2020 Democratic presidential primary

Something something COP

Meanwhile the NYT wants to do to Warren what it did with Clinton.

yeah she kept saying something and then publicly backing away from it

and the left twitterverse went hard after to disqualify any claims as a "progressive" (which I don't think was fair, but we already had those arguments)

xp

I feel like she tried to do the triangulation thing too early

yep

i mean, that's just who she is. that wasn't clear at the beginning, but then i listened to an interview with her for about 15 minutes and it quickly became apparent. there is a time and a place (or historical era) for that kind of approach. just not POTUS in the year 2020

She just never carved a lane.

I get that this is true but at the same time I think it's kinda sad that you have to do this. Harris might well have a case to be a Presidential candidate who would be nobody's first choice but who almost all Democrats would be pretty into, and it's just not clear you can win a multi-person primary as that person.

But speaking against myself, I think you could argue that Elizabeth Warren is ALSO that person and has skillfully built that status into being one of the front-runners, and by virtue of that, now has a lane of people who are first-choice-Warrenites.

Warren also had a way higher profile from being in the Senate longer and having signature issues, which Harris does not.

I feel like she tried to do the triangulation thing too early

could it be that this is just who she is?

My pet theory is she acts like a prosecutor, i.e. she's unwedded to any argument because she'll use whatever means necessary.

sounds right

apologies if this was posted earlier, full thread no longer loads for me

(this speaks to Harris' issues as well as anything imo)

Now you guys are really in trouble pic.twitter.com/hJ14NHaQDV

— Zane Tracy (@Citizen_Zane) October 16, 2019

oh god damn it

Q: have you done acid?

Steyer: no
Tulsi: yes
Castro: no
Yang: microdosing rn
Klobuchar: no (lying)
Booker: yes (lying)
Beto: shrooms
Pete: Beto did shrooms
Bernie: yah
Warren: helped friends do it safely
Biden: we talkin quaaludes?
Kamala: ur under arrest for reading this tweet

— Zane Tracy (@Citizen_Zane) October 16, 2019

she's still trying to stir up shit, diminishing returns though

You are attacking a decorated Army colonel.

Alexander Vindman served in the Iraq War. You serve yourself.

He received a Purple Heart. You're receiving subpoenas.

Unlike you, he has a sense of duty to this country. He is a patriot. You are a disgrace. https://t.co/JnIwDAyh9o

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 29, 2019

Oh wow surely that will induce Trumpers to abandon their cult

she's trying to get Trump to attack her, because a fight w him would elevate her profile

Has he given her a nickname yet? Krazy Kooky Kamala or something?

Beto: shrooms
Pete: Beto did shrooms

ok this is p funny

the windup toy monkey banging cymbals in his skull can probably only keep up with the three front runners

i would be shocked if he considered a black woman to be any kind of competition whatsoever

my wife was initially hot on Harris until harris started talking more and her take on her was that she was disingenuous. I agree. She's a good senator though.

I like Harris as a senator a lot. Harris as a presidential candidate would have been Fine(tm) after a more stable, amenable-to-my-family's-overall-wellbeing version of the United States, like say after health concerns caused Hillary Clinton to rule out a second term. In the current state of affairs, she solidly lives in The Unappealing Middle and doesn't have the extra bonus of being a young white man (hi Buttigieg); I thought she had the opportunity to turn that into something more of a rallying cry but her over-reliance on sloganeering and her premature focus on the post-primary coalition (which, to others' points, is a genuine reflection of who she is; I don't think this was cynical triangulation) made her unsuitable for the moment.

she seems like a likely candidate for Attorney General

(altho I think that's a step-down, power-wise, from Senator)

only if you recuse yourself like a fool!

True theoretically, Shakes, but Bill Barr has shown how elastic those powers are.

would definitely like to see her at AG, provided
-CA can do at least as good or even better with a progressive replacement, and
-none of this "let the country heal" kumbaya bullshit. i want to see motherfuckers go to prison.

(yeah i know. motherfuckers are not going to prison :/)

nah, let's make Larry Krasner AG.

-CA can do at least as good or even better with a progressive replacement, and

this is not a problem in CA. Feinstein's eventual replacement will def be more progressive (low bar)

-none of this "let the country heal" kumbaya bullshit. i want to see motherfuckers go to prison.

a couple of motherfuckers are already in prison fwiw

gonna root for Bob Ferguson for AG, tho he probably wants to be governor if Inslee gets EPA or similar

Ferguson for federal AG if it makes his suing of Facebook more effective

Harris wouldn’t take the AG gig. She can be Senator from the most important state for the rest of all our lives if she never makes the leap to President.

^^^ Why be AG for four (or eight) years max when you can be Dianne Feinstein?

CNN has five articles up about its new NH poll that shows Sanders in front, yet none of the five say that in the headline pic.twitter.com/ECJ11xEYLL

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 29, 2019

"Buttigieg in fourth, but a strong fourth" is hilarious

it's a strong fourth, with rippling abs and an adorable pugface

Kamala Harris is in trouble

Kamala Harris is dramatically restructuring her campaign by redeploying staffers to Iowa and laying off dozens of aides at her Baltimore headquarters, according to campaign sources and a memo obtained by POLITICO Wednesday, as she struggles to resuscitate her beleaguered presidential bid.

The moves come as Harris is hemorrhaging cash and in danger of lacking the resources to mount a competitive bid against better-funded rivals in Iowa. The overhaul will touch nearly every facet of Harris’ operation, with layoffs or re-deployments coming at headquarters, as well as in New Hampshire, Nevada and her home state of California, a Super Tuesday prize that her advisers once viewed as a big asset.

Campaign Manager Juan Rodriguez will cut his own salary, according to the memo, which was just over $10,000 a month in the third quarter of the year. Harris’ consultants will also have their payments reduced and the campaign plans to trim and renegotiate other contracts to slash overhead. Along with getting back in the black, a big motivation behind the cost-cutting decisions are plans to stash enough resources for a seven-figure media buy in the weeks before the Iowa caucus.

The major shake-up is the latest strategic maneuver to help rescue a campaign that was still being viewed as a likely early-state juggernaut three months ago after Harris confronted Joe Biden in a debate over school busing. The performance seemed to signal the realization of the promise Harris displayed during her campaign launch before 22,000 spectators in Oakland. Yet it’s been downhill since the summer spike.

yeah she's obviously hoping to last until a Biden collapse puts SC within her reach but it doesn't look likely

you never want to be described as "beleaguered", that's like a law of the universe

as noted above, AG sounds likely

where do Harris heads go? Butteigeig or Biden? Maybe some Warren?

feel like I took a lot of shit for being an early supporter of her but no way am I voting for the lil mayor or toofless Joe

the truth is I don't really like anybody now. Warren is fine on policy but I think she's a terrible match for Trump, she is not a galvanizing figure for the key Dem constituencies we need to win (African Americans and young ppl, basically), just can't see her driving turnout/enthusiasm. The president needs a cult of personality and she doesn't have it. Bernie is old and annoying, much as I agree with a lot of his positions and find his cantankerous Jewish grandpa steez entertaining. Biden is terrible, Mayor Pete is obnoxious. The rest mostly don't have a chance.

I think you are underselling both Warren and Sanders

can we really undersell the awfulness of a plurality of the American public, though

Bernie def has the cult of personality. But he also has a ceiling, which he’s already hit, i think.

Obv. I wasn't going to vote for her in the primary but I really thought Harris's potential to bring minority turnout back to even 2012 levels (which would have given Hillary a win in 2016) would have been a boon to her candidacy. Instead the lesson all the hacks took from 2016 is that we need to appeal to old white people (Biden) or rich white people (Buttigieg) and in those cases everything's hopeless anyway.

Harris’ appeal to minorities was ultimately undone by how her tenure as DA was reported in the media and she was tagged with the “black when convenient” label that’s been chasing Booker around his entire career

I also think Lara Bazelon's dishonest op-ed in the NYT had an effect, it was used by Gabbard to kneecap her in the second debate

*which I guess is what you mean by how her tenure as DA was reported in the media