this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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It's possible more than one thing contributed to Clinton losing...
At any rate Harris is running a great campaign. So much so that every single potential voter is being considered, even the people that might be getting scammed into voting for Jill Stein. I don't think the Hilary's campaign even considered going after the people voting green because it was assumed those votes wouldn't be a significant factor. The Harris campaign isn't leaving any stone unturned. That means challenging people who are promoting third parties more.
Harris has declined in popularity with every day that passed after her coronation. She is running a mostly adequate campaign, and trying to please everyone has never been a seriously effective Democratic strategy, especially in the long term.
Harris has her strengths. Very few Democrats would have stood their ground as well as she did in the Fox ambush interview. That's where she really shines, when she can let out that inner prosecutor. Waltz was a great addition, but the campaign hid him away the second Harris took on most of Hillary's campaign advisors.
Just like Biden before her, Harris's greatest advantage is how much Trump is despised outside of his cult. Let's not be deifying her for that.
Do you think it would be more effective to piss off people? Maybe she could start telling us which voters she thinks are "deplorable"? Is that more effective than trying to please as many voters as possible?
The Dems have won three out of the last four elections. Not sure why you're saying this strategy is not effective given the one they lost was the one where their candidate called some voters deplorable.
The VP candidate is not supposed to overshadow the Presidential candidate. Walz has been on the campaign trail basically non-stop, and doing local interviews which may actually be more important than national interviews. The national media doesn't pick up on things Walz is doing all the time, but don't confuse that with the campaign hiding him away. Harris' debate performance and national interviews are much stronger than Walz's debate performance on the national stage. So why would they be trying to push a guy to do national interviews that he's not great at instead of doing rallies and local interviews which he is good at?
In 2008, Obama was the dark horse disruptor candidate. He ran on "hope and change", promising to be a disruptor. It was McCain who was the establishment candidate running the milquetoast campaign trying to please everyone.
Of course Obama was elected and immediately started acting like a standard establishment Democrats, fucking over Unions, letting bankers off the hook for breaking the economy, and rebuilding that economy on the backs of the working class. Romney was another milquetoast Republican like McCain, but this time Obama came really close to losing - despite some serious missteps by the Romney campaign. Running for the middle almost lost Obama a second term.
Hillary was, of course, as establishment and milquetoast as candidates come, and look who she lost to. Biden was almost as bad, but he did manage to squeak by with a win, but he beat Trump in swing states by a much smaller margin than Trump beat Hillary. This was with 4 years of Trump and a failed pandemic response still fresh in everyone's minds. Trump was far more responsible for losing that election than Biden was for winning it.
I'm certainly no fan of Hillary, but I think too much is made of the deplorable comment. She should never have made it but, once she did, the bigger mistake was trying to walk it back. That just made her look weak. There is absolutely a large deplorable contingent in Republican politics, and Republicans call Democrats far worse every day.
You can't run a "please everyone" campaign on real policy. Any actual stance on any issue will piss of someone. Democrats who run this way trade off grass roots enthusiasm in exchange for a chance at appealing to Republican voters. They don't lose a lot of Democratic votes directly, but it kneecaps the Democratic ground game. Campaign need volunteers to knock on doors and get people registered. Nobody is excited to volunteer their time for a Democrat that sounds like a Republican or promise to put Republicans in their cabinet. This is even more critical as Republicans step up voter suppression strategies.
I know that Waltz isn't supposed to be front and center, but he brought a lot of really effective strategies that were working great and got pulled by the Democratic consultants.