Bernie's Revenge
Kamala Harris boppin' thru the Overton window
This campaign is shaping up as Bernie's Revenge ;)
In the '20 primary I ardently backed Liz Warren because of her excellent ideas about financial sector reform. Bernie had long plowed similar fields and those two sort of had a non-aggression pact and tried to compliment each other. Then Kamala traipsed into the left lane with a cultural left message she tried to integrate with an economic left message. But Kamala's weakness, which may not matter in this campaign, is that she's a big-picture thinker. Bernie and Liz had staffs who poured over the details of proposals they had been chewing over for years (something I also loved about Biden, who was able to spit out the nuts and bolts of every bill he was stumping for). Kamala was challenged to explain how she'd get Medicare-For-All (stealing Liz and Bernie's thunder) without raising taxes and she came out with three vague, contradictory proposals, losing a lot of credibility among progressive voters.
Flash forward to 2024. Biden didn't intend to do this; he sincerely believed until the very end that he was up for campaigning. But waiting until this close to the convention to drop out was a masterstroke. The Dems had no choice but to immediately (and resoundingly!) unite behind Kamala, sparing us months of Horse Race Industrial Complex coverage of Kamala's disastrous '20 run and whatever other bad stories about her and the other candidates challenging her they could dig up, sparing the party the usual weakening of the nominee after a hard fought primary season. Absolutely brilliant ;)
What the right has to run on against Kamala that qualifies as legitimate policy differences is her '20 platform. I've heard it checked off on wingnut channels in ominous tones and for me, it just tickles my liberal erogenous zones. Ban fracking? Check. Take it to the fossil fuel industry? Check. Start a bail fund for George Floyd protesters? Check. More liberal voting record than Bernie? Check.
At The Bulwark they were all concerned about this, bless their pointy little Republican heads ;)
It's a different world than '16. The large number of boomers who have died since then have been replaced by gen z, and what was Not Possible then, nominating Bernie, is more possible today. '20 was a way station. The conventional wisdom held that you needed Biden to stop Bernie, but Biden's presidency was hardly less on the left, minus more stalwart support for Israel. In 2024 it may be possible to elect the impish California prosecutor who tried to out-Liz Liz and out-Bernie Bernie.
And the Trump campaign doesn't seem to have a clue how to prevent this ;)
well-written Bob, and as you say, it's a different world than 2016.
Especially, it's a different voting population.
Scaramoochie the other day said 20 million boomers have left the building, and 40 million GenX&Ys have reached voting age, and most those new voters skew to the Left; poll today had Harris up 20 among 18-34 yr olds! And they're at record high motivation levels.
And then there's the women's vote (and now especially the young women's vote) which may be the key to this election.
So every time Trump (and Vance) mock and insult Kamala, they're insulting women in general, and driving them to the Dems. Trump can't help himself: Kamala is nasty, mean, a DEI hire, slept her way to the top, dumb as a rock, and today's brilliancy: she's a "bum". "Just a bum." Good one, Donnie, that's sure to win the women's vote. Not.
And his own campaign strategists had started out talking about targeting suburban women as their key to electoral success. But I don't think they meant targeting them with insults. Old Man Trump must have mis-read the memo.
So my point here is this: I don't think it matters what Kamala said or didn't say back in 2020 or when she was a prosecutor in Cal or any of that.
Remember when Trump was "Teflon Don" - nothing affected his supporters: "grab 'em by the pussy" didn't affect his supports. And he won.
I think we're gonna see that for Kamala: her supporters won't care, say what you want, we're with Kamala.
And the magic gold dust of election campaigns is Momentum: as she's got that now.
A great roll-out; a couple weeks of headlines re: VP pick
Then media saturation with the DNC convention.
And all the while she's gaining in the polls - which is a self-fulfilling prophecy
And there's Old Man Trump and anachronistic Vance ("childless cat-ladies") driving away women voters.
So I feel the beginnings of the Great Blue Wave, and the next few weeks will grow the wave, and then there's the convention bump, and it's a whole new race, a new narrative.
So I don't think anything from her past will stick; and the whole Momentum of her campaign calendar will just keep growing.
It's a new era, a new voting public, and a next-generation candidate.
Let them throw dirt, or drag out old interviews. I remember Obama said "pretty soon they'll be pulling out my kindergarten papers".
The anticipated Red Wave crashed in 2022; my wife says it's because of the abortion issue.
Trump's Red Wave started to gain some momentum with the gunshot in PA and the RNC convention, but crashed when Joe bowed out and Kamala came in with lightning speed.
And now we've got a Blue Wave forming.
And when Bernie stands up at the convention and endorses Kamala, well, we can turn the page on the past. Job One is Defeat Trump, and Bernie and Liz Warren know that.
But my dog is chewing on my leg; I think he's tell me to STFU and don't jinx the whole thing.
So I'll sign off.
Cheers