped down.
She's barely in the public eye. When Jimmy Kimmel had her on his show, he did one of his 'ask the people on Hollywood boulevard' segments where he asked them who the VP was and people just kept getting it wrong or didn't even know.
Polls, polls, polls.
First, it’s Biden is too old. Now, it is polls, which have time and time been proven to not mean shit.
Since you apparently forgot the last time polls were discussed so much
Cheers.
I agree Whitmer would be the best chance at beating Trump in general.
But I do think that Harris can still do that job and that there's logistical reasons why it's going to be that.
I wish we'd have Whitmer, but I'm not terrified of it being Harris the way I was if Biden stayed in the race.
And if she picks a good VP that helps round out the ticket with the middle of the country, I could see the new ticket getting momentum.
AOC rationalizes selling out her principles to unite the big tent and become part of the dynastic club as VP.
Newsom ensures neoliberal outcomes with appeal to neoliberals and fence Republicans as Pres.
The big tent unites. Democrats win.
Lol, im sure its just a coicidence that you are parroting the GOP by calling on Biden to resign the presidency right now.
No, it would not strengthen her campaign if her running mate made the entirely unprecedented move of resigning in office for no stated reason. The procedural shitshow a GOP house would make the process would become the whole news cycle until the election.
She is a much, much stronger canidate in her current role, being able to brag about every Biden/Harris accomplishment and not have any baggage of an active presidency, especially one that would be assumed in a ginned up shit show by her politcal opponents.
You might want to actually go read Article 25 if you believe there would be a Republican controlled shit-show.
Republicans have no say under section 1. President Biden says "I'm out" and Vice President Harris becomes President. Congress has no say, the Senate had no say, nobody has any say but the President and the Vice President.
The President could give a reason, or he could choose not to do so.
The only time Congress is involved is under Section 4.
Section 1 covers everything from "Take this job and shove it" to "I'm tired and want to spend more time with my family"
I repeat Congress has no say. There is no political debate. There is simply "I'm out, you're in."
First off, this congress will gin up a hearing on anything, then sue when it doesnt go their way. Second off, in this situation the house and senate has to approve the new VP. They 100% will make that an absolute clown show.
Those circumstances are provided for in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in 1967. Section 2 states:
"Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress."
No, it would not strengthen her campaign if her running mate made the entirely unprecedented move of resigning in office for no stated reason
"Health reasons". Maybe he checks into a hospital announces it from there.
Okay, so now you have an excuse. So this kicks off a living shitshow in the Republican controlled house as article 25 is invoked. You have a circus that lets Republicans go on and on and on, stalling as best they can, starting hearing, etc. The GOP gets endless media attention when they would otherwise be on the backfoot to all the energizing postive press the dems are about to get. The GOP gets to grandstand, they get to sue, maybe the supreme court weighs in, making it look like Democrats can't handle the presidency.
In what way is that a positive for the Harris campaign?
Sorry but what do you see as the difference?
I think she gets a huge bounce if she's the President thrust into a role she did not ask for or seek. It's a pretty typical human reaction to cheer for people forced by circumstance into an unexpected role. I think she also gets four months to show that she's Presidential material.
So that's the pragmatic part. I also believe that President Biden has shown he's incapable of governing, and that we have rules regarding that situation. In fact that's why we have the position of VP.
And she's seeking it again right now. Wtf is this person even talking about?
I understand your idea with your first paragraph, but it also ties Harris down to the White House instead of freeing her to campaign, and get her own name out there. If there are any events beyond her control, while she's President, she would also be on the hook for those.
Biden's actually pretty good and he is, or at least his staff is, getting a lot of positive things done, as long as he's off camera. That's been true throughout his career.
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@lemmy.world
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I don't like Harris, mainly because of her time as a prosecutor. I'm also not going to lie, I was having a really really hard time grappling with voting for Biden, I was begrudgingly willing to before the debate but when I watched it I was so outraged. I genuinely feel like his administration has been deceitful with his condition for a while. I'm not saying I wasn't going to vote for Biden, I understand the stakes, but I kept watching his interviews trying to get any genuine motivation for Biden. All I saw was a stubborn old man who refused to even acknowledge reality.
I've been following Biden news and this week I was convinced that he would drop out and so I wondered who would replace him. Harris immediately came to mind. Now as I said I don't care for Harris but before Biden announced this today I personally decided I would be willing to support Harris.
She isn't ancient, I believe she's more progressive, and I think she will be good in the debates. She isn't my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th pick, but I have far fewer hangups voting for Harris compared to Biden, and of course over Trump.
She isn't the best candidate in terms of absolute popularity, but when you factor in funding logistics and the fact that I think many good Dems picks would want to run in '28 when the timing isn't fucked, I think Harris is the most realistic pick. I'll happily take her compared to Biden.
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