Perhaps my most insane heterodox take is that Harris ran the best Democratic presidential campaign since 2012. - ThreadSky

kleinman.bsky.social • 4 days ago

Perhaps my most insane heterodox take is that Harris ran the best Democratic presidential campaign since 2012.

It's funny how the Harris campaign really did try to do Popularism and Abundance Liberalism, and it worked! Just not enough to defy the environment so she still lost. So everyone has instead invented a Harris Campaign that only exists in their head (from left and right)

Comments

midatlantica.bsky.social•4 days ago

There’s only been one sitting VP to win the presidency since the Civil War, and a candidate-swap has only worked once that I’m aware of in any context. When Biden stepped down the Dems lost the incumbency advantage and really disadvantaged Harris, regardless of how well she campaigned

lawdawg.bsky.social•4 days ago

They did run better in areas they were more visible and spent more, but her inability or unwillingness to differentiate herself from Biden was catastrophic given the global headwinds against incumbents.

jokar.bsky.social•4 days ago

bar’s so low it’s hardly worth mentioning.

actioncookbook.com•4 days ago

my take (with the luxury of hindsight) was that the election was lost by mid-2023 and we just didn’t know it.

sammarroy.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think if Biden had stuck to his initial pledge not to run for re-election and we'd had an open primary there would have been a chance to either get Kamala to repudiate some of Biden's more unpopular positions or nominate someone who would, which might have made a difference

sammarroy.bsky.social•4 days ago

But that was never really a live option based on how hard it was to eventually dislodge Biden when they did

actioncookbook.com•4 days ago

that's basically why I peg it to mid-2023. Once he ran again, it was over. He may or may not have done some good things in office, but it didn't matter if he couldn't advocate for them and didn't appoint an AG who would keep Trump from coming back. The die was cast.

adamvann.bsky.social•4 days ago

We need to get away from the idea that policy matters, at all. Dem policies are already wildly popular w the electorate. Nobody gives a shit, bc they never hear about it on the news. Messaging and PR is all that matters now

sammarroy.bsky.social•4 days ago

I generally agree with you, but what I meant wasn't that she needed to unveil a bunch of Warren-esque policy proposals to break from Biden, she just needed to indicate that she recognized how unpopular he was and put some distance between herself and him, which is a messaging issue

adamvann.bsky.social•4 days ago

Fair enough

bskylife.bsky.social•4 days ago

He never pledged that.

sammarroy.bsky.social•4 days ago

He used the terms "bridge" and "transitional" during the 2020 campaign, and there were articles at the time that cited sources close to him that indicated he was only planning on serving one term. So fair, maybe not a pledge, but it was at least something that he seemed to be signalling

atribecalledkvetch.bsky.social•4 days ago

Definitely an intentional strategy on his campaign's part. Dude was beginning to show signs of cognitive impairment by then (Joe 30330, I have a friend and she's a friend, etc) and his inner circle definitely tried to push the transitional admin angle knowing he would never say it explicitly.

midatlantica.bsky.social•4 days ago

Truth. The only source for this was “backdoor” conversations by unnamed aides. He never publicly promised to be a one term president. It’s really sickening to see this crap spread

shoutingstreet.bsky.social•4 days ago

Does thinking that everyone involved with the Democratic party at a national level should probably be beaten with sticks count as a take at this point?

shelmp.bsky.social•4 days ago

The CORRECTEST take!

henryporter.bsky.social•3 days ago

The loss to Trump unfortunately obscures one of the big lessons which is that we could do away with primary elections which are the single most direct cause of Donald Trump.

dangyd.bsky.social•4 days ago

A feat even despite the relatively low bar

conjurial.bsky.social•4 days ago

she ran a very good campaign in 2024 and lost nevertheless because of a) the economy, b) her boss the president and c) memories of her own bad campaign in 2020

conjurial.bsky.social•4 days ago

goes to show how campaign effects are just not that large, even though everyone who follows politics wants to believe that they completely determine the outcome

bryceyoungquist.bsky.social•4 days ago

the decision to run on "i will not change anything from The Corpse Basically Everyone Hates" was, in retrospect, a bit of a misplay

conjurial.bsky.social•4 days ago

I don't think a total pivot would be credible. She was his VP after all and didn't get a chance (thanks, Joe) to cultivate a reputation for independence before last July.

Some more gestures toward separating herself from him would have helped, yeah

bryceyoungquist.bsky.social•4 days ago

didn't need to be total! just needed to be -something-, so she could at least lie to people more convincingly about how she'd -definitely- pay attention to [YOUR PET ISSUE GOES HERE]

ltremmick.bsky.social•4 days ago

Just needed to convince a few people that she was more flexible than the psychopathic octogenarian but couldn't do it.

milpool.bsky.social•4 days ago

You are correct on the insanity part

evelhackwriter.bsky.social•4 days ago

You would be dead wrong

pabadger.bsky.social•4 days ago

Can you name one Dem presidential campaign that was well run? Honestly interested.

sregorn.bsky.social•4 days ago

Talk about damning with faint praise

brettwolfe.bsky.social•4 days ago

Harris ran a great campaign. She had an uphill battle because Biden let totally wrong narratives take hold because he was 85 thousand years old and incapable of fighting daily messaging battles. Let’s face it, if Biden could do daily press interactions like Trump is doing, things would be different.

coolrickjd.bsky.social•4 days ago

That earns a follow. I agree. You can see it in the swing state margins being much smaller than the non-swing state margins.

zkindt.bsky.social•4 days ago

low bar!

benjaminrose.bsky.social•4 days ago

The democrats refused to play the beltway media’s game as retribution for how they treated Biden & most of the press treated her with open hostility & in an election lost by less than 300k voters across 7 states & 2% nationally it helped her lose. Maybe it’s cope but it’s what I think.

flmarlins85.bsky.social•4 days ago

Extremely low bar. Hillary and then a Biden campaign in the middle of Covid isn't exactly huge competition

fleerultra.bsky.social•4 days ago

given the constraint of trying to throw it all together in a few months too, pretty impressive even though I don't think it was anywhere near perfect. there were things I thought mishandled in real time but biggest mistakes are only obvious in retrospect

fcpcal.bsky.social•4 days ago

Things were trending in her direction and T’s campaign was imploding. Had she started 6-8 weeks sooner and she could’ve pulled it off.

adlz.bsky.social•4 days ago

You mean, when the Democratic primaries were supposed to take place?

fcpcal.bsky.social•4 days ago

You think anyone else would’ve had a better chance?

nanzhounoodles.bsky.social•4 days ago

Probably Whitmer

phoenixwomanmn.bsky.social•3 days ago

In order to dump everyone for a new person, the entire Biden-Harris campaign apparatus would have had to be flushed down the toilet and a new one started from scratch. No one else could have taken it over.

burnernhooch.bsky.social•4 days ago

I go back and forth between "The election was fundamentally unwinnable and we didn't realize it" and "She WAS winning and then blew it when she said she wouldn't have done anything differently."

superg1975.bsky.social•4 days ago

They were on fire at the beginning. When we stopped calling MAGA "weird" and leaned into the consultants, it felt like a March Madness underdog having a team on the ropes and tightening up, losing the "nothing to lose" attitude that got them up in the first place.

runningdouble.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yeah, my thought has always been they fumbled the culture component by not letting Walz really go hard on calling them all sick weirdo freaks.

superg1975.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think they totally misread where the momentum was coming from.

mattpb.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/shoutingboy.bsky.social/post/3ljqs6knull2a

mattpb.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/saramaburwani.bsky.social/post/3ljfzdq23h22d

runningdouble.bsky.social•4 days ago

People dunked on that WaPo story about the dipshit who thought Trump was going to give out free IVF— it highlights the terrible info environment. When a percentage of people are voting based on their FYP Trump's lack of message discipline becomes are strength when combined with an army of editors.

samd.bsky.social•4 days ago

I mean the bar isn’t that high there lol

zeroisanumber.bsky.social•4 days ago

My take is that she'd have been fine absent Gaza.

bryceyoungquist.bsky.social•4 days ago

i mean, even then, just breaking with Biden on SOMETHING so she could lie more convincingly about how she'd definitely be different somehow you guys might have saved her

forfeiting the concepts of hope and change to Donald Trump was gambling a LOT on "people basically like the status quo right"

zeroisanumber.bsky.social•4 days ago

I mean, she didn't just fail to break from Biden, she actively shut-out anti-Genocide voices and sent her proxies around to tell Jewish orgs that she'd change nothing.

Clinton in Michigan was particularly egregious.

bryceyoungquist.bsky.social•4 days ago

fully agreed, it was insane stupidity and utter moral failure. but even if we assume that she was sufficiently morally/intellectually compromised that she was just as onboard with Netanyahu as Biden was, a break with Biden on -something- would have given her ass-covering lies some much needed juice

kleinman.bsky.social•4 days ago

Gaza was sitting there for her to do this on and she didn't

bryceyoungquist.bsky.social•4 days ago

yyyyyep. but even if she was still fully, Biden-level committed to the idea no Palestinian should be drawing breath by 2025, breaking with him on ANYTHING would at least have made her 'tirelessly working for a ceasefire' bullshit sell better.

bweiny.bsky.social•4 days ago

I don't know why you think this. The Liz Cheney stuff was the epitome of preaching to the converted. It was a campaign too scared to try anything that would actually be additive.

diedrichbader.bsky.social•4 days ago

She ran a great campaign
I’m only sorry she didn’t include a representative of Palestinians at the DNC

But people had already made up their minds

ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social•4 days ago

People's minds recoil from the possibility that a catastrophe of such a magnitude as Trump's winning could have such a tiny cause ~1.5% of the vote.

The two /must/ be commensurate. Logic demands it.

Ergo her campaign had to be a disaster.

burghpunk.bsky.social•4 days ago

While not disagreeing, the energy they put into parading Liz Cheney around ruby red PA suburbs seemed like wasted effort when she could have been working Philly more. Did those events move the needle (as in, would the outcome have been worse without them, in your opinion)?

pabadger.bsky.social•4 days ago

I don’t know if those handful of events moved the needle. I always thought they did it because they were not getting the votes they needed from her existing coalition and decided to go after what their own focus groups said were people who were definitely going to vote and potentially gettable.

pabadger.bsky.social•4 days ago

In other words it was a decision born of weakness not strength.

stupickles7.bsky.social•4 days ago

So the everything bagel popularism and menace of supply-side liberalism enhanced the campaign? Not sure about that lol

uncle6.org•4 days ago

She was done in mostly by consultants who made them get off the “weird” train and a press corpse [sic] that insisted that shit was shinola and suddenly forgot how unqualified old people were once they bullied Biden out of the paint

Kamala did nothing wrong, quite frankly

jorpelson.bsky.social•4 days ago

Kamala did the same thing wrong as all of the centrists and consultants—she didn’t believe in anything

yeeyee187.bsky.social•4 days ago

Nothing wrong except lose lol

poseur.bsky.social•4 days ago

I don't see any evidence they got off the "Weird" train. That was viral. Maybe they could have had Walz be more out there, but they don't control social media saying weird.

atribecalledkvetch.bsky.social•4 days ago

It's objectively the case that they actively "got off the weird train", see the second and third paragraphs

poseur.bsky.social•4 days ago

"Harris’ advisers listened. They considered the arguments. They decided to stick with what the crowds were chanting in the arenas."

Seems like the stayed on the weird train by that article. I think Kamala rightfully ignored the consultants.

uncle6.org•4 days ago

I think people want to blame her because otherwise you have to either accept that the media landscape is permanently rigged for Republicans or that the majority of the American public is complicit/too dumb to resist actual Confederacy

bonescrosby.bsky.social•4 days ago

Kamala was put into a position similar to a football coach taking a job in June. She didn’t have a ton of time to prepare and get her message over. She lost by only 2 million popular votes. Thats not bad. Would have been nice if Biden had resigned in January of 2024.

That being said…

audiolibrarian.bsky.social•4 days ago

I am firmly in camp “media landscape is permanently rigged for republicans”

atribecalledkvetch.bsky.social•4 days ago

People weren't chanting that in the arenas - that was a reference to the 'not going back' line

stevenspoints.bsky.social•4 days ago

So where in the article that you posted as proof that they stopped saying weird does it say that they stopped saying weird?

stevenspoints.bsky.social•4 days ago

The third paragraph says they stayed on the train!

ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social•4 days ago

She stayed on the train in a /narrative/ kind of way, though and that's important.

gamsilroy.bsky.social•4 days ago

Ah yes. Nothing like a leader who let's focus groups lead instead of leading themselves!

heylookaturtle.bsky.social•4 days ago

Still not sure people have grasped how horrific the losses across the board are if Biden doesn’t drop out or if Harris just runs a worse campaign.

Things suck now, but her campaign probably limited the damage way more than is appreciated

coastally1337.bsky.social•3 days ago

Judged by 2012 standards it was pretty good.

atribecalledkvetch.bsky.social•4 days ago

Hillary did better in 2016 purely by not doing either of these (and also managed to win the popular vote, lmao)

stevezorowitz.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yes!!! According to the Fox exits, 70% of voters had decided before the switch, and they went 60-40 Trump. That Harris was able to dig out of that hole and basically make it a jump ball is a testament to how good her campaign actually was.

eebwuh.bsky.social•4 days ago

Bar is in hell

satiatedskater.bsky.social•4 days ago

Started out strong… then she started listening to dem consultants and parading around with Liz Cheney & saying she wouldn’t change from Biden. That’s objectively bad and not just in my head.

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