Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Everybody saw this coming.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Be a wild strawberry.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Gets Her TIME Cover

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Gets Her TIME Cover

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Molly Ball is always worth reading, even when her editors have saddled her with a blatantly biased pre-take. “Kamala Harris Is Making Her Case… “:

… Harris is here, in Iowa, trying to regain her footing in the race. After a promising start in January, her campaign has stalled. While she is in the competition for the nomination, she’s stuck in the mid–single digits in most national and early-state polls and draws modest crowds. Perhaps three dozen people showed up to see her in Waterloo, where they were packed into a few rows in front of the stage so that the large room–an ornate century-old former department store–wouldn’t look so empty.

In mid-September, Harris said she’d be focusing on the first-to-vote caucus state. It was something of an unwitting announcement: she was overheard in Washington joking to a colleague, “I’m f-cking moving to Iowa.” (At least, a staffer quipped, “she didn’t say, ‘I’m moving to f-cking Iowa.’”) Her campaign is doubling its staff in the state, to more than 130 people, and she has pledged to visit every week for the foreseeable future. “I’m really excited about it,” she tells me, saying the opportunity to engage in “old-school retail politics” reminds her of her San Francisco political roots. “I like people.”

People like Harris too; they just can’t quite place her. Like the acquaintance you recognize but can’t recall how you met, she seems both familiar and yet mysterious. Is she a liberal or a moderate, establishment or populist, reformer or radical? Critics point out that she has flip-flopped or obfuscated her positions on important policy issues, like health care and immigration, and the speeches she could use to define herself often devolve into paeans to unity.

For all that, however, Harris remains in the hunt. She consistently polls among the top five candidates in the jumbled Democratic field, and she has the financial resources to remain viable. Her campaign raised $11.6 million in the quarter ending Sept. 30–a respectable haul, although far short of what some other front runners pulled in. As more long-shot candidates bow out of the race, campaign officials expect Harris to benefit from voters’ renewed focus. With a little luck, they say, she still has a fairly clear path to the nomination…

Meanwhile, as the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives moves toward impeachment, another piece of Harris’ record may supercharge her candidacy in the coming months: her background in law enforcement. At a time when liberals are clamoring to make the criminal-justice system less punitive, her record as a district attorney and state attorney general has been a liability. But in this new political climate, voters may relish the idea of seeing Harris–with her icy prosecutor’s glare–square off against President Trump on the national stage.

“This guy has completely trampled on the rule of law, avoided consequence and accountability under law,” she says of the President. “For all the sh-t people give me for being a prosecutor, listen. I believe there should be accountability and consequence.”…

Since her election to the Senate in 2016, Harris has thrilled liberal audiences with her punishing interrogations of Trump Administration officials. She made former Attorney General Jeff Sessions blanch and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh squirm. And in May, she deftly filleted the current Attorney General, William Barr, asking him, “Has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?” Barr was reduced to stuttering. He wouldn’t or couldn’t answer. In recent weeks, the clip has gone viral again as new questions have arisen about Barr’s involvement in the President’s political pressuring of foreign governments.

Sitting in the office in Los Angeles, Harris says she asked that question on a prosecutor’s hunch. “It has become clear to me that these are the kinds of questions you have to ask members of this Administration,” she says. “What kind of unethical requests has this President made of you? I knew by instinct and by example that it is not beyond him to think that America’s justice system is his personal apparatus for political gain. He’s made that quite clear.”…

By upbringing and orientation, Harris seems to have a strong sense of right and wrong and a fierce drive to fight injustice, coupled with virtually no large-scale policy instincts. Presented with a problem, she looks for ways to solve it, starting with data, guided by few firm ideological convictions. “All these grand ideas that academics and so many have about how you’re going to transform the world,” she says. “But, you know, pay attention to the basics.”

Perhaps, in these days of brutal ideological combat, that kind of pragmatism could be sold as refreshing. But in Harris’ case it seems to be having the opposite effect. Some of the attendees at her events in Iowa told me they don’t think she’s progressive enough; others said she strikes them as too far left. “She hasn’t gone far enough to get the activists behind her, but she’s gone too far for some of the moderates,” says Larry Gerston, a professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University. “So she’s in kind of a no-person’s-land in terms of having a good base.” And yet, polls indicate that Democratic voters still want to like her–if only they can figure out what she’s about. The race is far from over. Iowa voters are notorious for shopping around until the end…

There’s a theory on political twitter that ‘people just don’t know who Kamala Harris is’… yet. If true, that can — and will — change.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump is endorsing Kamala Harris for president, citing the California senator’s record on criminal justice and comparing her campaign to former President Barack Obama’s historic White House run in 2008.

Crump, a high-profile Florida attorney, represented Trayvon Martin’s family after the teen was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in 2012. He has since represented other families whose children were killed in fatal altercations with white police officers that captured the nation’s attention, like Mike Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Mo., and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Crump said that while he had gotten calls from multiple campaigns, Harris was the candidate in the top tier who stood out to him.

“When you look up some of the stuff that she’s tried to do working from the inside, you know that she understands the challenges of trying to get progress when there are a lot of powers that be that are pushing against the cause for equal justice,” he said…

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    She still has my heart. I admire Elizabeth Warren, and more so every week, but Kamala just has the “it” factor. Her shifting messages on healthcare are concerning, and I hate her idea of shifting everyone into Medicare Advantage plans in ten years with the heat of a thousand suns. Still, I think if she can get more attention she can pull up.

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    Nice to see Mixie stomps on you as well. Although noting the timing of the release I’m sure this was timed.

  3. 3.

    Mike in NC

    A career criminal was installed in the White House by a hostile foreign power. I want her to bring him down.

  4. 4.

    Yutsano

    @Mary G: I am still really excited by her. But she’s not getting the spark Warren is. Still, I absolutely want her in the administration of the next Democratic President in 2020. I just don’t think this is going to be her time.

    But in 8 years she’ll only be in her low 60’s in age…just sayin’

  5. 5.

    Ruckus

    She is my favorite because she does the work, in the trenches and has the brains to make it better. Warren does as well but from a different direction. It’s that I like a person who is all in to what they do, does it well, does it right and still has humanity as her number one backdrop and isn’t afraid to change their mind or direction about a subject, given new information. She is also a leader, a person who is at ease in charge, who is willing to give people a chance, willing to work with whomever to accomplish a goal, who is willing to make the goal known so that effective work can be accomplished, who is willing to help others see ways to be more effective and better at their skill levels.

  6. 6.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    From the WaPo:

    KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s new chief prosecutor said Friday his office will conduct an “audit” of an investigation into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that had recruited Hunter Biden for its board.

    A criminal probe of the company was closed in 2016, and President Trump has alleged it was because of pressure by Hunter Biden’s father, then-Vice President Joe Biden. Trump has insisted that Ukraine open a new investigation.

    Ukrainian officials said previously that the probe was focused on the years 2010 to 2012, before the younger Biden joined the board. They also have said that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on his part.

    Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka reiterated at a news conference Friday that he knows of no evidence of criminal activity by Biden

    WaPo speculates that the Ukrainian government is buying time with the White House.

    I only hope that’s the case and they don’t give into this extortion

  7. 7.

    Shana

    I’m sorry Rep. Moore, but your 7 week old daughter doesn’t look to anyone for inspiration. Maybe someday she will admire Senator Harris but not at 7 weeks.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: She is my current choice as well. Back to FDR, the Dems who won the presidency have been extremely charismatic people (Truman and LBJ got in when their presidents died and they won as incumbents). Harris has it. I am confident that she will rise as more people start paying attention and the lower tier candidates drop out.

    Also, she isn’t a populist. I’ve aired my worries about populists enough that I won’t suck up space here to do it again.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    @Yutsano: I can assure you from personal experience that from certain platforms, it’s difficult to see if posts are being edited in the backroom or (again, on certain platforms) to see when a scheduled post is set to drop, short of opening someone else’s unpublished post, which is akin to rifling through her underwear drawer. In short, blame WP not MM.

  12. 12.

    Emerald

    I think she’ll be the nominee. She’s by far the strongest candidate for the general. Warren and Sanders (especially now) are the weakest.

    It is way, way early. The Iowa caucuses aren’t for another four months. She’s starting to gain traction in the Black vote just recently, pulling nearly even with Biden and Warren in Michigan. She’s got the most endorsements in South Carolina and that counts. She has a superb ground game, which is how she won all the other elections that were supposed to be impossible.

    Looking back, at this point most of the eventual nominees were in the low single digtis. Carter, Clinton, Kerry. Obama was 25 points behind Hillary at this point in 2007.

    It is WAY early. This week has been great for Harris. Warren appeals to the demographic of cable news reporters, which is one reason she’s getting so much favorable press.

    Hold onto your seats. It is WAY early.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    I went into this election a bit fan of Harris. But for some reason Warren seems to be doing a better job of capturing the zeitgeist of this election. I’m not sure why. Frankly I’d be happy with either of them. But Warren seems to be the more natural politician and campaigner at this point. She kind of reminds me of Bill Clinton when he was at his best doing retail politics in the so-called “heartland”. They seem to have the same ability to connect.

  15. 15.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I think this is also her plan. It’s early in political time. Warren has been hitting it hard because that’s the way she is and it might work, which would be OK, but Harris just isn’t as public (that’s the best way I can think to say it) as Warren. Either would be great choices, different choices, but great. I just like the way Harris presents her self – it seems more – professional. Like she’s been in this fight before and gets all the sides, good and bad. Warren seems like she wants to change everything and life just never presents itself that way, change is incremental, like it or not. Warren isn’t wrong about a lot of things that need changing, but how does one go about that in this world, changing everything in short order and rather radically, like healthcare?

  16. 16.

    Cacti

    In terms of charisma and personality, she’s been my favorite from the start. Her campaign has done a poor job to date of staking out where she stands on the continuum of Warren at the liberal end, and Biden at the centrist end. I hope they’re able to change that.

  17. 17.

    Leto

    @Ruckus: This is my take too. Harris and Warren are my #1, and the only people I think can fix this fucking horror shit show, and set us on a better course. We have amazing candidates.

  18. 18.

    Miss Bianca

    I like Harris. I am just skeptical of “charisma” being cited as the reason to support her.

  19. 19.

    West of the Rockies

    I adore Kamala Harris. I love Elizabeth Warren, too. I will be thrilled with either. If it is EW, at least Kamala has a lot of viable years before her.

  21. 21.

    VeniceRiley

    I like Harris for the reasons above- plus her executive experience as CA AG and legal and law enforcement experience. I think she know what to prioritize in fixing those systems. I also believe in her uncanny ability to pluck bright diamonds and mentor them to within an inch of their lives. She insists on excellence. That makes me certain she will pick the best qualified person for each cabinet position and job and best judges to boot.

  22. 22.

    eclare

    She is my choice. I have some real policy issues with Warren, especially concerning tariffs.

  23. 23.

    Emerald

    @Miss Bianca: Take a look at their plans, then. Harris’s are slower coming because she puts the work into them. They’re detailed and practical. Warren’s, when you really look at them, are rather like Wilmer’s, just kind of talking points, not well fleshed out. I do fault Harris for jumping on the M4A bandwagon early, but she responded to good questions about it by looking more closely and modifying her ideas. She’s criticized for doing that. I think it’s a strength.

    Her tenure as California AG was groundbreaking. She’s the opposite of the way the Wilmer crowd is portraying her. She reduced recidivism dramatically every year she was AG. She took on the big banks and won big. She took on the pharmaceutical companies and won big.

    Harris is tough. She is fierce. She is smarter than all of ’em (probably equal with Warren on that score) and she knows who she is. Fantastic presidential material.

    I’m a fan—can you tell? She’ll make it.

  27. 27.

    Kent

    @Mike in NC: And if Warren winds up in the White House I want to see Attorney General Harris going after every damn one of the Trump Crime Syndicate starting in January 2021. None of the statute of limitations on any of their crimes runs out in January 2021.

  28. 28.

    catclub

    @Leto:

    and the only people I think can fix this fucking horror shit show, and set us on a better course. We have amazing candidates.

    well, if you give them Lyndon Johnson’s house and Senate majorities. Otherwise, it is still mostly gridlock. The US getting to the California response to the GOP [make them irrelevant], will take a long time.

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    Great cover. Harris is still my preferred candidate. I’ve recently heard pundits and others sniping at her candidacy, claiming that she is losing ground. This most recently came up in stories about Bernie Sanders fund raising.

    It’s still early.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Kents

    Hospital stumped as to how the birds which keep landing on the foot rail of his bed are getting in. Film at 11.

    ;)

  32. 32.

    BlueGirlFromWyo

    I think having a former prosecutor as our nominee could be the most effective indictment of our lawless Republican party. That alone keeps Harris high on my wish list.

  33. 33.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:
    Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Decades past we never thought that we needed to know everything about a candidate, just a bare minimum. We’ve seen that isn’t enough, but have gone, with good reason to the opposite extreme, we are supposed to know everything. Of course we can’t but there are minimums, they have been raised, and what they want to do with money and health seem to be reasonable questions. BS seems to be unwilling to answer either. But wants our support in any event, because he says so.
    The longer he waits to tell us about how this was nothing is actually a pretty good indicator of about how this is or should be a major issue.
    And we are seeing why with trump, because money and health are two areas at which he is massively deficient.

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: Kamala Harris reacted…

    Kamala Harris
    That girl being played by MayaRudolph on nbcsnl?

    That girl was me.

    Maya Rudolph @ MayaRudolph
    YESSSSSSSSSSENATOR!!! An honor to attempt to be as cool as you?

    Maya Rudolph is awesome. Getting to see her on TV more is half an argument for Harrris to me.

  35. 35.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yep!

    Kate McKinnon as Warren, OTOH, is not too exciting. She doesn’t sound like her, and she seems to be wearing her old Hillary wig.

    Larry David as Sanders is awesome, but not enough to want Sanders to stay in. I loved Woody Harrelson as Joe Biden too.

  36. 36.

    scott (the other one)

    Kamala Harris going into more detail on electability riff at Supermajority event — talks about how painful it was after Clinton lost in 2016 and people still say America is not ready for a woman.

    Clinton won in 2016.

    Fixt that for ye.

    Harris for President, Warren as Senate Majority Leader is my dream. Warren as President and Harris as Senate Majority Leader would be an utterly delightful backup.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: Larry David as Sanders is awesome, but not enough to want Sanders to stay in

    It takes me forty-five minutes to turn on the TV!

  38. 38.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia:

    Why TF does Iowa get to decide everything? I’m so sick of them.

    Seriously. Why can’t New York, or Oregon/Washington? I think we should move these damn caucuses around so that the rest of us can get a turn. Just because Iowa is the heartland doesn’t mean they contribute the kind of wealth and power that some of these other states also give. Hell even some of the southern states should get a chance like Louisiana and Mississippi.

    Screw ya, Jackals, my heart belongs to Michelob

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: @cain: tradition is a hard ship to turn, but it’s outrageous that the Dem party talks diversity and holds its first two contests in such undiverse– white and rural and old (and I’m two-and-half of those). The biggest problem according to my cocktail-napkin-level noodling is that the more diverse states are also the most expensive media markets, which creates some perverse early incentives.

  40. 40.

    Yutsano

    @scott (the other one):

    Warren as Senate Majority Leader

    There are quite a few more women in front of Liz for that job. But if anyone is going to be the first female Senate Majority Leader it’s going to be the number 4 in Senate leadership: The Honorable Ms. Patty Murray.

    Yes this is a homer comment. It also happens to be true.

  41. 41.

    Kent

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not necessarily. New Mexico is a diverse state and very cheap to campaign in. I’d love to see all the candidates tramping around the Navajo reservation eating fry bread and HIspanic border towns eating green chili. That would be a change from Iowa and New Hampshire.

  42. 42.

    Sab

    @cain: New York has elected Andrew Cuomo as governor twice, and NYC elected Guiliani as mayor twice and deBlasio.

    I’ll never forgive Tom Vilsack for what Ag did to Shirley Sherrod, but I like him better than Cuomo.

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    @scott (the other one): I’ve seen lots of folks who support other candidates for president talking up Warren for Senator Majority Leader as a consolation prize. I think Warren would make a terrific president, which is why I’m backing her, but I honestly don’t know how she’d do as SML. Virtually anyone would be better than the current nonentity, IMO, but while Warren excels at vision (essential quality in a president!), is she a wiz — and I mean truly outstanding — at procedural maneuvering and coalition building? I don’t know. Most of the folks who make a mark in that type of role have many years of experience in politics, which Warren does not.

  45. 45.

    Betty Cracker

    @cain: Florida is the obvious choice for “First in the Nation” primary if you want a state that truly reflects America. I’m serious! We have our liberal coastal enclaves, flyover interior, vibrant cities, aging communities, Deep South (only in our case, it’s Up North) and rapidly diversifying population. It’s a microcosm of America, as I’ve been telling y’all for years. The only drawback is our state party is a goddamned basket case and has been for decades.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    New Mexico is a diverse state and very cheap to campaign in.

    New Mexico has, what, four black people. Not very diverse. If you want to shake up the primary race, pick a truly diverse state with a significant number of electoral votes.

  49. 49.

    Butter emails!!!

    I agree with the need to shove NH and IA out of the first slots, although I’m not sure that they act as the check on candidate diversity that is being implied.

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t know about Florida because of the snow birds population. But you’re right, it’s very diverse.

    ETA: Not to be a conspiracy monger myself, but do we know for sure that snowbirds only vote in one locality?

  52. 52.

    satby

    @Kent: they’re probably hiding that he’s had symptoms for quite a while (two blocked arteries had to have caused some discomfort if not outright angina) and wasn’t dealing with it. And I suspect he delayed until the last fundraising cycle was over before going for treatment, because to admit to coronary disease earlier would have stopped the flow of donations.

  53. 53.

    sdhays

    @Emerald:

    She’ll make it.

    I’m afraid I doomed Kamala by declaring that she was “the one to beat” at the beginning of the year.

  54. 54.

    lamh36

    @Mary G: Listen, call me a Kamala stan if you want to, but I sincerely think there has been an effort online and in the media to erase anything positive that has to do with Kamala Harris’ campaign. She gets more negative press than almost any one in the top tier. She’s issued just as many policy statements as Liz Warren, MORE actually policy statement than Mayor Pete, and yet the coverage for Kamala tends to be “but peole are confused what she stands for”…ah…tell me what Mayor Pete stands for…show me his policy stance on a an issue?

    Liz Warren taking on Facebook and Zuckerburg…ya get “you go Liz, take that bastard down” … Kamala Harrs, rightly saying that Chump tweeting violates Twitter own TOS and so maybe consider suspending his twitter feed (like they ALOT of folks ya’ll…seriously, folks saying not even close to what Chump says, have been suspended from twitter just becasue a bunch of bots flagged their tweets)… “Kamala Harris doesn’t care about 1st ammendment” rights.

    Kamala Harris called our Guiliani over Ukraine…and Guiliani basically rats himself out to try to shut her up. She had Barr’s number even at his confirmation hearing…Kamala Harris, directly taking on Chump co, which is what folks CLAIMED they wanted…and ya still get bullshit articles bout her being inauthentic. She talks her mother’s dead and how it affects her…”she’s so inaunthentic” .

    Oh and don’t even get me started on the blatant bias shown to her at GLAAD’s LGBTQ townhall.

    I’m just glad Kamala Harris and her campaign are not letting the bias and haters or polls, stop them from putting boots on the ground and campaigning and working to GOTV for her campaign. She going the OfA route and building her ground game

    UGH…ok…rant over

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    Kamala is a class act. Love her and Elizabeth Warren, and hope they are our national leaders, in whichever office, for years to come.

    President, Vice President, Attorney General (and she was a great one in California). She is tough and well-qualified.

  59. 59.

    kindness

    Kamela was my preferred first choice. About a month ago I decided the good Senator Professor had much better shot at the nomination and have pretty much switched to Senator Warren.

    And let’s not have any foolish ideas about 2 senators on the ticket. We are going to need every single Democratic Senator we can get to actually govern in 2021 after winning 2020. Mitch isn’t going to roll over and play dead. Unless of course he loses his re-election campaign.

    I’d say it’s time for another Act Blue post for Amy McGrath.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @lamh36: I have been mystified as to why Kamala is not gaining more traction and is stuck in single digits.

    She’s a formidable candidate. Could any of it also be all the vanity candidates in the Dem race. I am distressed that their sheer numbers have been distracting. Drop the fuck out, poseurs.

    I always think of Kamala as top tier even if her numbers are not there yet.

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