Kamala Harris

[Dream of Freedom]

That vice-presidental pick just seems so out of touch with his base right now. A district attorney with a hard stance on crime in the middle of black lives matter protests. Really!

Opinions?

[Alphaville]

The left is not the Democractic Party base. Nothing out of touch about this smart pick.

eta: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faction ... ed_States)

[7Wannabe5]

I made a time-capsule prediction/bet a number of years ago that the first female American president would be of Asian-American heritage*, so works for me. I also bet that we would see dogs traveling to appointments solo in self-driving cars by 2025. I think I am going to win that one too.

*Based on relative sales/valuation of multi -cultural selection of President Barbie dolls I was dealing through retail arbitrage at the time.

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

The Democratic Party base-activator is the current occupant of the White House. I suspect she earned his respect when they tangled in the debates. Temperamentally, they share a lot as politician-accomodators. Yin and yang wise, she’s a better fighter, can play the Twitter game at a higher level, and was among the most qualified women of color.

I’m voting for her

[Campitor]

https://theappeal.org/kamala-harris-cri ... ntial-run/

As attorney general, she weaponized technicalities to keep wrongfully convicted people behind bars rather than allow them new trials with competent counsel and prosecutors willing to play fair. One of them, Kevin Cooper, is on death row. Another, George Gage, will die in prison without intervention from the governor. In both cases, Harris had the power to change the outcome. She could have demanded DNA testing in Cooper’s case. She refused. She could have conceded Gage’s conviction was based on the prosecutor’s decision to suppress evidence that devastated the credibility of the sole witness against him. She didn’t.

Harris also failed to hold police and prosecutors accountable for misconduct. In Orange County, where a sprawling jailhouse informant scandal has robbed countless people of their right to a fair trial, her lack of meaningful oversight has contributed to a crisis of legitimacy that continues to upend the county’s criminal justice system.

In 2015, when called upon by the Legislative Black Caucus to support bills that would have mandated that all police officers wear body worn cameras and that the Attorney General’s office investigate lethal officer-involved shootings, she declined. She championed a law that went after the parents of chronically truant children, laughed when asked if marijuana should be legal, and supported a system that locks up people who are too poor to post exorbitant money bail. These policies were part and parcel of a system of mass incarceration that has deeply harmed poor people and communities of color.

She is a bad pick for the Biden ticket. At this point it seems Biden's campaign is deliberately sabotaging itself.

And I imagine the Trump campaign will put this Tulsi vs Harris clip on a loop: https://youtu.be/Y4fjA0K2EeE?t=238

[Hristo Botev]

The pick seemed inevitable, given the self-imposed must-be-a-woman-of-color criteria. I was hoping for Tulsi (because, of course I was) or perhaps Keisha Bottoms; but then again, I'm certainly not a member of the Democratic base. But to OP's point, if Harris is seen as being the more moderate, middle-of-the-road, establishment (already vetted) pick for Biden's VP (i.e., soon-to-be president in a couple years), to run against the non-establishment, unapologetically right of center incumbent Trump, I have to wonder at the logic of the selection. Running an establishment "moderate" against Trump didn't win the electoral college in 2016; and the only thing that's really changed since then (apart from elephant-in-the-room COVID), is that the damage to political and societal decorum conservatives like me feared a Trump presidency would bring (which is why I voted for Clinton over Trump) has already been done. Seems like the best chance the DNC had was to pick a more competent anti-establishment type (Tulsi, Bernie) to pit against Trump; or, next best scenario, have Biden pick such a person for VP.

[IlliniDave]

She'll have to reverse some of her historic positions to mesh with the narrative and with Biden, which will be trivially easy for her given how forgetful the corporate media is. IMO, not an inspiring choice for president-in-waiting. Unfortunately for her she comes across as disingenuous (why she bombed as a standalone candidate in the primary). Already some humorous montages out there of her reversing prior convictions, and corporate media personnel reversing what they said about her when she was opposing Biden and Warren. Gotta love politics. She has inspired one person I am acquainted with that lives in Wisconsin to claim she is changing who she intends to vote for (and not in the expected way). Otherwise, only the corporate media-types seem excited. Doesn't move the needle much for me. Don't like her or Biden. Hope at least one more candidate makes the ballot in my state. I might be on team "Ye" this year unless Unity 2020 succeeds.

[TheWanderingScholar]

Eh, not surprising. It was kind of hinted at a couple months ago.

[jacob]

Not a surprising choice. The eventual Biden/Harris ticket (or the other way around) was already a popular choice in various political fantasy football leagues during the primaries. Strategically she is the safe choice for a campaign that believes that it's going to win (or more precisely "not-lose") as long as it doesn't make any abject mistakes in the next 100ish days.

In no particular order:

• She's already been vetted by her own campaign. (No surprises, like previous video clips saying nice things about Cuba)
• She's nationally known with a net positive approval rate (that's across the board, independents like her and republicans don't hate her very much)
• She's from the same [moderate] wing of the party as Biden (not likely to scare voters away/pretty hard to attack from the right in a way that actually moves voters)
• She's "politically expedient" rather than an ideologue (not likely to interfere/change the message/VPs are mostly supposed to sit and do nothing)
• Biden won the primaries suggesting where most of the actual voting "float" is as opposed to the loudest parts or how the party is portrayed on Fox (namely college degreed/suburban women, not Bernie Bros, AOC, or BLM activists)
• This is also the voting block that carried the 2018 midterms. (the bet is that they will show up again)
• She passes the "one heart beat away from the presidency"-test from the perspective of Biden voters (i.e. known, politically competent, not likely to take things in a completely different direction)
• She's highly unlikely to cost a senate seat.

Politically, Biden ran on a platform of defeating Trump and a return to a less chaotic administration. Nothing fancy, no real new major programs or changes. Since he won the primaries and he's leading all the November polls by a big margin, it does not seem to make sense to pick a VP for the purpose of "stirring things up" (like a Sarah Palin candidate) or to satisfy voters who weren't going to vote for Biden anyway lest they got their wish list candidate as a VP.

In short, it was strategic choice. The boring choice. Maybe the slogan should be "Bring Boring Back" because that's essentially what the primaries showed was the preferred option.

[TheWanderingScholar]

Yeah, this election is less "We Need a Revolution", and more "Can We Stop with the Revolution?".

Most people don't care about politics in their day-to-day life. This last four years has been politics day in, day out for those voters. For them, they want normalcy back. Voting for Biden promises normalcy again.

As to whether Biden can bring it back? I don't know but that is a conversation for another time.

[Hristo Botev]

In the last 30 years has there been a successful "bring back the normalcy" presidential candidate in the general election?

[Lemur]

This pick made sense to me. R's can't use "The DEMS don't care about Law and Order" when Biden's VP is a former prosecutor...and a strict one at that. Also the younger generation / Bernie Bros...simply don't turn out to vote. Biden went with a safe pick that also gets the benefit of being a person of color / woman which is enough to turn out some voters.

[Campitor]

She's already been vetted by her own campaign. (No surprises, like previous video clips saying nice things about Cuba)...

...In short, it was strategic choice. The boring choice. Maybe the slogan should be "Bring Boring Back" because that's essentially what the primaries showed was the preferred option.

It wouldn't be the first time a vetting process failed to discover skeletons in the closet or mistakenly believed known skeletons to be irrelevant : Lawyer Josh Dubin Reviews Kamala Harris' Criminal Justice Record

[Alphaville]

There are always going to be attacks from the left that will be repackaged as concern trolling from the right, that’s just a given.

The contest however is for the center, and we’re facing a simple binary choice at this point.

And while nobody is perfect, no amount of nitpicking of the Biden-Harris ticket or false equivalency will convince me that Trump is not by far the worst and most corrupt president in recent history.

Nixon at least had a conscience, and resigned before his impeachment, but this carnival barker really is something else. All he cares about is himself.

You see his kind of behavior in third world countries under petty tyrants maybe, like Venezuela and Nicaragua, and I mean it regardless of political affiliation. “L’état, c’est moi.” He can go back to being CEO of some reality television empire or whatever.

I’d like boring back please, and a bit of science-based policy, and some semblance of reason, and a return to international diplomacy, even though government will always be imperfect. I’m absolutely tired of this daily ridiculousness. Feels like 40 years not 4. All my circuit boards are fried at this point.

[nomadscientist]

She is the boring choice, in the sense of being difficult to object to. That's different to being unobjectionable, it's just technically difficult to raise the objections. That goes for both the left and the right, so it's smart, and a rare person. There's no guarantee such a person would exist in a given year's candidate list.

She isn't boring in that she would be a very different president to any that has gone before. She's like Obama in that she's a box tick for black, while having no ancestral or cultural connection to the "native" African American population and brought up among elites. She differs from Obama in also having no Ivy League education, and no ancestral connection to the 13 Colonies elite, something very unusual. Choosing to attend Howard HBCU for career bonuses despite being West Coast and not "Historically Black" is pure gamesman. Her strategy is a big change from Obama's "regular elite but black-looking," essentially a continuity play that only looks radical, to playing ruthlessly according to the rules of America's emergent caste/class system and with impressive foresight. This way lies the future.

[Hristo Botev]

I just don't see how boring is going to get people to the polls; people don't get excited to get out the vote for a return to normalcy. No doubt people are going to be fired up to vote AGAINST Trump; but Trump has people excited to vote FOR him, and ALSO against Pelosi, AOC, et al.

[CS]

Oh, boring will get people to the polls if they've had enough of the stuff going on now. And there are a lot who are just done with it.

I think it's great choice. I voted for her for Senate (was in CA then) and am looking forward to doing so again. I might actually watch the VP debates. I generally can't stand debates but I watched every one of Clinton's and I'll watch Kamala's.

The conflict that Biden and Harris had in the primary debates, and now their running together, sends a pretty clear statement that these are adults who can have conflict and resolve it. Not name calling. Not vindictive smear campaigns. Not illegal retaliation.

It's amusing that she is one of the few to call for direct prosecution of Trump. I'm absolutely against political-only based prosecutions, but there is a long trail of crimes so it is hard to justify his not going to jail. That said, he probably won't based on expediency and more important issues to deal with, ala Nixon. (The irony of his going to jail when he started this 'lock her up' business would be delicious, not gonna lie.)

Yes, boring would be delightful.

[nomadscientist]

A lot of people will vote if the candidate is a rag on a stick. Probably an absolute majority of people who will vote in any case, with most non-voters being those who are uninterested rather than those who dislike all the candidates after careful consideration.

Trump's opponents seem to finally have realised that they can't beat him by disqualification but equally it's hard for him to overcome their control of the "commanding heights of culture" if they simply don't engage him. So their strategy has been disengagement. This has a bad cop component (tech companies purging all his supporters from their platforms) and a good cop component (not producing situations he can react to).

BLM has been the one situation he has been able to react to and while he has not necessarily won the encounter he has at least kept himself in the news with his reactions to the riots.

BLM requires a non-white VP/"real" Presidential candidate. However, Kamala neutralises it partially by being an ex-prosecutor which you can interpret as her being a secret conservative or as her being an amoral political operator, neither of which is as scary to the average Trump voter as a left ideologue. So, Kamala is the ideal "good cop" disengagement candidate. You can have a complicated discussion about whether she is really the best person to be president but there's no simple attack line.

[IlliniDave]

I just don't see how boring is going to get people to the polls; people don't get excited to get out the vote for a return to normalcy. No doubt people are going to be fired up to vote AGAINST Trump; but Trump has people excited to vote FOR him, and ALSO against Pelosi, AOC, et al.

That's true about Trump, but I think it only applies to the already red states. Pelosi is arguably his biggest ally in politics right now. Harris probably helps him on balance, but it's in the noise. Well-to-do suburban folks don't care enough about abusive prosecutions of minorities in big cities of distant states to let it affect their voting. They are more anxious to blame abuses in their own back yards on someone faraway instead of putting energy into bettering their own communities. Biden-Harris is tailor made to scratch that itch.

Going back to "normal" would be just a hair short of a disaster for the country, certainly it would put us back on the express lane to it. Without a disruptor to successfully break up the corrupt three-legged power syndicate (elected dems, elected reps, and unelected holders of positions of power) The Great Experiment will end in unquestionable failure.

The "Biden presidency" will be anything but boring. Quotes because I'm standing by my only partly tongue-in-cheek prediction that win or lose the election, Biden won't be the president a year from today.

[Sclass]

A district attorney with a hard stance on crime in the middle of black lives matter protests.
Opinions?

Huh? I recall Kamala Harris was easy on crime in 2003 when she became DA of SF. She had some big clashes against the SFPD over sentencing back then. I knew some Bay Area cops and they didn’t see her as an ally. I kind of forgot about her till now but my recollection was “easy on criminal punishment and tough on cops”. That’s just what I got from reading SF Chron headlines.

Yet she now has this hard stance on crime reputation.

So confusing. I guess it is pretty complicated. People grow. It was a long time ago.