I always thought of it as being akin to the ol’ habit trails we had for hamsters back in my yoot.
This makes a lot of sense. In addition to being a distraction during the campaign, the first female president doesn’t need a super ambitious obviously gunning for her job guy as her #2. Kamala is going to be criticized and second guessed in ways we haven’t seen before due to her gender and might need a more supportive #2 who is fine taking the backseat role when that’s what’s best.
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I do kind of like “JV Vance” as an attack when the whole couch thing starts getting stale.
It’s super catchy and puts the negativity back on Trump for picking a guy who’s junior varsity as his running mate. It’s the type of thing that people might start saying and not even realize he real initials are JD not JV
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This is the basic pathology of the VP system in a nutshell. The only reason to want to be VP is as a stepping stone to the Presidency, but presidential candidates don’t like that, so rather than pick an apprentice president to train up, they pick somebody who they see as not a plausible presidential candidate (often, as here, because they’re too old). Then if they win, that person usually ends up as the next nominee anyways.
This is basically the plot of the Joe Biden VP → President path. Obama supposedly picked Biden because he was too old and on the downswing of his career in 2008 to appear to undermine Obama.
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I think this race will ultimately come down to whether Dems can stay on offense. If they can keep vibing and dunking they win, that stuff just takes the air completely out of the inevitable racist/sexist smear campaign that is coming.
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I’m not even sure racism/sexism on its own is enough. While that energizes the base, that doesn’t move the needle. Vs. Clinton it was the crime family shit “you’ll be in jail” shit that put him over the top. I expect them to fully lean into the economy and immigration. Those are Trump’s winning issues and the ones that will probably have the most pull on swing voters. Tim Walz populist liberal side is a great defense there. I haven’t heard as much of it from Harris but I think if she learns a thing or two from Walz on how to message economic policy, we’re in good shape.
IMO Harris needs to try to remain an empty vessel normies can project their own personal preferences upon, similar to Obama. Just stand up there and smile and say the other guys are weird and hateful and I’m not and we’re moving on, the end.
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Obama earned a lot of votes by making himself the “a vote for me is a vote for health care access” candidate. Harris would benefit from a signature domestic policy issue that speaks directly to urgent household needs, they’re going to call her a radical communist anyway so she might as well pick one big thing and hammer it home.
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Literal nazi Stephen Miller talking about jew haters
I just fucking cant man
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I’m in a Hasidic coffee shop in Williamsburg, and all the customers are talking about how they’re not going to vote for Harris anymore
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Conservatives delight in accusing liberals and centrists of doing the evil things that they themselves do and want to do more of. This is like US Politics 101 stuff.
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Yes, agree that Walz has the message they need.
When they try to criticize spending or cost of social programs he just pivots to how investing in an educated and available workforce is the key to economic growth. This is a great foil to the standard conservative line that tax cuts are the key to growth. Like, which is long term and sustainable of those two?
When they try to criticize culture war stuff he just pivots to… who is the real party of family values? The ones helping families take care of their kids and get parental leave or the ones forcing women to carry babies to term? It’s such an effective framing.
Same thing with gun control, he has the best messaging of any current Dem because he is a guns guy, went from NRA A rating to NRA F rating specifically because the school shootings changed his perspective. There are a lot of voters who I think need to see a Walz as the face of gun policy and not a big city attorney, especially in the PA suburbs.
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I agree with this as well. I still think she’s not that charismatic in person but if her campaign is mostly surrogates, online messaging, and rallies then it doesn’t matter because people will want to vote for the idea of Kamala. and she will be good enough in front of the home crowd. It’s much better to have celebs talking about her like a cool aunt than having her try to be one (she’s not really). She can be the cool aunt to some people, the prosecutor to others, the continuance of Biden admin policies to others, the first woman president to others.
The less she’s in the details the better
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This is why Charli XCX is the best and most important person in the world
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As a Jew, the “Harris didn’t pick Shapiro because she is an anti-semite” thing is so tilting. I still want to know what people who think this would say if Shapiro was never even a finalist. I guarantee most didn’t even know anything about him until he was one of the favorites.
I don’t think many of the Jews saying this were there for Bernard. The one I know anyway wasn’t (one of my brothers). And the same people would not support a Jewish VP pick now if the candidate hinted about not sending weapons to Israel.
Does Kamala actually need to do any real interviews or press conferences between now and Nov? I know if she didn’t, it would royally piss off the press to where it would impact their coverage. Any other reason besides that?