Fortune favors the prepared mind, and Kamala came prepared. She deserves all the positive notice she’s garnered.
Kamala Harris talks about access to women's reproductive healthcare, which has not been discussed in previous debates. #DemocraticDebate pic.twitter.com/JZ2765LUWo
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 16, 2019
Harris didn't wait for moderators to ask a question about abortion, earning her accolades both from the stage and on social media. @KamalaHarris @glamourmag #demdebate https://t.co/gznATSfJXw
— Samantha Barry (@samanthabarry) October 16, 2019
Finally a question on abortion at the #DemocraticDebate!@KamalaHarris: "This is still a fundamental issue of justice for women in America…no other person has any other right to tell her what to do with her body. It is her body, her right, her decision." #AskAboutAbortion pic.twitter.com/XtHQXk2XVG
— NARAL (@NARAL) October 16, 2019
The other candidates worth paying attention backed her up, ably, but she gets points for leading the topic.
Kamala Harris on the impeachment inquiry: "As a former prosecutor, I know a confession when I see it. … Donald Trump needs to be held accountable" #DemDebate https://t.co/dHLcvevnK6 pic.twitter.com/dggf7c55Yv
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 16, 2019
"It's just being observant," says @KamalaHarris when asked if stating in advance that she would remove him from office. "I know a confession when I see it," adds Harris, a former prosecutor #DemDebate
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) October 16, 2019
“When I’m elected, I’ll give Congress 100 days. If they don’t act, I’ll pass background checks by executive order because it’s time to act,” @KamalaHarris #DemDebate
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 16, 2019
One observation from the campaign trail, as Harris talks about gun control: In talking to her supporters in Iowa or those who are considering her, many cite her comments on dealing with gun violence as one of the reasons they are backing her/considering backing
— Tarini Parti (@tparti) October 16, 2019
I've heard only two great answers tonight – both by Senator Harris. Guns and repro rights. But she's being sidelined by the moderators.
— Tom Watson (@tomwatson) October 16, 2019
"Does it matter. You might as well ask me, 'does he think he knows that when he sold out the Kurds, did he know they were going to be slaughtered?' The fact is, he did it."
-Kamala Harris#DemocraticDebate https://t.co/XEpQfHcZT5— Roslyn #Kamala2020 #ForThePeople ???? ???? (@Ducky8abug) October 16, 2019
Finally, I agree with both statements below. This is what a *serious* debate looks like — two smart candidates making strong arguments for their viewpoints:
Harris asked Warren why she didn't join her demand to shut down Trump's Twitter account. Warren failed to give a straightforward answer #DemocraticDebate pic.twitter.com/AIMajMBUcs
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) October 16, 2019
And before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy, remember: I’m a fortunate voter. If (please Murphy, when) one of these women takes the Oval Office back, I’ll be more than content. If the winning Democrat turns out to be Kamala Harris, I’ll still have Elizabeth Warren as my senior Senator. And if the first woman allowed to take her hard-won victory to Washington turns out to be Warren — well, I’m damned sure she’ll work with Harris to find her an important role where she can put her talents to their best use. (Hopefully prosecuting the Repub CREEPsters down to the last actual coffee boy, but that’s just me.)
guachi
I think Harris has the negatives that will be hardest to penetrate. Doesn’t matter now as her poll numbers have been sinking constantly since early July.
MattF
Oh boy, watch Harris’ response to Chris Hayes.
Audie
I can’t decide whether I’d prefer Harris as Attorney General or as a Supreme Court Justice.
MazeDancer
White make blue-check mark privilege is showing as they try to trivialize Harris”s attack on Trump”s Twitter feed.
It doesn’t affect them. Everyone else, who have to live in fear of the results of Trump”s vitriol applaud her courage.
syphonblue
@Audie: Why not both? Attorney General for President Warren, then Supreme Court Justice for President….whoever’s after.
Amir Khalid
@guachi:
So far, of all the candidates only Warren and Harris have shown the potential to make excellent chief executives of government. And Harris does not seem to lack personal charisma compared to Warren. She should be polling much better. I am surprised to see her so far behind.
lamh36
@guachi: Kamala Harris is doing everything Dems claim they want. She the only candidates who consistently takes it to Trump. It can be argued that her first taunting of Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine mess led to the beginning of his slide when he showed State Dept text on Fox in response to those taunts. She was prescient on her questioning of Barr about Chump asking for dirt on his opponents. Prescient on Chump asking China bout the same.
She issued as many well thought out plans as Liz Warren has. Has more endorsements than any other of the candidates. More plans than Mayor Peter had (even though his polls numbers were soaring with nary a policy mentioned).
She also campaigning her but off and still sponsoring bills on the Senate with other Dems.
Now ask yourself why isn’t Harris doing better than even Buttgeig who has no accomplishments or record behind Mayor (which if you notice he never speaks of). Also ask yourself why if she a non threat, why are her negative so high? Why did Tulsi G attack Harris in that 2nd debate? I have my theories but I’d bet many won’t like them.
Also too miss me with the polls, If like folks to go back and see where PBO was polling vs HRC back in ‘07…and we already know how that turned out.
Folks like to complain about not knowing what Kamala Harris “stands” or something but that’s lazy thinking. It’s out there but if you expect the media to report on it then you’ll never know anything.”
Nicole
Harris did great. Full disclosure, I dozed during the third hour and gave up in disgust once the “TELL US ABOUT YOUR BEST REPUBLICAN FRIEND” question was asked (srsly?), but I thought she did really well up to that point (and might have done well after; I just wasn’t into hearing how much people were besties with John McCain or whoever).
I love Warren, too, and I understand what she’s saying when she keeps going to “costs,” every time the goddamn “RU RAISIN TACKSES?” comes up, but she’s gotta find a better way to answer it because she sounded like she was avoiding questions last night and that’s not a good look.
Bernie was also pretty good last night, much as I’m typing that through gritted teeth.
hueyplong
I’m still for Harris.
I’m still enthusiastically for the nominee no matter who that ends up being. That person will be a sentient human opposing Donald Trump or a successor Trump minion.
No hard decisions to make.
MazeDancer
Sorry – can’t edit from phone. White male not make …
Beatrice G Blacklow
@Amir Khalid: She has been mostly ignored by the media and has been attacked with lies about her record on social media.
Ohio Mom
With a few exceptions (looking at you Yang and Gabbard), everyone on the debate stage had moments when they were the person who said what needed saying, in just the right words. Made me proud of my party.
Now, who is our best bet, that stumps me. That’s all that matters to me, electability. Everyone has the same list of Things That Need Undoing STAT, and how successful any of them would be has more to do with what happens to the Senate.
My state primary is after Super Tuesday so I’m getting off easy. By that point, most of the decision will have been made without me.
laura
Harris isn’t doing better in the polls because she’s a woman of color. Full Stop.
I signed up to work her campaign.
She Ready.
Betty Cracker
I cheered aloud in my living room when Harris brought up reproductive health. It was about damned time someone did!
I don’t think Warren or Harris either one came off particularly well during the “ban Trump from Twitter” exchange. Twitter is the modern public square, and the way it’s regulated does seem to suck donkey balls. But banning Trump from the platform wouldn’t address the effects of his hate speech in any meaningful way — he’s the fucking president, that’s the problem, so Warren was right to point that out. That said, Warren’s segue into tech donor money was every bit as awkward as trying to equate a Twitter TOS enforcement campaign with busting up big tech.
StringOnAStick
@laura: I’m with you Laura, and now that I’m feeling pretty good after the last knee replacement, I’m signing up also.
guachi
There are two candidates who have routinely drawn disproportionate support from black voters – Biden and Sanders. I’m not certain what initial constituency Harris might have appealed to but if it was black voters, that lane was heavily filled by Biden (predominantly) and Sanders. Other candidates like and Warren and Buttigieg (especially) are drawing disproportionately from white voters. It’s just that in Warren’s case she’s caught fire enough to overcome weakness with other groups (black voters, conservative democrats).
gvg
@lamh36: I never have any insight as to why “the public” does what it does, and I am usually out of step with it, but I do hear many people worrying about losing and trying to guess who can win for sure. I am actually a little surprised that Warren managed to break through because so many people I know were dismayed that misogyny helped defeat Hillary. Right after the last election a lot of people said next time we have to pick a white male. The didn’t like saying that, they hated it. Well it’s been 3 years and a lot of anger has built up, and democratic voters don’t feel conciliatory now, so they don’t all feel like being pushed around on choices, but underneath we are all terrified of losing again. It isn’t just what we think of the candidates, it’s also what we think other voters think, and many of us have a much worse opinion of our fellow Americans than we used to. I am not sure how it will play out, but I think it’s a subtext of everything this time.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Well, Twitter does have terms of service, after all. Should they be enforced, changed, ignored, or what? Supposing e.g., that helpless complaining was not an option.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Twitter’s own explanation is here. They focus on language rather than intent, which results in some pretty bone-headed enforcement actions, like journalists who’ve quoted people in stories getting suspended for the quoted material. My guess is they focus narrowly because they don’t want to set up a policy that addresses intent, hire human beings to serve as moderators and deal with all the controversy those decisions would generate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Who. Do they think. Wants to hear. That horseshit? Seriously, do they sit around congratulating each other on that kind of infantile pablum during their preparation meetings? Did anyone make fun of Anderson on the CNN set after? they should all be embarrassed.
@Betty Cracker: I’d been thinking along the lines you lay out here, and I didn’t see the Harris-Warren exchange, but I thought she made a really strong case to Hayes in the post-debate segment
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MSNBC should set up some kind of hologram and let this guy do a nightly commentary. “Good Christ! with the twitter ghost of third worst president in history”
JaneE
@Amir Khalid:How many polls ask for more than one preference? My first choice is still Warren, but Harris is a strong second. I would be happy with Warren/Harris or Harris/Warren, but those types of questions don’t usually get asked.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did we do this already? This happened. I can only imagine how the British tabloids are gonna play this.
These are the moments when I wonder if Kellyanne Conway has taken to day-drinking in a broom closet in the basement. I despise her, but she’s not stupid. I wonder if Ivanka and trust-fund Gilligan thought this was a good idea?
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did you see the video of the Russian filming himself, and his troops, inside the abandoned US outpost, basically gloating that we ran? I hope Trumpov’s name goes down in history beside Benedict Arnolds. They need to use that (Trumpov abandoned American troops) from now until the end of history.
guachi
There are enough polls that ask “considering the candidate” like Econ/YouGov’s weekly polls and others that ask what a second choice is. What is rarer is matching first choice A with second choice B so you can see where there’s an overlap between candidates.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The complete lack of ordinary decency and human empathy probably escapes even the most vigilant babysitting sometimes.
Remember the obscene event they put on with the baby of the shooting victim? Go look at that photograph. There is something deeply wrong or…. missing in Donald Trump. He’s fucked up. Damaged.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
I love Kamala and I love all these clips. I couldn’t watch the damn debate because I can’t stand Sanders and Gabbard.
Jado
@Amir Khalid:
She’s black. As dumb as it sounds, this still makes a difference to old white democrats. No idea why…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Not seeing discussion of Nancy Pelosi’s press conference. Anybody see that? Any bombshells?
rikyrah
That bitchslap of Hayes was a thing of beauty :)
Princess
I like Harris a lot and I think she’d be a great president. I think her harping on getting Trump off of twitter is a bad take — I do not want my president deciding who gets thrown off twitter. And she can miss me with the whole, “women we’re created to bear children,” spiel. So I like her less this morning than I did yesterday.
Just One More Canuck
@MazeDancer: Hayes’ little shrug when she asked, “Does it matter?” was revealing – he’s just an empty suit, with no clue as to why Trump’s inflammatory words might endanger people who aren’t Chris Hayes
rikyrah
@Leto:
should be used as an ad by the Democrats. Not only against Dot45, but, every GOP Senator running in 2020. It should be running NOW.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s funny to me because if you don’t know how to treat people you’re really safe just retreating to convention. Just do it like other people do. Fake it. It’s easy. Use the ordinary rules. But they can’t because if they did that Trump would just be an unusually corrupt and incompetent President, so they get creative. They add a thick layer of creamy bullshit and chaos to obscure the basic fact that this whole operation is low quality.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Muthaphuckin’ GHOULS!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was pleasantly surprised to read that at least they had a little advance warning and the chance to refuse. When I first heard about this, I assumed that they literally had the woman walk through the door and surprise them with the cameras rolling.
Yes, that’s a very low bar to clear. I’ve had to dig deep trenches to place all the bars of expectations when hearing about these people.
They won’t make the mistake of warning their next reality-show guests in advance.
Depressing thought: why is the bench of terrible people so deep that the White House can keep filling these positions?
cokane
@guachi: This is very true. But, in reality, the most likely explanation is simply name recognition. Biden and Sanders have a huge advantage there over everyone else. And Warren has the best advantage there of the remaining candidates.
Most voters, even Dem primary voters, simply aren’t paying that much attention to the race right now. And why should they, honestly? Most of these candidates will drop out of the race after New Hampshire, before most voters ever get a chance to cast a ballot.
guachi
@Jado: Black voters didn’t warm to Harris, either. Nor hispanic voters. Black voters disproportionately choose Biden and Sanders. It has nothing to do with old, white voters. Harris doesn’t do worse among them than she does any other demographic.
Chyron HR
@Princess:
Can the Twitter terms of service decide who gets thrown of Twitter, even if the person violating them is the President?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I don’t think you can overstate how much his worldview is influenced by television and photographs. His summit with Otto Warmbier’s murderer was a success because there were “more cameras than at the Oscars”. Emmanuel Macron thought he could re-start the Iran deal with a surprise meeting!– he missed because trump has to be the one to stage his spectacles.
He saw this in his damaged and TV-addled imagination as the surprise reveal on Dr Phil, or Undercover Boss. The lady who killed their son would enter to soft sad music, the mother would cover her mouth with her hands in shock, the father would barely show surprise through his stoicism. The killer would deliver her apology in a voice half choked with tears, the music would soften a little, the parents would start crying, the mother would say that she forgives the killer, everyone would embrace…. under the (he imagines) benign grin of President trump. “Wasn’t that nice?”
cokane
@Betty Cracker: Twitter isn’t the public square. I wish people would stop saying this stuff. None of social media is. If you want to compare it to anything in the past… compare it to what it is: media. Twitter is talk radio or television. The public square still exists and actual activism still takes place there. It doesn’t take place on twitter.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So, that was Trump’s idea. This goes beyond a lack of empathy— it’s a lack of even a conceptual notion of what empathy might involve. Sick puppy, we’ve got here.
lamh36
@guachi: Of you look at the numbers as a whole Kamala Harris is actually needing joe did Biden Black support then Warren, esp if we talking behind name recognition. Sanders and Warren have sole name recognition for many Black voters. Add to that the pushing of Warren on networks they more Black folks go to for their news and you can see why Warren has name recognition over Harris.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Leto: Whenever people say “Why aren’t the Dems doing X?”, I’m usually the first to point out that Dems don’t have limitless funds, but the fact that this isn’t a priority… And somehow our side finds tens of millions to piss way on Bernie, Yang and Gabbard
ETA: also, fuck Tom Steyer
lamh36
@guachi: go back and see how warm Black voters were to Obama round this dame time before votes were cast.
Saying Black voters “didn’t” warm to Harris as if it’s a done deal is a cop out and just an easy way to explain Harris numbers with Black voters with no context or nuance
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Absolutely agree. I’ve gotten really bitter about this – what is to me is a kind of childish and indulgent belief that things are like movies. It drives me fucking crazy and Trump isn’t the only one who does it. In my head I think of it as “nostalgia” but it’s one step removed from even that because it’s a yearning for a fucking fantasy. I get that they want to live in that imaginary world. They can’t. They can’t stay there! I enjoy pop culture as much as the next person but I don’t confuse it with real life.
lamh36
rikyrah
@Princess:
What’s the difference between Harris’ stance on Twitter, and Warren’s on Facebook.
Dolt45 threatens people every damn day from that account.
He violates the terms of service of Twitter. And, if not for him being President, the account would have been cancelled already.
kindness
Kamela was my first choice. She’s my Senator and I’ve voted for her every time from AG on up. But Elizabeth has been the one who has risen in the polls and I’ve kind of switched to her. Honestly I will vote for which ever Democrat wins and saying that rules out Bernie & Tulsi as they aren’t actual Democrats.
Supreme Court Justice Harris does have a nice ring to it. Shove that one down MoscowMitch’s craw.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Smells like tax fraud. And bank fraud. I wonder if there are state laws about this. I wonder if Letitia James is paying attention. Something tells me she is.
Jude
@laura:
Yup. And it disgusts me.
Last night even my very liberal husband complained about the tenor of her voice. I told him it was racist comment and he was livid. Tough luck, cookie. White men, even ‘good’ ones, struggle to imagine a world where the people in power don’t look and sound like them.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: If a Democratic president made a decision that let Russians take over an American outpost and let imprisoned terrorists run free, we’d be hearing about it for a hundred years, like Chamberlain at Munich.
cokane
@kindness: It’s insane to me that there are people on here who wouldn’t vote for Sanders should he be the nominee
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You…me….thinking along the same lines.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Maybe the best non-trump example is concealed-carry fetishists. “If I’d been in that church/movie theatre/concert I woulda dropped that guy like Raylan Givens”
PSA: If you haven’t seen Justified, it’s a worth a binge, especially season two with Margo Martindale
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought what he said about the grieving families of soldiers was really revealing.
They’re playing their role in the way he believes it should be played and then they go off-script. He’s a fucked up, bad person and no one needs an advanced degree or a 6 figure income to see it. It isn’t egalitarian to admire bad people. It’s just poor judgment.
Princess
@rikyrah: It’s one thing for a president to talk about regulating and breaking up monopolies in a whole industry. It’s another thing for a president to talk about removing people from a platform.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just put up a post about that. Saw it on Twitter this a.m. and was absolutely gob-smacked…
Princess
@Chyron HR: Yes, I guess. But Harris is not running for twitter CEO.
J R in WV
@Kay:
I’m always shocked by the number of people who actually believe that if it’s written in a book, it must be real. All the Christianists who want to keep Harry Potter books away from their children, because “There are demon calling spells in those books!!” continue to amaze me. F-I-C-T-I-O-N people, fiction! Not real by definition.
It seems to be a real problem for very conservative people. I’m not sure why as I don’t hang out with very many conservative people, but I see in the news they become very active in attempting to suppress any fiction with witchcraft or folk superstition in it. Strange~!~ They really do think fiction is real life, somehow. Missed the definition of fiction back in, what, third grade…
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: But it’s a particularly grievous affliction for Trump, who I sometimes think has a unique mania by which, like in a combination of Don Quixote and The Truman Show, he experiences reality as watching himself on TV. I don’t just mean he’s obsessed with watching himself on TV, which he also is, but he’s binging his own show to see how it turns out.
Betty Cracker
@Princess:
Wait, what? I missed that.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jeeze. How do you get money from a lender using property as collateral without reporting your property tax assessment? There’s an old con artist saying, ‘If you can’t fool a banker, find a different line of work.’
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I’m not. She is the most professional person running. She has experience running a very large state government entity. No one else has that. Several have decent experience but not her level. Some are great candidates in their own rights but she still has that actual experience. It’s not the same experience but it is still more than anyone else has.
The problem is as I’m sure others will/have already said, she is a she and she is black. That’s a lot of pig headed egos to overcome. Also she hasn’t been making the marketing splash that EW has been doing. But I say give her time, it’s early, we are more than a year out from voting, months away from the primaries.
Sab
@JaneE: VP is a dead end job. I like Warren and Harris a lot, but I don’t like Warren/Harris or Harris/Warren at all. Obama really damaged his presidency by staffing his cabinet with senators, leaving vacancies for the R party to fill. I hope the next D president doesn’t make that mistake. Keep good senators in the senate.
Avalune
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG. I read this twice…because I couldn’t believe what I was reading was real and not parody or satire. I just can’t…even. I have friends literally on that street where the kid was killed and friends at the base there and I can’t imagine this shit show is doing anything to keep relations strong in that community. What a f-ing idiot.
Betty Cracker
@cokane: I agree that Twitter doesn’t fit neatly into the “public square” box, so my analogy was lazy, but your dismissal of its importance as a communication platform is wrong too, IMO. Modern activists use Twitter all the time to organize events, coordinate actions in real time, etc. Social media isn’t a neat analog for old school media — it’s much more participatory.
Princess
@cokane: I can’t stand Bernie and I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. But I have to confess it would give me pause, esp. post heart attack, if he, as I would expect, chose Gabbard as his VP. That would be genuinely difficult. I expect I’d still end up voting for him. But.
Princess
@Betty Cracker: The quotation was: “Women have been given the responsibility to perpetuate the human species. Our bodies were created to do that…” There is so much wrong with that
Avalune
What a terrible thought. That would be very hard to swallow for sure but given the alternative… talk about having your choice of this turd sandwich or that turd sandwich. Yuck.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Princess: I hate his guts, but I’d vote for him. I think he’d be a terribly weak GE candidate, and even if he won, what a gift to Susan Collins Martha McSally– “Whoever wins, I’ll be a voice for common sense in Washington”
feebog
I think Harris did a stellar job last night. But the question remains whether she can regather momentum and move into the double digit range. The other candidate who I thought did exceptionally well last night was Tom Steyer. He came across as prepared and was able to articulate his position in brief soundbites. Kudos do Bernie’s makeup person, who actually made him seem to look like he was still in his late 70s.
Avalune
@Princess: I missed the source of this quotation?
I mean I guess it’s true from a biological standpoint but at the same time…kind of minimizes a woman’s existence. I’m more than a parasite host! (Kidding, sort of. I love my parasite).
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
I think she’s putting more effort and time and money into low-level organizing in early states, working with people first hand. It may not show up in early polling, but having folks to drive your supporters to the polls, to talk to their relatives about meeting the Senator, will make a difference in smaller early states.
I’m hoping so anyway. She seems to be the best candidate, most qualified for the job description to me. And will see to it that the criminals are prosecuted, which is important to the national health~!!~
afanasia
@lamh36: I think I’d love your theories. Please share. She’s by far my favorite candidate.
Sab
@Ruckus: I am team Warren but I really like Harris a lot.
My brother is a RWNJ who has worked in finance his whole life. Oddly enough, he really really likes Warren. He thinks the economy is really screwed up and that the top .01% needs to be taken down.
ETA he lives in the Bay area. Not Ohio like me.He actually is a local elected official.
He hates Harris. Where was she when Wells Fargo was repossessing service families houses during the Iraq war, getting tossed out of court by vigilant judges, and turning up several months later on the exact same grounds and being successful.
I don’t know if my RWNJ brother is right on his facts, but he is adamant about this issue.
Another Scott
I have to admit that while I watched the whole debate, I dozed off and was slow un-muting the sound a couple of times. Harris was absolutely right on the abortion topic and a few other things, as she’s been in the previous debates. I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I have a long-time AA friend who says that he will never even consider Harris because of her “record” in California as AG. I don’t know how representative his opinions are. I think she’s good, but it concerns me that her polling numbers have gone the wrong way – is there something I’m not seeing? Can she break out? She has a great personality, can tell a compelling story about her life, etc. I’ve given to her campaign and will do so again (as well as Warren and Castro). I assume that California’s primary being so early will help her, but I haven’t really looked at the numbers.
It’s still very early. A lot can happen between now and February. I’m not wedded to any particular candidate yet, but there are several who continue to rub me the wrong way (Uncle Joe, Pete, Amy), and some who are Meh but have their moments (Beto), and some who are no way no how (Wilmer, Tulsi, Marrianne, Steyer, Yang, etc., etc.).
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
@J R in WV: They self-select for members “who actually believe that if it’s written in [the one] book, it must be real.”
Avalune
@Another Scott: Sounds like my response. I watched the whole thing but only because I was really knitting which was far more interesting. Wake me up when there are fewer than 10 people on the damned stage. Kthx.
FlipYrWhig
@Princess: Isn’t it the case that Harris has no biological children? (Neither do I.)
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: … And then, under the drug-like influence of the gold trim in the Oval office and Trump’s irresistible smile, trapped by social pressure to perform on camera, they would drop the harmful publicity that is marring his image (!) in Britain. (Could even jeopardize his sparkly grandiose plan to marry a grandkid to a Windsor!)
lamh36
rikyrah
@Princess:
I will say it again:
He THREATENS PEOPLE EVERY DAMN DAY from that platform. One of these days, someone he has threatened will wind up in the hospital or the morgue, from one of his followers.
And, if it was anyone else their account would have been cancelled.
cokane
@Betty Cracker: The problem with the public square analogy is that it implies social media is a space that everyone has a right to have access to. It’s not the case. People also organized in the past via radio and television programming as well. Organizing that happens on twitter is only effective in so much as it gets people *off twitter*. Everything else is just media. Yes, it’s easier to participate now than in the past, but everything is easier now than it was in the past on the issue. People used talk radio and local television programming to organize in the past, but no one considered those media the public square.
waysel
@Princess: Good lord, who asked that question?
rikyrah
@Princess:
What’s wrong with that?
Where is the lie?
How is that not linked to women and choices, and that WE should be the ones to make those choices.
Show me the man who can reproduce……
So, once again, what’s wrong with what she said?
rikyrah
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes…which was her CHOICE…
she made that CHOICE for herself.
And wants every other woman to CHOOSE for themselves what will happen with their bodies.
cokane
@Princess: Hell even Gabbard, who I find an extremely bizarre candidate, is still a slam dunk choice for prez over Trump or Mike Pence.
I just especially don’t understand the anti-Sanders sentiment on here. Not your favorite primary candidate? Totally sensible, he’s not mine either. But the idea that a Sanders presidency would be radically different than a Warren or Harris or even Biden presidency is delusional. And it’s putting a weird consumerist approach to politics way above actual concern over policy that effects people’s lives. Anyone who says they would sit out a Sanders v Trump general is no better than the whiny Sanders-or-bust folks who were rightfully pilloried here in 2016. I don’t think Sanders has a strong chance to win right now, but he’s also not a longshot candidate either.
MisterForkbeard
@Princess: Is it another thing for a politician to insist that the President be held to the same minimal standards as some random schmuck in the street? Because that’s what Harris is doing here.
lamh36
@rikyrah: ??♀️can’t give her credit for even broaching the subject of reproductive rights when others, even their preferred candidates didn’t. Gotta find something wrong with her answer that I guess negates Harris’ entire point. Saw the same from folks like ABL i’m twitter ??♀️
waysel
@rikyrah: Well….’responsibility to perpetuate’ for one. And ‘bodies were CREATED’!!!? Created by Xtian God seems to roar out of that question, to me.
Princess
Let me say some of the things I really like about Harris since I have spent some time dumping on her here:
She’s a black woman. For me that’s a plus. She’s the right age. She’s presidential. It’s hard not to start sounding icky when you describe the ways a woman comes across as presidential, but it is in the way she projects herself — she carries herself like an executive, possibly because of her stint as AG which gives you a very different kind of experience than being a senator does. She’d slide right into the Oval Office. She grew up near me and we’re around the same age: she can’t talk much about it because most voters would see it as a negative, but for me the fact that she has actually lived under a system of single payer healthcare and her mother was working in that system while they were living there is a huge plus. So I trust her on healthcare more than anyone else.
waysel
@waysel: Maybe I misunderstood. This is a Kamala quote and not part of a question put to her? I like her a to, it should be noted.
cokane
@waysel: this was a comment made extemporaneously at the debate, no? Why can’t people be more charitable instead of parsing the language as if she wrote these words down? Bodies can be “made” by evolution just as much as God. And even if she believes in the jesus sky god, well, so do almost all Americans.
Betty Cracker
@cokane: We’ll have to agree to disagree on this because, IMO, the arguments people make about the right to access these platforms as a free speech issue aren’t so easily hand-waved since the platforms do function as a public space in a way radio and TV never have. Private ownership of those platforms is therefore a thorny issue too in a unique way. I’m not sure what the right answers are as far as regulation goes, but I do believe the modern use of these platforms raises fundamentally different issues than TV and radio.
rikyrah
Since the beginning of time…women are the ones carrying the children
show me the man who gets pregnant and brings a child to term.
Why you think Christian…doesn’t every version of religion have a creation story?
I’m still trying to figure out what she said that was a lie…
That didn’t link to the overall vision of a woman’s right to CHOOSE what happens TO HER BODY.
matt
@Nicole: Someone should have said Mayor Pete is their best Republican friend.
waysel
@cokane: Yes. I’m more charitable if this was part of her response. I thought it was an insanely framed question put to her by our not wonderful MSM.
Matt McIrvin
@J R in WV: It’s a Christian evangelical thing; they live in what Carl Sagan called the demon-haunted world, and they see the encroachment of Satan and real, working spells and curses and witchcraft everywhere. Some are terrified of stage magicians because they’re worried about where they got their “powers”.
Matthew J. McIrvin
It’s a Christian evangelical thing; they live in what Carl Sagan called the demon-haunted world, and they see the encroachment of Satan and real, working spells and curses and witchcraft everywhere. Some are terrified of stage magicians because they’re worried about where they got their “powers”.
rikyrah
@matt:
bwa ha ahh a ha ha ha ha ha
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: What I meant was that given her own experience it seemed highly unlikely that Harris could possibly have meant, or ever thought, that women were divinely designed to reproduce.
As a non child having person myself I will say that I dislike, though I grudgingly accept, when politicians frame policy in terms of Our Children, because some of us don’t have them. Maybe Harris clumsily moved in that general direction last night, but not because she really means it. One of the things I like about her is that she doesn’t connect her politics to her mommy-ness, which other women in politics have been tied in knots trying to navigate.
So I was hoping to defend her, not ding her.
cokane
@Betty Cracker: I think they are pretty easily waved away, since twitter pays servers to keep its website running. Users aren’t paying a cent. Twitter can decide what gets publish on its dime and what doesn’t. Any interference there by the government is a pretty clear abrogation of the first amendment. Obviously Twitter is bound by the same laws that all media companies are, so what they can publish isn’t limitless. But again, that’s because they’re a media company. Not a public square.
This is also a failure to recognize how ephemeral all this stuff is. Twitter was barely anything back in 2008. And in 10 years it’s not guaranteed to have the same importance that it does now. Same for Facebook for that matter, which is already fading in usage in the US. One of the biggest problems in US politics right now, imo, is that far too many people are investing far too much of their time in these ephemeral and largely impotent spaces. You’re ultimately just creating content for extremely wealth media owners, not really doing doing activism.
Nicole
@matt:
Ha! That would have woken me up, for sure.
I did appreciate (reading about the debate later) that three of the candidates picked a dead Republican.
Kent
@Sab:
George Bush
Gerald Ford
Lynden Johnson
Richard Nixon
Harry Truman
Teddy Roosevelt
were all VPs who became president in the last century.
In addition, a whole bunch of them became their party’s nominee and lost. The VP spot is the most likely stepping stone into the presidency of any position in government. That’s hardly “dead end” and why Sara Palin was such an atrocity.
hueyplong
@Kent: Not to be mean spirited, but if I were VP to Biden or Sanders I would think the chances of moving up were pretty strong.
Betty Cracker
@cokane: True, they’re privately owned, as are most media companies, but the feds regulate TV and radio for a reason, and many of those same interests are at stake in social media companies, but in entirely different ways because they are mostly open platforms with literally billions of content producers and millions of groups that depend on the platforms for organizing, commerce, etc.
As you point out, social media platforms are ephemeral in their present incarnations and preferences shift quickly, but the data isn’t ephemeral, and the use of it can have an extreme impact on societies, including skewing elections, fomenting genocides and steering media framing seen by people who never visit a social media site.
And now I’m really going to shut up about that topic, but I did want to add that I agree 100% with what you said at #93. I hope to hell Democrats adopt a more charitable attitude toward our candidates and don’t blow up every awkwardly phrased utterance into an unforgivable offense, but the signs are not hopeful, thanks in part (IMO) to social media influence.
rikyrah
@hueyplong:
Not mean. Just know how to read actuary tables.
Kent
@hueyplong: Or Warren for that matter.
Yes, you need to “balance the ticket” and all that bullshit. Althought Clinton didn’t do that when he picked Gore, another young Southern white man. And he won.
But we do have to look long term. The 2028 elections will eventually come upon us and whoever the Dems pick now as VP is automatically going to have the inside lane to the nomination. So it should be someone who we would all like to see rise to the presidency in 8 years. That AUTOMATICALLY disqualifies the oldsters like Sanders and probably Warren as well. Anyone who is going to be in their 80s by 2028 has absolutely no business being on the ticket.
I don’t think we need restrict ourselves to the current drop of candidates. But someone in the mold of Beto, Castro, Mayor Pete, or even Harris definitely fit the mold Definitely needs to be someone under 60 and preferably under 55 and with enough seasoning and experience to step into the presidency on day 1 if necessary.
If Biden was 10 years younger (i.e. if Obama has picked a younger VP) then he would be almost unbeatable as a candidate right now no matter what you think of his politics. The VP office is that powerful of a launching pad.
FlipYrWhig
@Kent: My theory is that Obama picked Biden specifically because he would NOT consider himself a successor, whereas picking, say, Hillary Clinton, would start that speculation immediately. But Biden couldn’t resist one last caper.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: you gotta be shitting me. He has 65,000,000 followers and can pump that shit out in a second several times a day with Twitter. Otherwise he’d have to appear before reporters.
Kent
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t think it was that Machivelian. I think the Obama team just felt they needed an older seasoned more traditional type Dem to balance out the ticket and “comfort” the older more racist type white folk. In other words, I think Biden was picked primarily to win in 2008 and they weren’t thinking so much about 2016.
I mean that doesn’t even make sense. Why would you even pick a VP that you didn’t want to see become president? Are you saying that the Obama folks were trying to keep a lane open for Hillary or something?
Bobby Thomson
@guachi: Sanders isn’t in a “black lane.” All you have to do us look at his rallies to see that. He has disproportionately lost white supporters to Warren. His collapse is directly related to her rise.
Bobby Thomson
@Princess: so you’re ok with terroristic threats and obstruction of justice? Obviously you’re not among those targeted.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Dunno. I think there are a few issues that are being rolled together here:
1) Donnie is rattling off at the mouth, threatening people, breaking all kinds of federal rules and regulations and traditions, in using Twitter the way he does.
2) Twitter has no compulsion about shutting down some accounts for hard to distinguish reasons, but letting Donnie do #1 to his heart’s content. It’s inconsistent and capricious. If Twitter wants to claim safe harbor as a platform then there needs to be some sort of enforcement mechanism to ensure that they do uphold sensible standards.
3) Incitement to violence can have deadly effects whether it’s via radio (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM)) or via FB or WhatsApp and all the rest.
It’s clear (to me) that too many people are stepping over the line in incitement. The standard seemingly can no longer be the Brandenburg v Ohio standard that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” I don’t know what the new standard should be, and obviously it would have to be carefully tailored.
It’s the combination of Donnie breaking the rules, Twitter not enforcing it’s rules, and the law not recognizing that things have changed for the worse, that makes things so toxic, IMHO. Fixing any one of them would help a great deal, even if it wouldn’t completely solve the problem of incitement and lack of accountability.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: Because it’s bullshit. She never said that. I’m starting to smell borscht.
Bobby Thomson
@Princess: and of course you left off the end of the quote because you’re a dishonest sack of shit. I see you.
Bobby Thomson
@Sab: she sued Wells Fargo and other banks and collected billions. Republicans are gonna Republican.
stinger
@Ohio Mom:
I worried a LOT about electability in the 2008 campaign — I thought both Obama and Clinton had such built-in “negatives” (black! inexperienced! female! Bill’s wife!) that I had a hard time deciding whom to support. And then between them they went on to win the next three elections.
So I’m not worrying about electability any more.
Tom Q
I’m in the “Harris is the best/why isn’t she doing better?” camp, and my take on it is this:
After that initial debate where she took it to Biden, the Trump people got scared. They thought of her as clearly a threat: young, vibrant, full of personality; liable to stoke turnout not just among women, but also among minorities in a way Hillary couldn’t; liberal enough to satisfy lefties but not in the easily caricaturable Sanders camp. As close to Obama as the Dems have this year. Her quick rise in the polls seemed to confirm all this.
So, what happened in the next debate? Sleeper agent Gabbard threw one bomb after another at her. The next day, Russian bots went after her with the force of a thousand suns. And soon, you had people saying they “just don’t like her”. These people will all tell you they came to this opinion on their own — just as all sorts of folks are sure they came to their 2016 opinion of Hillary on their own, even while echoing the talking points the bots were spreading viral.
My only hope: this is such an undecided field — neither Biden nor Warren, in their front runner periods, have much exceeded the 30% mark, which is far from definitive — that we effectively have a free-for-all, which can be turned upside down late (see: Kerry ’04 or McCain ’08 — two candidates way down in polls till actual voting starts). I still think Harris has the greatest upside of any candidate out there, and I haven’t given up on her.
FlipYrWhig
@Kent: I think they wanted to buy time, especially on the question of whether the next president would be Hillary or not. Making her Secretary of State was a way to give her a role that wouldn’t be a snub but also wouldn’t be an heir-apparent. In my view Biden was supposed to be a placeholder purely. Then the 2016 primaries could play out and whatever happened would happen. YMMV.
cokane
@Betty Cracker: Good points, appreciate the back and forth even if we ultimately won’t agree on social media regulation or its role in our society.
Kent
@Tom Q:
I don’t buy it. We are all talking about public opinion polls that are an engineered cross section of the public in key states. I doubt very few respondents are even on political twitter much less ever even seeing Russian bots. I think the simpler answer is that other candidates have just captured more air time and as a result have more name recognition. Both Sanders and Biden started with a lot higher name recognition. And for some reason Warren and Mayor Pete (I can never spell his late name without looking it up) have done the best job of getting free media and air time since that first or second debate.
It is what it is. I started out 2020 as a Harris fan myself. But she isn’t the only good candidate who isn’t gaining traction. Booker, Klobachar, Castro, Beto, a bunch of them are stuck in the back. A year ago everyone was talkinb about Beto like he was the next Obama.
I do think part of Harris’ failing as a candidate so far is that she has failed to capture a single narrative for her campaign. Warren is owning the middle class economics narrative. That’s what she does. It has been her shtick for 10 years and she is very very good at it. Sanders owns the lefty “power to the people” narrative. Biden owns the “safe choice to beat Trump” narrative. I like Harris and I follow this as closely as anyone else not doing it professionally and I would be at a loss to say what Harris’ main narrative is. Her 15 second elevator pitch as for why she wants to be president. She might have one but I don’t think a lot of people can really repeat it.
Princess
@Bobby Thomson: Ah nevermind. You’re pied. I’m not going to bother with someone who calls me a piece of shit.
terry chay
@cokane: there are people who SAY they won’t vote for Sanders and those are very few indeed. In fact the vast majority have said they will vote for him.
This is as opposed to the large large numbers of Sanders supporters who DIDNT vote for Hillary (I know of three personally, probably more who haven’t admitted to it) in 2016. In fact, they tried to hold the entire Democratic Party hostage.
It doesn’t matter. In 2016 Sanders lost by a landslide (his numbers were no better than previous candidates who drop out shortly after Super Tuesday. The difference is he had the money to stay in and sabotage the race). This was even with a strong anti-Hillary vote. His numbers now are far below that and declining and it is still a year away. He has a large name recognition so the numbers aren’t going up.
The only thing he had is decent favorabilities given name recognition. The problem is Bidens are much better.
Sanders is toast so who cares if people will or will not vote for him? He won’t be on the ticket and, even if he stays in it to the finish line because his who has been messed up by some bird landing on a podium in 2016, Warren won’t leave either because she and the other Dems know what happens when Sanders stays in and they leave (his assumes Warren isn’t going to win the nomination outright herself).
Sanders will find himself under the both sides bus someday so his selfish destruction of the only viable party in the US will have karmic retribution.
I say this as a Harris supporter who will have no trouble voting for the lesser Russian stooge in Sanders if it came to that. Happily, in fact.
Emerald
@Audie:
I can. I want her as President.
cokane
@terry chay: QAnon level conspiracy stuff about Sanders aside, it’s just innumerate to say Sanders has no chance this time around. He did well in the caucus states last time around and will do well in New Hampshire regardless. Which means he’s teed-up to do well in the first two states. Of course, I’d never bet money on him winning the nom. But all the polling indicates he’s the third most likely nominee.
Lastly, exit polling data shows that fewer Sanders voters broke away than Clinton voters did in 2008. Luckily it was irrelevant in 2008, with the disastrous situation for all Republicans. But the theory that Sanders sabotaged Clinton is grossly exaggerated. Moreover, it’s wrong to even characterize all 2016 Sanders voters as petulant left-wingers. Sanders did well in a number of conservative states like West Virginia where there is a fair number of voters who are still registered Democrats who vote for Republican presidents (but frequently vote for Dems down ticket, i.e. Joe Manchin). This same effect happened in 2008 as well, but again, wasn’t relevant because it didn’t tip the scales in a blowout election.
cokane
@Kent: agreed with this analysis. There’s no issue where Harris has made herself stand out from the pack. As you say, Sanders clearly has a shtick, same with Warren, same with Biden. Hell, even fringe candidates like Gabbard or Yang have a signature issue. With Harris, there’s no actual policy where she’s distinguished from the generic party platform. Obviously that’s not a bad thing if she were the nominee, but it’s not something that’s going to help her gain any free media or name recognition.
Tom Q
@Kent: And yet Harris did make a big jump in those opinion polls after the first debate, and then took a precipitate drop in the days just after the second debate, while that concerted online activity was taking place. It’s not as if Harris had a great 15-second pitch in the first debate but lost it in the second, The difference was the ferocity of opposition to her.
There are always a multitude of factors affecting candidates’ rises and falls — I’ve been following this stuff more than four decades now, and have seen pretty much every variety. But this attack on Harris so resembles what was (successfully) done to Hillary that I think it’s a big mistake to ignore it.
Omnes Omnibus
It is still really early. No one has voted yet. It is insane to assume that today’s poll numbers reflect the way that things will pan out in the actual primaries. I will be shocked if there is not a big movement toward Harris as normal people start to pay attention. Also, I think people here are underestimating the appeal that Biden will have to non-political junkies.
Marcopolo
@Just One More Canuck: I just don’t get the whole scorched earth thing that this comment represents. Chris Hayes is definitely aware of Trump’s invocations of violence against his opponents. The friggen altered Kingsman scene video of Trump going on a rampage and killing people including “news organizations” and Rachel Maddow literally just happened. He asked Harris a question. He then asked a follow on question. I don’t seen any gotcha shit exuding from him. He was just asking questions. And Kamala and her supporters should be happy that he did ask the follow up question because it allowed her to deliver a truly great response. She wound up making her point clearer. That’s great! This is the kind of interaction we want to see between a journalist and a candidate.
And calling Hayes an empty suit. Really.!?! It is just too easy to sling word crap around online and on twitter and on Facebook at anyone you want, but Hayes, except for his seeming fetishization of Bernie & Michael Moore is a pretty stand up guy. Here he is at the end of his show on Monday calling out the management culture at his own company vis a vis how they treated Ronan Farrow. Not something an empty suit would do.
Anyways, the point I am trying to make, which is directed generally to everyone here (just using your comment as an example) is maybe take a few breaths before shit-talking anyone who you think has looked at you funny. I see it way too often here at BJ.
Edith Silver
@JaneE: I’ve made a button that says:
I’ll Take
Harris or Warren
2020
Edith Silver
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not to mention Kaitlyn Deaver, recently of Unbelievable on Netflix! I lovelovelove Elmore Leonard!
Betty Cracker
@Marcopolo: Agree with you on Hayes. I don’t understand all the vitriol directed at him around here either, never have.
Tom Q
@Betty Cracker: I think maybe some find him too much in the tank for Sanders, since he has him on often enough he almost qualifies as co-host.
But, yeah, he’s a generally very solid interviewer, and doesn’t deserve bile. But primary season tends to create intra-mural disputes like this, which we hope will be forgotten once the general election period arrives.
Sab
@Kent: I hope you are right. Couple of those guys got there via assasination and impeachment, but many others by the usual route, so you are right and me wrong.