NEW: Rattled by @KamalaHarris' deft vivisection of @JoeBiden, Republicans ahead of Detroit wonder how she'd fare against @realDonaldTrump. “She doesn’t come across as a nutjob,” said one, who fears Harris wld reconstitute Obama coalition. https://t.co/GflirPbsdq @VanityFair
— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) July 25, 2019
David M. Drucker, “senior correspondent” for the (very rightwing) Washington Examiner:
… For months I’ve been in contact with a group of senior Republican strategists keeping tabs on Donald Trump and the party’s view of the unfolding Democratic presidential primary. Since the beginning of the campaign, these people have been worried that Biden constituted the biggest political threat to Trump’s reelection. Early public opinion polls certainly lend credibility to their concerns. But a smaller, though equally distinguished group of Republican operatives in my Rolodex, a sort of GOP cult of Kamala, had been insisting for weeks that Harris was being radically underestimated. With her surgical vivisection of Biden in the first debate, it seemed their fears had been realized. Now, as Democrats prepare for a second round of debates next week, these strategists are raising the alarm.
“I think she’s dangerous, and probably maybe the most dangerous, from our view,” a veteran Republican political consultant told me this month. “She theoretically would do very well with African American turnout and end up being positioned as a Vienna Soccer Mom.” In case you’re wondering, that’s Vienna, Virginia, an upscale bedroom community just west of Washington, D.C., that has accelerated its drift from the Republican orbit since a certain former reality-television star secured the Republican nomination three years ago. Suburbs just like it in critical battlegrounds could hand the White House back to the Democratic Party in 2020…
Harris, 54, is California’s junior U.S. senator and former state attorney general. She might have more natural political skill than any of her competitors for the Democratic nomination. She certainly checks more boxes—African American, woman, racially diverse, a legitimate strength in a party occasionally obsessed with identity politics. Harris also is something of a Washington outsider, or could claim to be, at least, having served in Congress for less than three years. Unlike Biden, she has not spent decades on Capitol Hill making tough choices or agreeing to imperfect compromises.
If any of this rings familiar, it’s because it is. The last Democrat to win the presidency, Barack Obama, was all of those things, save for the obvious. That is why some Republicans take it as an article of faith that by the time the Democrats gather in Milwaukee a little less than a year from now to coronate their nominee, Harris will be the guest of honor. Who else could they possibly nominate? some Republicans have told me, convinced. But in dismantling Biden on the big stage in Miami, Harris showcased how she might earn it—and why next week’s debate in Detroit could be decisive…
Ben Terris, in the Washington Post — “Who is Kamala Harris, really? Ask her sister Maya”:
… The Harris sisters don’t look all that much alike. Kamala resembles their father: taller and angular; where Maya has the softer features of their late mother who clocked in at 5-foot-1. But the sisters share a contagious, body-shaking laugh so similar that strangers often guess they’re related.
Only now, Maya kept a straight face. Getting exercise and sleep aren’t a treat, she said, but a necessity. Maya has always got Kamala’s best interest at heart, whether it’s ignoring the former prosecutor’s joke comparing a campaign to incarceration, making sure she’s fully up to speed on policy, or getting enough rest — and not just because she’s Kamala’s little sister, but because she’s Kamala’s campaign chairwoman.
It’s a job she’s uniquely qualified for: She was a senior adviser for Hillary Clinton in 2016, knows her sister better than anyone else (at campaign events she takes mental notes and drapes her arm around Kamala afterward to whisper advice), and is something of a yin to Kamala’s yang.Where Kamala, California’s former attorney general, came up through politics as a law enforcement official — a job that has become controversial among liberal Democrats — Maya has been at the forefront of criminal justice restructuring: as a leader at the American Civil Liberties Union, as a vice president at the Ford Foundation, helping edit her friend Michelle Alexander’s seminal book about mass incarceration, “The New Jim Crow.”…
Over the course of Kamala’s political career, she’s been many things: tough on crime, progressive, pragmatic, hard to fit into an ideological box. Sometimes during this campaign it can seem as if she’s trying to please all the people all the time, and sometimes it’s like she just can’t please anyone.
Questions of who she is, what sits at her core, and why exactly she wants to be president have become central to her campaign and chances of winning. Few, if anyone, have had these concerns about Maya, and Maya doesn’t have these concerns about Kamala. Her trick then, in her own words, is this:
“How do you bridge the gap between what you know about someone, and what people think about someone?”
On a recent swing through South Carolina, Kamala spoke to an audience of overheated, mostly black voters who had packed into a gymnasium in Columbia to feel her out.
“I was raised that you don’t talk about yourself,” Kamala said. “But I’ve also realized that in order to form the relationships, it’s important to let people know about my people.”…
[Parents] Shyamala and Donald split when the sisters were young, after which it was mostly just “Shyamala and the girls,” and sometimes, when Shyamala had to travel for work, it was just the girls. (Shyamala died in 2009, and Donald has what friends of the family call a “strained” relationship with his daughters.)When feasible, Kamala and Maya would tag along to their mother’s conferences, getting the run of the place in hotels around the world. Other times, Shyamala would travel without them, leaving the girls under the care of neighbors they considered family.
But no matter who was looking after them, Kamala was looking after her sister, and that often meant using her fists in the schoolyard.
“Kamala was very feisty, and always fighting,” her friend since childhood, Peter Monroe, said in a phone interview. “She was always either going to be putting people in prison or going to prison.”…
Af-Am voters in SC didn't abandon Clinton until fairly late in the game (Iowa was Jan 3 that year), when it became clear Obama was a viable candidate for the nomination. Suspect Harris really needs a strong showing in IA/NH for a Southern path to work.https://t.co/xIHRCLO5WF
— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) July 25, 2019
HumboldtBlue
I really wish she remained a Senator.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Harris is impressive. The race for me is tied between her and Warren at this point
burnspbesq
@HumboldtBlue:
CA dems have more bench strength than Manchester City.
Patricia Kayden
Go Kamala!! Any of our top candidates will be a breath of fresh air compared to Trump. I don’t see any of them holding back during debates with Trump. Trump may finally meet his match.
No disrespect to Secretary Clinton intended. She was an excellent candidate but the media allowed the email server “scandal” to eclipse her accomplishments and qualifications. I don’t see any of our candidates having similar problems.
Nicole
I dislike the contemporary political tilt towards politicians who haven’t had time to develop a long track record. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be very happy to be saying “President Harris” come January 2021, and I think she’d do a terrific job, but it troubles me that the general national attitude towards politicians is one of contempt for those who have been there a long time. Only in politics is a lot of experience seen as a bad thing.
It also bothers me because then when the politicians without the track record have to make compromises to get things done, because that’s how politics works, they get attacked by the purity ponies.
(Again, not a criticism of Harris; I like her a lot and think she’s plenty capable to take on the job. Also charismatic as heck, and that’s something no amount of experience can confer. It’s a gift and she has it. It’s a criticism of the average voter’s unwillingness to understand much of anything about how politics works.)
burnspbesq
“Coronate” is not a word, dipshit.
The word is “crown.”
Ohio Mom
It was interesting to learn Kamala’s husband is Jewish. I’m wondering if my co-religionists will find that as attractive as they did the prospect of Joe Lieberman as VP (why Al Gore, why?). People around me were giddy at that thought.
Brachiator
Is it the white male GOP asswipe presumption that women of color are nut jobs?
Mike J
@HumboldtBlue: She’s easy to replace in the senate. California isn’t going to to Scott Brown us.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
Or just Democrats
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
Methinks that was a backhanded (racist) comment on their part
burnspbesq
If Harris should get elected, i hope she wears pink and green to her inauguration.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
¿Por que no ambos?
Marcelo
So Democrats are “occasionally obsessed with identity politics,” even though its the Republicans who have formed a toxic death cult about a man so obsessed with identity politics – white identity politics – that he puts brown people in cages. *thinking emoji*
Steve in the ATL
@zhena gogolia: bingo
Steve in the ATL
@burnspbesq: white people can pretend it’s an homage to The Preppy Handbook
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Marcelo:
Well, you see, white people (specifically rich white Americans that belong to the GOP) don’t count because they’re chosen by god.
I wish I was kidding but this what they subconsciously probably believe
BlueDWarrior
@Marcelo: you see, it’s simple when you remember the Republican mantra: “it’s fine when i do it.”
HumboldtBlue
@burnspbesq: @Mike J:
I understand, but I don’t necessarily trust prosecutors and Harris would unquestioningly get my support if nominated.
I do argue having someone with her experience and skill set is better wielded in that august body and for Democrats at large then battling Mitch McConnell from the Oval office.
dmsilev
@Marcelo: ‘ White person’, or really ‘White guy’, doesn’t count as an identity, it’s just the default state of being.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@dmsilev:
Exactly. It’s the default because white people are the majority and the majority any place, no matter where they live, typically don’t think of their ethnicity as just another identity
Citizen Alan
@Ohio Mom:
Personally, the fact that he was Jewish was the only thing about Joe Lieberman that I didn’t object to. As for Harris, I alternate between being frightened of the fact that every facet of her existence seems designed to piss off bigoted rednecks and exhilarated by it.
HumboldtBlue
@burnspbesq:
Pfft, I have a sister-in-law who does, she’s a Terrapin, I dated a Delta so that’s another black mark against Harris.
JAFD
Just to remind NYC area jackals of the meetup planned for 6 this Saturday – ie, the day after tomorrow.
Looking forward to seeing you there !
joel hanes
Of all the candidates, Kamala Harris is the one I most want to see “debate” Trump.
That hovering photobomb lurking thing he did with HRC? She would not put up with that for five seconds. And with words, she’d cut him off at the knees and feed him his feet.
BruceFromOhio
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: This.
patrick II
@Marcelo:
Amen. Republicans are the true party of identity.
The Dangerman
@Mike J:
Given CA has a jungle primary, Republicans won’t even be on the General Ballot for … well, forever, after Trump.
She would slice and dice Trump in the debates; he’d drop at least one N bomb and FOX would tell us, still, he isn’t a racist.
Mike in NC
No disrespect to Senator Warren, but she stands a snowball’s chance in hell of bringing down the Fat Bastard reality TV game show host. People will just dismiss her as a hectoring granny. Senator Harris stands a much better chance of getting under his extremely thin orange skin and making him squeal like a racist pig.
Steve in the ATL
@Mike in NC: yup. As much as I like SPW, this is true.
B.B.A.
Gillibrand wonders why her campaign isn’t getting any traction. I think it’s simple – everything she brings to the table, Harris is better at, hands down. As a New Yorker I’d rather vote for our favorite daughter, but our primary is late and she probably won’t be in the running by then, so Harris all the way.
(On policy I’m closest to Warren. But politics isn’t about policy.)
Honus
@burnspbesq: the Sweetbriar Vixen colors?
lamh36
@HumboldtBlue: Boy and I glad Barack Obama didn’t listen to the folks who said the same thing in ’08.
Anyhoo, if she wins nom and presidency in 2020, at the very least Dems won’t lose a Senate seat. If she doens’t get the nom…she get re-elected Senator again, right. I see it as a win/win for her, so why not strike while the iron is hot.
pacem appellant
I don’t like letting Republicans choose our candidates, so I’m taking this piece with a grain of salt. That said, I’m a native Californian and I love Harris and I’m all in for her. The spousal unit is also a native Californian and a godless pinko commie liberal like myself, but she’s in for Warren. They both have great strengths and I’ll be happy with either. May the best woman win!
jl
@B.B.A.: Warren is my preference so far, and I am supporting her the sense that I am sending her more money than the others who I think would be good. Harris would probably be my second choice, if Warren doesn’t make it.
My theory is that a good candidate has to be strong on specific policies, and the fact that three of the four who are doing best have been strong on policy (Harris, Sanders, and Warren) supports that. Though Sanders is more strong on yelling slogans, but at this stage in the primaries, I don’t think the average voter would know the difference from news coverage and the first debate.
Biden is the exception, but he is riding on his name recognition and cred from Obama administration. And I think he realized his nostalgia tour approach wasn’t working, so he’s starting to push out actual serious policy ideas.
I noticed Gillibrand, some time ago, for some reason, just backed off from her policy proposals. They just disappeared from the internet ads from her that I saw. I don’t know why she did that, and I think it might have sunk her campaign. Did the CW consultants get to her and run their standard con on her?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
OT, but it’s an open thread:
Does anybody watch “Spin the Wheel”, the replacement for “The Wall”?
It’s an alright game show, but I do wonder how much the wheel can be manipulated with an electric motor and servos. And not a lot of people have much of anything so far. Every time a question is answered wrong, more “back to zero” slots are added to the wheel. When it’s answered correctly, more 1 million dollar slots are added. When spun, a ball rolls around the wheel and then that lands on a slot.
Towards the end of the show, a family/friend chooses to accept a deal for a set amount of money
Suzanne
Harris just feels like the winner to me. That’s not a policy judgment. She just feels the most…. winner-y. She’s really charismatic and likeable and compelling to watch, and that matters, more than it should.
Having said that, I found out that Warren will be in town for a rally next week and I am super-excited! I registered and kicked in some dolla bills.
HumboldtBlue
@lamh36:
And I was here supporting Obama in 2008.
I’m not sure what parallel we’re talking about.
I’d love to see 24 years of Senator Harris reshaping the federal judiciary as a committee chair.
TS (the original)
The media is obsessed with what republicans think of democratic candidates – which has zero to do with which democrat will be successful in the primary.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Suzanne:
Do you think her truancy policy when she was AG of California will be held against her?
I side with Kay on this, because truancy can be very disruptive to a child’s education and it’s like 15 days, right? That’s pretty generous
Steve in the ATL
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: the media skews way right so everything will be held against her, whether true or not (such as Hillary and her email server).
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
The Kamela Harris is a Cop has little traction other than amongst the dirtbag left and the Wingnuts.
Other than one racist Sheriff who wasn’t even in her area as DA, who used it to abuse children and their parents, it was a win as far as policy goes.
大芒果
@Patricia Kayden: Love to see a Kamala/ Castro ticket….
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
I think their (long inculcated) presumption is that all Democrats are nutjobs.
@zhena gogolia:
What you said.
Citizen_X
Muahhh-ha-ha-haaaaa!
Fear that, GOP Klansmen. The All-American Voltron is getting back together!
Miss Bianca
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Actually, I remember overhearing the mother of a Jewish bf of mine describing me over the phone to a friend of hers as “nothing ethnic.” I had to remind her that as far as I was concerned, WASP *was* an ethnicity!
opiejeanne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: They will certainly try to make her truancy policy A Thing, but what happened with that policy is not a negative. The Purity Ponies on the Left are trying it, calling her a cop.
Jay
Jay
Yarrow
In case anyone missed this news earlier:
This district has been Republican forever. Last election the Dem candidate Sri Kulkarni lost by only five points. It’s definitely a pick up opportunity.
Burnspbesq
@HumboldtBlue:
Eric Swalwell is a Terp, and he’s ok.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Remember when we all made fun of “Joementum”? Which if memory serves was about a three-way tie for third place in 2004. How is this man not embarrassed?
@Yarrow: Susan Collins is saying again that she’s not sure she wants to run again, and people seem to be taking her seriously. At least on twitter. I wonder if she’s hearing from other Mainers that she can’t count on their endorsement (Snowe, Cohen, other names I don’t know) or even neutrality (Angus King). I’d like to think so.
mvr
Perhaps oddly , though I notice that other folks seem to have the same impulses, I’m most attracted to Warren and Harris for what seem to be different reasons. But maybe competence is what they have in common in different ways. Warren knows what she is for and why and can back it up. Harris was good in every hearing clip I saw of her over the past couple of years.
And I used to work as a defense investigator and have an innate suspicion of prosecutors. It kicks in with Harris but gets swamped by the ways that presidential politics are not the same as prosecutorial politics.
hervevillechaizelounge
@Steve in the ATL:
Steve in the ATL, are you still online?
I’ve been dying to ask you a question about Lake Oconee but I usually only start hitting the Juice in the wee hours.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Kay’s additional point about this is that it’s not just disruptive to the child that’s truant, it’s disruptive to the whole class.
Lyrebird
@Ohio Mom: Well, Emhoff is worth about a thousand Joe Ls, for one thing! They should totally make Doug for First Gentleman shirts.
I don’t know how you took the older video of her talking about meeting her in-laws, some might find it grating. I don’t know about that, but I think Sen. Harris is fantastic, and I think Sen. Warren is fantastic. EW might have a policy edge, though KH is a powerhouse in her own right, and KH definitely has one of the top First Gentleman spouses. PB too.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t believe a thing Susan Collins says. She’s a fraud and can’t be trusted. We’ll see what she actually decides to do when she does it. Her words mean nothing.
HumboldtBlue
@Burnspbesq:
… with their guarded shells an’ stuff.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Too many people around here think that WASP includes Fundies and Evangelicals.
HumboldtBlue
earthquake … soft roller … just now
Lyrebird
@HumboldtBlue:
Even though I am not a Californian, I can think of few better impeachment outcomes than hearings led by Schiff & Lieu in the House and Harris in the Senate! daaaaaaayum that would be good.
Martin
@Citizen Alan:
Gauge that by the response of the person. Harris isn’t intimidated. So, bring it.
Harris/Warren or GTFO.
Martin
@HumboldtBlue: Nothing on the map. Just little aftershocks in Ridgecrest.
Steve in the ATL
@hervevillechaizelounge: what can I do for you?
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Why would Warren or Harris accept the VP slot?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: I trust her to want to save face if her internals are bad, especially since she would almost certainly become the Colin Powell of the trump era, the accomplice who got tossed out of the getaway car and then goes on TV — lots and lots of TV– and pretend to have tried to stop the crime
hervevillechaizelounge
@Steve in the ATL:
What’s word on the street about the Dermond murders? Do folks think it was random or targeted?
I have a secret life as a crime writer and an embarrassing crush on your laconic Sheriff Howard Sills.
Thanks in advance for any info!
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: yeah, they’re killing our brand!
opiejeanne
@HumboldtBlue: Are you in Humboldt county?
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I agree she’ll want to save face if her internals are bad. If she decides not to run for reelection that’ll be interesting. Otherwise, she’s going to going be remembered for her Kavanaugh vote. No matter what she says, that’s her legacy.
Steve in the ATL
@hervevillechaizelounge: no one seems to know. If it were random, why haven’t there been other incidents? A double murder with a beheading, and a head never recovered, doesn’t sound like a one off crime. But no one is aware of any motive for a targeted killing. There are much, much richer people around here (chez moi excluded) so that seems an unlikely motive and, again, a robbery gang would strike more than once.
As for the sheriff, my impression is that he’s like most rural sheriffs: unaccustomed to investigating this horrible a crime, and this unskilled at doing so. To be fair, though, without suspects or motive, it’s pretty hard to solve a crime like this.
Haven’t heard much chatter about in a while, but we are in a different gated community.
Maybe a clever writer could posit a motive and perps….
hervevillechaizelounge
Thanks so much for your perspective; if you hear any interesting gossip please email me at my screen name at the gee-mail.
In interviews Sheriff Sills comes off as exceptionally canny for a good-ole boy who’s spent his life investigating property crimes. Or maybe he just reminds me of Matlock;)
FWIW, as a true crime enthusiast I have two pieces of advice: lock your doors and always keep an eye peeled for Mr. Dermond’s noggin!
Steve in the ATL
@hervevillechaizelounge: will do. It sounds to me like a targeted killing by organized crime. They take heads for identification—can’t trust photos!—and not many others do. If I had to guess, one of the kids got mixed up in something and the parents refused to bail them out.
And we never lock the doors here! Maybe I shouldn’t say that….
Cacti
I’m not sure why anyone thinks Trump is actually going to debate the Dem candidate.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Because at least one of them won’t win the nomination.
debbie
@Steve in the ATL:
The same kind of thing happened around here a couple of years ago. Eight members of the Rodan family were murdered in the middle of the night. They grew marijuana, so people assumed it was Mexican drug lords. Turns out their high school-aged daughter had had a kid with another family’s high school-aged son and there was a dispute over custody of the baby.
Typical Ohio stuff. It took them more than a year to figure it out.
Spanish Moss
@Patricia Kayden: Regarding Clinton’s email “scandal” — it was always going to be something. Her email is the issue that Republicans and conservative media picked, and the rest of media amplified. If the email had not been a possibility they would have focused on something else and blown that issue out of proportion, it is part of their strategy. I think the media bears a lot of responsibility for getting Trump elected, and it isn’t clear to me that they will handle coverage differently next election. I don’t know that any of our candidates are actually safe from that strategy, because something doesn’t have to be true or even important for it to be subject of endless coverage. :-(
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: All but one citizen of the US won’t win the nomination; that is not an answer to my question. Why would one of them leave the senate to take a job that primarily consists of attending state funerals?
low-tech cyclist
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
And may the best woman win!
Don
@burnspbesq: Right on! Grammar Nazis Untie!
J R in WV
@Patricia Kayden:
As your quotes indicate, the email server “scandal” was manufactured by Russians, Republicans an the media. Those same institutions will manufacture a similarly fictitious scandal about any person the Democatic party nominates as our Presidential candidate. Sad, but true. Fiction will work again, barring a different response from the party, like suing media for promulgating fictitious lies about our candidate.