The new Kamala Harris book: 107 Days

[SomewhereonNeptune]

Excerpts have been revealed in various sources from Kamala's new book, "107 Days". For someone who wants another bite at the apple in '28, she seems to have stepped in it. Among the more interesting revelations:

• Tim Walz was not her first choice for VP.
• She wanted Pete Buttigieg but thought the country couldn't handle a "black woman candidate, her husband being a Jew, and a gay VP" but would have chosen him if he was straight.

Nothing like throwing people under the bus to start a campaign, eh?

So here are some topical questions:

• Should she even run again? She currently places a distant third in a hypothetical primary campaign, behind Newsom and (even though she called Americans racist as an excerpt when referring to) Buttigieg. 
• Has she stepped in it and killed her chances for political notoriety due to writing the book?
• Do the identity considerations in selecting a running mate (race, gender, sexual orientation) along with her other comments portray Americans as racists, or is Harris projecting her racism upon the voters?

Some controversial questions to kick things off, but anyway...discuss.

[Pozzible]

I haven’t read any excerpts other than a brief bit about Tim and Pete.

I’m agnostic on whether she should run again. I thought, all things considered, she was excellent. In fact, after her debate I thought she was sure to win. From the convention until the VP debate things were sailing along. But all of the air went out of the campaign when Tim stepped onto the stage. He had shown such promise. Perhaps he was over-coached in debate prep. Perhaps we had all been too pumped up and expectations were too high. Pete would have definitely done better in the debate. 

Between the VP debate and Election Day all the energy was lost. I don’t personally believe the candidates were the problem. Consultants and staff seemed to drag them down.

Kamala’s comment about whether voters would accept a Black woman and a gay man was likely correct. I don’t see it as racist at all. Just a political calculation. And Buttigieg didn’t seem to connect with Black women in the primaries  And they are the heart of the party.

There are several good potential candidates. Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Buttigieg, Pritzker (he’s been on fire lately). Whitmer and Newsom both feel a bit packaged and polished (just a gut feeling). AOC would be a brilliant, exciting candidate. The primary debates should be terrific. (Oh, maybe Marianne Williamson, RFKjr, and Tulsi Gabbard will hop in the race, too.🙄)

But all of this assumes we will actually still have real elections in ‘28. Scares me. 

[viking8x6]

14 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

For someone who wants another bite at the apple in '28

If I were Kamala, I'd rather juggle live squid in a confessional booth than run in '28.

[hntnhole]

18 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

Should she even run again?

I'm not at all sure she wants to run again.  If she did, there would be more exposure in the media, and she's been really quiet since.  That's really uncharacteristic of a hungry pol.  

18 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

Has she stepped in it and killed her chances for political notoriety due to writing the book?

I haven't read it yet, so I can't really comment on that.  I'll get around to it at some point ... 

18 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

Do the identity considerations in selecting a running mate (race, gender, sexual orientation) along with her other comments portray Americans as racists, or is Harris projecting her racism upon the voters?

Now THAT's a really interesting question, and worth a well-thought-out response.   I'll put that in the "stew-pot' in the back of my head and set the oven on "simmer".

[SomewhereonNeptune]

18 hours ago, Pozzible said:

I don’t personally believe the candidates were the problem. Consultants and staff seemed to drag them down.

Kamala’s comment about whether voters would accept a Black woman and a gay man was likely correct. I don’t see it as racist at all. Just a political calculation. And Buttigieg didn’t seem to connect with Black women in the primaries  And they are the heart of the party.

Ok, so my thoughts, and bear in mind my own political stance. I agree with you that consultants dragged them down and I don't think they've done the reckoning on "why" they lost. They seemed to get the voters they always have, albeit less than previously, the swing states all moved right, and they banked on the same policies that didn't connect with voters. When inflation is critically high and employment is sagging -- which the adjusted numbers showed around 2 million fewer jobs created -- voters care more about kitchen table issues and less about trans-rights or far left ideology. That didn't land as they expected.

And in "the significance of the passage of time", Kamala's word salads didn't do her favors. 

I think she underestimated voters. We've had diverse cabinets under both Biden and Trump, so I'm not buying that voters cared about Buttigieg's bedroom preferences. We have a current Treasury secretary who is gay and people don't care.  Let's see how Winsome Sears does in the Virginia governor's race and then we can conjecture on how people feel about a black woman. But I think she doesn't give much credit to the American voters and the excerpt from her sounds...well, pretty bigoted.

18 hours ago, Pozzible said:

There are several good potential candidates. Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Buttigieg, Pritzker (he’s been on fire lately). Whitmer and Newsom both feel a bit packaged and polished (just a gut feeling). AOC would be a brilliant, exciting candidate. The primary debates should be terrific. (Oh, maybe Marianne Williamson, RFKjr, and Tulsi Gabbard will hop in the race, too.🙄)

My thoughts on your list.

• Shapiro - I honestly didn't think he wanted to run in '24 on a VP ticket and probably would wait until '28 or '32 for his turn. I suspect he saw the mess it became and decided to stay away. He'd be a great candidate. Honest. I actually like him.
• Wes Moore - no opinion.
• Buttigieg - East Palestine, Ohio and being a lackluster mayor of South Bend, IN will probably come back to haunt him, fairly or not.
• Pritzker - his record as governor of Illiniois is too assailable. Crime is a huge problem in Chicago, and he and Brandon are ignoring his citizens' own pleas for help. High taxes and dwindling population don't do him any favors. He's also another big billionaire, so it's a glass house for him to avoid throwing stones.
• Whitmer - polished, but is Michigan doing that well? Asking for a friend. 😉
• Newsom - oh boy! Make America California Again? If Pritzker was assailable, Newsom is style over substance. LA and SF both have crime and homeless crises that aren't changing despite their solutions; taxes are outrageous and causing outward flight like Illinois; the Palisades Fire was a complete mess, exacerbated by hydrants that didn't work and subsequent bureaucracy that seems to be holding residents' land from redevelopment to become potential low-income housing? If I were a swing voter, I don't think I'd be sold.
• AOC - tell me what she's actually doing other than cultivating sound bites for the 24-hour news cycle. Has she done anything for her district? Oh yeah! She chased Amazon's HQ2 away from considering NYC. 
• RFK Jr. - I don't think Dems are appreciating his efforts in HHS and are being sold on the notion of him being an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist that they're not hearing the efforts to remove chemicals from our food so we're closer to Europe than DuPont or Monsanto. Plus, the Democrats locked him out of any potential primaries in '24, so no love lost for the party from his view, especially after serving in the Trump administration.
• Tulsi Gabbard - I like Tulsi. She's smart, polished, competent, and she left the Democratic Party complaining that they've left most voters behind and is now a Republican. She'd be a great candidate. But I don't think the Dems would have her.

[Pozzible]

It’s just too early for me to allow myself to get emotionally bogged down in political prognostications about ‘28. But I will remark on a couple of things.

My mention of Gabbard and Kennedy were totally tongue in cheek. I think they’re both just abominable, dangerous human beings.

And you mention how horrible the crime situations are in Chicago, LA, and SF. While we’re at let’s throw DC into the mix. Note where each off those cities rank on the list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the US:

[think before following links] https://realestate.usnews.com/places/rankings/most-dangerous-places

Cheers!

[PozBearWI]

It is interesting that the rushed axing of Jimmy Kimmel was the night he was to have had Kamala Harris as his guest.  

[hntnhole]

Of perhaps ancillary interest, Harris will be on MSNBC this coming Monday evening (Rachel Maddow's guest) at 9;00 pm, Eastern US time. 

Maddow is known for asking "no bullshit" questions, and putting up with none in answers.  If Harris has any answers to give, Maddow will pry them out of her.  

                                                              ________________________________________________________ 

To the "why she lost" question:

Much of her campaign was a bit prosaic.  Then, there's the fact that she's a woman (with a beautiful smile), and and of African American descent to boot.  And, while her choice of VP is a good and decent man, he didn't generate much in the way of coattails, which is the primary duty of any VP candidate.  There was precious little of a potential for hard-nosed negotiations with other world leaders, and that lovely smile just isn't enough when one runs for President.  There are plenty of misogynist's in the electorate, for whom that would be enough to vote for someone else.  

Then, there's the racism problem.  There are far too many Americans still infused with racism, and that hill would be a tough climb.  While Biden's physical decline was obvious, she apparently felt that stepping into her VP role a bit too forcefully might turn some voters off even more, that die has already been cast.  I still think that Jill Biden is mostly to blame for pushing Joe too far, which also means she pushed to keep Harris out of doing more.  

Put the two together (racism and misogyny) and Harris has two mountains to climb, as well as putting forth viable proposals for the American people.  

I'm no Maddow fan, but I'll be watching on Monday night.  

 

[SomewhereonNeptune]

20 hours ago, Pozzible said:

My mention of Gabbard and Kennedy were totally tongue in cheek. I think they’re both just abominable, dangerous human beings.

And you mention how horrible the crime situations are in Chicago, LA, and SF. While we’re at let’s throw DC into the mix.

Camden, NJ has fallen from its #1 ranking? Wow times have changed, but it's still no great prize. Used to live in the same county and have been back to visit since. I can believe Baltimore, Memphis and Oakland because they've always been 💩but some of the others in that list are peculiar. And some of those missing are odd. Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood is a drug supermarket with junkies in every corner and very open dealing that has been beyond police control for some time.

I've watched some of the more independent reporting on how residents are responding to the DC swarming and they've been pleased with it. Of perhaps ancillary interest is the protest in DC to remove the Federal law enforcement and National Guards recently -- not only was it an almost entirely "white" affair, precious few were actually from DC itself. Protestors for hire yet again.

I had a feeling you were sarcastic on RFK Jr and Gabbard. From your position on the left I can see RFK not being appealing, but what was it about Gabbard that you thought was disturbing?

6 hours ago, hntnhole said:

To the "why she lost" question:

Much of her campaign was a bit prosaic.  Then, there's the fact that she's a woman (with a beautiful smile), and and of African American descent to boot.  And, while her choice of VP is a good and decent man, he didn't generate much in the way of coattails, which is the primary duty of any VP candidate.  There was precious little of a potential for hard-nosed negotiations with other world leaders, and that lovely smile just isn't enough when one runs for President.  There are plenty of misogynist's in the electorate, for whom that would be enough to vote for someone else.  

Then, there's the racism problem.  There are far too many Americans still infused with racism, and that hill would be a tough climb.  While Biden's physical decline was obvious, she apparently felt that stepping into her VP role a bit too forcefully might turn some voters off even more, that die has already been cast.  I still think that Jill Biden is mostly to blame for pushing Joe too far, which also means she pushed to keep Harris out of doing more.  

C'mon, @hntnhole, who doesn't love a yellow school bus? 🤣 Actually I mostly agree with you (surprise). However, I don't know that we can call the racism card after 8 years of Obama. We've elected black leaders, had diverse cabinets, and have had a progressive increase in women in leadership positions in government.  Nikki Haley was of Indian ancestry. Tulsi Gabbard is part Samoan. Patel is American born of Indian decent. Elon Musk took time out to do DOGE, and he's a great example of a successful African American. 😀 Both Buttigieg and Bessant are gay. Sorry, don't agree that we can cry racism any longer, I sure don't see protests about "Oust the queers", and not a single person protesting Tesla is doing so because they have a problem with African Americans.

So yes, she's multi-racial and racially ambiguous. It felt disingenuous that she'd make appearances in black venues and suddenly change from her normal diction into a more vernacular sounding accent that really made you wonder: Did she really think she needed to do that? And how much does she really hold in common with most blacks in the US? The cackling, the word salads, all made it seem like the college kid who didn't do the reading for the assignment but insisted on talking about it. Like you, I didn't think she had the mettle for going toe-to-toe with world leaders, but she was also an example of 'failing up'. She went from prosecutor in San Francisco to Attorney General of California, then Senator, then VP. And when she was VP, Biden made her "Border Czar", and we could see how that went.

I suspect we might differ on the border control situation and CBP/ICE so I won't do a tangent there, but we need to address criminal illegals.

As for pushing her VP role too far, so many are coming forward to say that Biden was losing faculties for the last couple years. Jill could have been largely to blame, but we have a 25th Amendment for just those situations. 

[viking8x6]

12 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

And some of those missing are odd. Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood is a drug supermarket with junkies in every corner and very open dealing that has been beyond police control for some time.

Philadelphia isn't in the FBI statistical report that was the basis of the US News list. 

FWIW, the FBI has this to say about ranking the list: 

Quote

Each year when Crime in the United States is published, many entities—news media, tourism agencies, and other groups with an interest in crime in our Nation—use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties. These rankings, however, are merely a quick choice made by the data user; they provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region, or other jurisdiction. Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/caution-against-ranking

 

 

[hntnhole]

Thanks for your erudite and detailed commentary. 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree re: the racism situation; I don't believe that completely dealt with, as it should be by now. 

I didn't compare Obama to Harris intellectually, since there's no comparison to be made.  The way I see it, The choice McCain made for Veep was a ridiculous choice, considering some of Palin's public utterances.  Obama is/was far more intellectually adept, and won the election based on his estimable abilities. 

To your point about national origin, unless one happens to be of Native American descent, we're all either immigrants, or descendants of immigrants.  Some "emigration" was by choice, of course, but for far too many it was anything but. 

As to the "gay" quotient in public service, as the public education system continues to churn out poorly-prepared graduates, the brightest potential leaders that happen to be gay are more and more acceptable (so long as they're "regular" persons, and not "flaming" gays.  That might be attributable to less discriminating public policy advocated by Liberals, as opposed to those who espouse racialized ideals re: who is most able among us.  

12 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

And how much does she really hold in common with most blacks in the US?

I don't see the point:  for too many Americans, she's black:  for too many Caucasian Americans, that's all it took/takes.  Folks who make judgements about others based on racialized preconceptions and nothing else don't need any other qualifier.  Actively being publicly "racist" has diminished in the US, thankfully, but that doesn't mean that underachieving Americans have stopped carrying that depravity within themselves.  The "ICE" raids on Home Depot's and the like across the country have proven that Caucasians are far more likely to be ignored, while Americans with a certain degree of melanin-content in their skin make the racism current, obvious, and deplorable.  We - as a polyglot of immigrants - have still not completely irradicated that curse.  

 

12 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

many are coming forward to say that Biden was losing faculties for the last couple years.

Agreed, and it appears the situation was worse than we thought ... until that most regrettable debate.  I don't know anything more than anyone else about medically-caused deterioration, but whatever it is, all of us saw it clearly, bluntly, and obviously.  The person Biden was debating had/has nothing whatsoever to do with that.  I have come to believe that everyone in the Biden Administration was anguished by his abrupt decline, and did their best to "cover" for him.  The fact that he insisted on running again only brought the medical issues to the fore.  

And, in a lighter vein:  

13 hours ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

Both Buttigieg and Bessant are gay

Yeah, but one is clearly a Top and the other isn't.  Apparently, Studebaker-ville produces more Tops than Conway, SC.

Thanks for your most interesting and cogent thoughts.  It's the exchange of ideas, perceptions, beliefs like this that I most enjoy here on BZ.