While I agree with a lot of your analysis here, I can't quite get on board with the idea that "the primary voters got it wrong and the leaders got it right." The primary voters faced the constraint of who was actually running ... which was definitely influenced by the party leaders. And the party leaders that rallied to oust Biden this summer weren't acting in a vacuum; they were responding to voters. So I agree that party leaders do need to get their back-room shit together, but NOT because they're smarter or better positioned to make good decisions. Rather, they should take a dose of that same humility you're talking about, take into account that their ability to predict voters is imperfect, and recognize that the will of the electorate goes beyond who is "up next" according to some internal logic of the party.
Good analysis of Harris’ possible vulnerabilities by continuing to be vague on key issues. What about Trump? He has been less than vague, giving contradictory answers on virtually everything!
I’ve been observing and voting in presidential elections for 52 years, since 1972. Policy details have never been the most deciding factor in a candidate’s ultimate election. It’s their personality and charisma, generally expressed in a positive way. I think of JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Harris definitely has it. Trump never expresses any personality he may have in a positive way. Policy DETAILS are not that important to voters at this stage of the election. Deep down they are looking for positivity and personality in their leader. That’s why Harris is likely to win. There’s a bit of false equivalency in pushing for details from Harris without the same demands from Trump. He doesn’t even have ANY plans, only “concepts” of plans, which basically means he has nothing at all.
RE: " question about whether she would issue an executive order to create a commission to study reparations. Ultimately, she said, it would come down to Congress".
Gabe --how about a primer for us on what an Executive Order is actually allowed to cover? So many questions to candidates are about what "they" will do personally. Rather than "Will they work relentlessly with Congress to........"
Here's one article I found: "Executive Orders 101: What are they and how do Presidents use them?" --- (provides some history of how past Presidents have used Executive Orders and whether they were permitted or not.)
I disagree with the (false) construct that voters chose Biden in the primaries and Democratic leaders picked Harris in the end. Voters had no viable choice in the primaries.
Really tired of the idea that Harris needs to be more detailed and provide more substance or be less on message. The media wants to hold her feet to the fire but sanewash the nonsense being spewed by her opponent. It’s a ridiculous non issue. What we need from Harris is to show she is sane, competent, and someone with integrity. All the media nonsense is simply a false equivalency. And no going back to the Smokey backrooms or extra credit for superdelegates. But it sure would be nice to have a much shorter campaign season. And I think Harris and Walz are benefiting from that. Her opponent has been campaigning since 2015 and frankly most of us are sick to tears of hearing his hate, lies, racism, misogyny. We’re also sick to tears of the GOP and media sanewashing his chaos
Can we talk about the apparent trend toward neutral favorability (2008 to 2012) and then toward net unfavorability (2012 to 2016) and how this election compares?
Hello Gabe. I’m wondering about a point you made. You said that maybe it’s best if backroom deals are how our choices are picked for us rather than through primary elections.
(Please note I am paraphrasing here - I’m in a lot of pain at the moment from the ruptured disc in my back & I can’t sit down & standing is possible for just a few minutes so I’m trying to get this written before I’m headed for ice packs & being flat for the 4th time today. If I got what you said wrong, feel free to correct me.)
I’m not comfortable at all with a bunch of rich, stuck-in-a-bubble, people making the decision on whom to run. Haven’t they already done that to disastrous effect - what with Hilary Clinton and Biden? I didn’t want to vote for either one of them but there was no way in heaven or hell that I’d vote for trump - or any republican since. Yet, their names were the only ones given to us to vote for in our primary election.
I absolutely did not want Biden, at any time, for President. He is exactly like Pelosi - a Corporate Democrat. Plus, he was known for years as Creepy Uncle Joe and after what he did to Anita Hill - giving us Clarence Thomas as a result of his own misogyny - well, I remember things like that, whether I research them in history books or watch them occur as a citizen. In addition, I thought he would not have fire and urgency to take on the Republican Fascist Party and trump - and I was right. He refused to call trump by his name. He referred to him as “the other guy” for laughs. For. Laughs. He assumed trump would take his defeat and just go away. (That was seriously out of touch thinking - from him to his advisers.) His withdrawal from Afghanistan was an absolute disaster and as Commander in Chief he publicly threw all the servicemembers who were there who testified to the realities as “lies” and said more than once “I don’t believe that report, no”. Couple that with how absolutely zero brass in the chain of command were held responsible and there it is again - Corporate Democrat Biden covering for his high up buddies and stepping on the regular people. (I could list other reasons but that’s enuf for my point.) (Also, yes I know trump made that highly stupid deal with the Taliban but if trump had sold half of the country to Putin would Biden have said - “Aw gee, I have to go along with it, sorry Americans in those states but trump made the deal. Better learn Russian”?)
Yet, I had two choices in our primary. trump or Biden. It was either not vote or pick one. As a veteran and a woman raised to be nothing but a silent partner to her superior husband who told her whom to vote for (yuck!), there is no way I’m not going to vote. So, I had to choose Biden. I had to make myself press that damn button.
Every time he bragged about the millions of voters who ‘clearly wanted him’ after the primaries were over it made me angry. We didn’t choose him because of him, we chose him because it was him or trump - it was our current oligarchy or fascism. End of story. (Well, except for those who think Biden walks on water - they did choose him. I wonder what the numbers would be on the two categories.)
Do I have any confidence at all in the DNC or DCCC or any group of stuck-in-a-bubble rich 1%’rs to choose for me? None whatsoever.
(I hope this did not come across as angry at you. If it did, no anger was intended. It’s the pain. Sorry.)
Agree completely, have argued, probably here, but definitely on other sites, that sooner or later people are going to want to actually know, how she is going to govern. This dance of the seven veils, which will end at number six, will reveal nothing.
Trump has a program, one can dislike it, but he has one, Kamala has only Kamala, the question remains, will that be enough.
Harris had better come up with some substance, like specific programs and specific positions soon, or she will lose. Pundits and media make too much of the fluff in her rise following the debate. She’s on the balance beam and there’s no certainty she’ll stick the landing.
While I agree with a lot of your analysis here, I can't quite get on board with the idea that "the primary voters got it wrong and the leaders got it right." The primary voters faced the constraint of who was actually running ... which was definitely influenced by the party leaders. And the party leaders that rallied to oust Biden this summer weren't acting in a vacuum; they were responding to voters. So I agree that party leaders do need to get their back-room shit together, but NOT because they're smarter or better positioned to make good decisions. Rather, they should take a dose of that same humility you're talking about, take into account that their ability to predict voters is imperfect, and recognize that the will of the electorate goes beyond who is "up next" according to some internal logic of the party.
Good analysis of Harris’ possible vulnerabilities by continuing to be vague on key issues. What about Trump? He has been less than vague, giving contradictory answers on virtually everything!
I’ve been observing and voting in presidential elections for 52 years, since 1972. Policy details have never been the most deciding factor in a candidate’s ultimate election. It’s their personality and charisma, generally expressed in a positive way. I think of JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Harris definitely has it. Trump never expresses any personality he may have in a positive way. Policy DETAILS are not that important to voters at this stage of the election. Deep down they are looking for positivity and personality in their leader. That’s why Harris is likely to win. There’s a bit of false equivalency in pushing for details from Harris without the same demands from Trump. He doesn’t even have ANY plans, only “concepts” of plans, which basically means he has nothing at all.
RE: " question about whether she would issue an executive order to create a commission to study reparations. Ultimately, she said, it would come down to Congress".
Gabe --how about a primer for us on what an Executive Order is actually allowed to cover? So many questions to candidates are about what "they" will do personally. Rather than "Will they work relentlessly with Congress to........"
Here's one article I found: "Executive Orders 101: What are they and how do Presidents use them?" --- (provides some history of how past Presidents have used Executive Orders and whether they were permitted or not.)
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/executive-orders-101-what-are-they-and-how-do-presidents-use-them
Thanks for your many lenses approach.
I disagree with the (false) construct that voters chose Biden in the primaries and Democratic leaders picked Harris in the end. Voters had no viable choice in the primaries.
Really tired of the idea that Harris needs to be more detailed and provide more substance or be less on message. The media wants to hold her feet to the fire but sanewash the nonsense being spewed by her opponent. It’s a ridiculous non issue. What we need from Harris is to show she is sane, competent, and someone with integrity. All the media nonsense is simply a false equivalency. And no going back to the Smokey backrooms or extra credit for superdelegates. But it sure would be nice to have a much shorter campaign season. And I think Harris and Walz are benefiting from that. Her opponent has been campaigning since 2015 and frankly most of us are sick to tears of hearing his hate, lies, racism, misogyny. We’re also sick to tears of the GOP and media sanewashing his chaos
Can we talk about the apparent trend toward neutral favorability (2008 to 2012) and then toward net unfavorability (2012 to 2016) and how this election compares?
Hello Gabe. I’m wondering about a point you made. You said that maybe it’s best if backroom deals are how our choices are picked for us rather than through primary elections.
(Please note I am paraphrasing here - I’m in a lot of pain at the moment from the ruptured disc in my back & I can’t sit down & standing is possible for just a few minutes so I’m trying to get this written before I’m headed for ice packs & being flat for the 4th time today. If I got what you said wrong, feel free to correct me.)
I’m not comfortable at all with a bunch of rich, stuck-in-a-bubble, people making the decision on whom to run. Haven’t they already done that to disastrous effect - what with Hilary Clinton and Biden? I didn’t want to vote for either one of them but there was no way in heaven or hell that I’d vote for trump - or any republican since. Yet, their names were the only ones given to us to vote for in our primary election.
I absolutely did not want Biden, at any time, for President. He is exactly like Pelosi - a Corporate Democrat. Plus, he was known for years as Creepy Uncle Joe and after what he did to Anita Hill - giving us Clarence Thomas as a result of his own misogyny - well, I remember things like that, whether I research them in history books or watch them occur as a citizen. In addition, I thought he would not have fire and urgency to take on the Republican Fascist Party and trump - and I was right. He refused to call trump by his name. He referred to him as “the other guy” for laughs. For. Laughs. He assumed trump would take his defeat and just go away. (That was seriously out of touch thinking - from him to his advisers.) His withdrawal from Afghanistan was an absolute disaster and as Commander in Chief he publicly threw all the servicemembers who were there who testified to the realities as “lies” and said more than once “I don’t believe that report, no”. Couple that with how absolutely zero brass in the chain of command were held responsible and there it is again - Corporate Democrat Biden covering for his high up buddies and stepping on the regular people. (I could list other reasons but that’s enuf for my point.) (Also, yes I know trump made that highly stupid deal with the Taliban but if trump had sold half of the country to Putin would Biden have said - “Aw gee, I have to go along with it, sorry Americans in those states but trump made the deal. Better learn Russian”?)
Yet, I had two choices in our primary. trump or Biden. It was either not vote or pick one. As a veteran and a woman raised to be nothing but a silent partner to her superior husband who told her whom to vote for (yuck!), there is no way I’m not going to vote. So, I had to choose Biden. I had to make myself press that damn button.
Every time he bragged about the millions of voters who ‘clearly wanted him’ after the primaries were over it made me angry. We didn’t choose him because of him, we chose him because it was him or trump - it was our current oligarchy or fascism. End of story. (Well, except for those who think Biden walks on water - they did choose him. I wonder what the numbers would be on the two categories.)
Do I have any confidence at all in the DNC or DCCC or any group of stuck-in-a-bubble rich 1%’rs to choose for me? None whatsoever.
(I hope this did not come across as angry at you. If it did, no anger was intended. It’s the pain. Sorry.)
Agree completely, have argued, probably here, but definitely on other sites, that sooner or later people are going to want to actually know, how she is going to govern. This dance of the seven veils, which will end at number six, will reveal nothing.
Trump has a program, one can dislike it, but he has one, Kamala has only Kamala, the question remains, will that be enough.
Harris had better come up with some substance, like specific programs and specific positions soon, or she will lose. Pundits and media make too much of the fluff in her rise following the debate. She’s on the balance beam and there’s no certainty she’ll stick the landing.