Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

What fresh hell is this?

We still have time to mess this up!

We have all the best words.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Also, too.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Lighten up, Francis.

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

The revolution will be supervised.

This blog will pay for itself.

Mission Accomplished!

Usually wrong but never in doubt.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Not all heroes wear capes.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

Screw the Judaean People’s Front. Splitters.

No one could have predicted…

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

You are here: Home / Archives for Election Year / Kamala Harris 2020

Kamala Harris 2020

Election 2020 Open Thread: Smart Move, Sen. Harris

by | 72 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

The horse-race touts at Politico would *very much* like Kamala Harris to shut up and go back to her knitting the Senate, but Houle’s right; New Hampshire would not vote for a woman of color from the opposite coast even if she promised to rebuild the Old Man of the Mountain at (other states’) public expense. The state is very white and its politics are very retro; they’re working as hard as any formerly Confederate state to make sure the college kids who might not understand ‘our local traditions’ can’t corrupt the purity of their voting pool. Even leaving aside the cranky libertarians who’ll swarm the Dem primary before voting for Trump next year, Democratic primary voters are pretty much divided between Sanders and Warren. Also, too:

So Kamala went to Iowa, later that day, and did this:

show full post on front page

Election 2020 Open Thread: Smart Move, Sen. HarrisPost + Comments (72)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Took the Lead This Weekend

by | 87 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Rep. Shirley Chisholm, one of my earliest political idols, said “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” After Friday’s HBCU Trump debacle, Senator Harris took her chair, and changed the conversation.

… In the hours after Harris initially announced she wouldn’t be present at the forum, talks began between her campaign, Mayor Benjamin and Benedict College to create an end result that didn’t include the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center with a breakthrough happening overnight, a Harris campaign aide said.

“People were figuring out a solution where the group honoring President Trump wasn’t involved and students had access to speeches and the ability to ask questions,” the aide said.

Another aide said Harris, the only graduate of a historically black college in the 2020 field, wouldn’t stand for the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center “disrespecting” the legacy of HBCUs and their history rooted in protest, justice and equality.

“When it became clear Donald Trump would receive an award after decades of celebrating mass incarceration, pushing the death penalty for innocent Black Americans, rolling back police accountability measures and racist behavior that puts people’s lives at risk, and then learned all but ten Benedict students are excluded from participating, I cannot in good faith be complicit in papering over his record,” Harris said in a statement Friday…

show full post on front page

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Took the Lead This WeekendPost + Comments (87)

Open Thread: The Terrors of Celebrity

by | 130 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Of course it’s an honor, but still — I think Kamala just flashed on what her mom’s expression would’ve been if she did something like this…

You know it’s Democratic because it’s (relatively) discreet. And spelled correctly, too!

Open Thread: The Terrors of CelebrityPost + Comments (130)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Senator Harris Had A REALLY Good Debate

by | 136 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Fortune favors the prepared mind, and Kamala came prepared. She deserves all the positive notice she’s garnered.

The other candidates worth paying attention backed her up, ably, but she gets points for leading the topic.
 

show full post on front page

Election 2020 Open Thread: Senator Harris Had A REALLY Good DebatePost + Comments (136)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Gets Her TIME Cover

by | 61 Comments

This post is in: , , ,


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.”…

show full post on front page

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Gets Her TIME CoverPost + Comments (61)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Must Be Feeling Pretty Good Right Now

by | 48 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

And so she should!

(Also, as an old married lady myself, I’m glad she picked a good husband!)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Must Be Feeling Pretty Good Right NowPost + Comments (48)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Continues to Impress

by | 166 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Continues to ImpressPost + Comments (166)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Is Running Like A Winner

by | 117 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,


Complete interview here:

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Is Running Like A WinnerPost + Comments (117)

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Will Not Be Ignored

by | 42 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

.

.
What she’s got to overcome:

… Harris surged from about 7% to 15% in averages of Democratic polls immediately after the first debate in late June, putting her in second or third place in the crowded field. But it was a sugar high — she’s back to the 7% she had when summer began…

“Our focus is on winning the primary, not an off-year August news cycle, which is why we’ve spent the summer building the grassroots organizing foundation that will propel Kamala to victory in this race,” Harris spokesman Ian Sams said in an email. “These races are marathons, not sprints, and Kamala is a long-distance runner.”

show full post on front page

Election 2020 Open Thread: Kamala Harris Will Not Be IgnoredPost + Comments (42)

Kamala Harris 2020 : Interesting Data Point

by | 77 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

I hadn’t heard of Cheddar.com previously, but Wikipedia calls it “a live streaming financial news network founded by Jon Steinberg in the United States. Cheddar broadcasts live daily from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASDAQ, the Flatiron Building in New York City, and the White House lawn and briefing room in Washington, D.C. covering new products, technologies, and services. Cheddar targets millennials by streaming one to two hours of live content from the NYSE trading floor daily… “

If the election results were based on how many people attend a candidate’s events, Kamala Harris would be the Democratic frontrunner.

Gravy Analytics, a location-based marketing technology company, analyzed the smartphone data of people who attended the 111 solo Democratic presidential candidate events held in June and July. (Gravy disqualified other official party events as well as rallies held for multiple candidates.)

The company analyzed data it received from 100,000 apps it partners with. Users opt in to the tracking via permissions given to the app and the company says it accounts for users who may be logged in to several of the apps at once. The results, which are anonymized and grouped for statistical purposes, were shared first with Cheddar…

Presidential campaign rallies have been an unofficial bellwether for popularity. President Barack Obama’s events cemented his strong support among youth, while President Donald Trump’s attendance showed his passionate following better than most polls predicted.

In terms of total attendance, Gravy Analytics found most people went to Harris’ events, followed by Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Julián Castro. More than a quarter of the people who attended these events were between the ages of 18 to 34, and 56 percent were men. More than nine out of 10 people only went to one event…

Seems obvious that the people logged on to these apps would skew young, but I have no way of judging their metrics. On the other hand, if (as I’ve suspected) part of Harris’ problem is that she’s not getting much attention from Very Serious Media, does information like this help change that?

Kamala Harris 2020 : Interesting Data PointPost + Comments (77)

Honest Plea: Send Me Some Good Kamala Harris Links!

by | 27 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

I have no trouble finding interesting tweets and articles about Elizabeth Warren — partially as a result of personal bias, I’m sure, but also because she’s a local pol and getting a ton of media coverage, good and bad. But I’d honestly be just as happy to see Sen. Harris as the Democratic nominee, and in the Oval Office. Unfortunately, what my usual reading round turns up on Harris tends to be either press-release-style twitter boosting (which is fine, but not really front-page-worthy in most cases) — or else pundits shaking their heads / fingers about the latest anti-Harris crap that’s floated up from the wingnut welfare outlets, stuff I have no interest in spreading any further.

So — if you’re on Team Kamala, post a link in the comments here, or send me an email at annelaurie dot bj at gmail, okay?

(Same goes for other actual Democratic candidates, of course!)

Honest Plea: Send Me Some Good Kamala Harris Links!Post + Comments (27)

Meaningless Poll Open Thread

by | 245 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Fresh poll of likely caucus-goers in Iowa has good news for Senator Warren’s campaign:

So, instead of Warren and Sanders duking it out for the lefty vote, it looks like Biden and Sanders are having the Battle of the Retreads.

Excerpt from an article in Iowa Starting Line:

Elizabeth Warren’s early investment in Iowa is paying off…

The horserace numbers reflect a shake-up that those of us on the ground in Iowa have been seeing for a while…

The other good news for Warren is that her support appears to be very broad in the party. She leads every age demographic (even surpassing Biden in the oldest age bracket, 31% to 28%) except for the youngest. Sanders has a 14-point lead here among the 18-34 range with 34%.

The article also notes that Senator Harris is going all-in on the Iowa caucus now, which seems to be the smart play. That’s a fairly recent development, according to ISL. We’ll see how the numbers shake out down the road.

All absolutely bereft of meaning at this stage, of course! Open thread!

Meaningless Poll Open ThreadPost + Comments (245)

Open Thread: Why We Need A (Democratic) Female President

by | 172 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Sorry, repeating WE WILL BREAK ALL THE THINGS is not a plan. Not a plan that’s liable to succeed, anyways…

I’ll vote for the eventual nominee, but this is why I’m hoping that will be either Warren or Harris.

I’d be fine voting for Klobuchar or Gillibrand, too, but right now it doesn’t seem like their chances are good. (And of course it would gravely affect my blood pressure to vote for Gabbard or Williamson, but they’re not candidates, they’re spoilers promoted by foreign powers and useful idiots.)

Side issue: Maybe Beto O’Rorke can be Warren’s VP candidate / ‘anger translator‘?

Open Thread: Why We Need A (Democratic) Female PresidentPost + Comments (172)

Open Thread: ‘KamalaCare’ (and Its Attackers)

by | 146 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

I’m sure more knowledgeable commentors will have more to say about this proposal, but IMO, it’s not a bad starting point…

show full post on front page

Open Thread: ‘KamalaCare’ (and Its Attackers)Post + Comments (146)

Election 2020 Open Thread: The “Real” Kamala Harris

by | 81 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

David M. Drucker, “senior correspondent” for the (very rightwing) Washington Examiner:

… For months I’ve been in contact with a group of senior Republican strategists keeping tabs on Donald Trump and the party’s view of the unfolding Democratic presidential primary. Since the beginning of the campaign, these people have been worried that Biden constituted the biggest political threat to Trump’s reelection. Early public opinion polls certainly lend credibility to their concerns. But a smaller, though equally distinguished group of Republican operatives in my Rolodex, a sort of GOP cult of Kamala, had been insisting for weeks that Harris was being radically underestimated. With her surgical vivisection of Biden in the first debate, it seemed their fears had been realized. Now, as Democrats prepare for a second round of debates next week, these strategists are raising the alarm.

“I think she’s dangerous, and probably maybe the most dangerous, from our view,” a veteran Republican political consultant told me this month. “She theoretically would do very well with African American turnout and end up being positioned as a Vienna Soccer Mom.” In case you’re wondering, that’s Vienna, Virginia, an upscale bedroom community just west of Washington, D.C., that has accelerated its drift from the Republican orbit since a certain former reality-television star secured the Republican nomination three years ago. Suburbs just like it in critical battlegrounds could hand the White House back to the Democratic Party in 2020…

Harris, 54, is California’s junior U.S. senator and former state attorney general. She might have more natural political skill than any of her competitors for the Democratic nomination. She certainly checks more boxes—African American, woman, racially diverse, a legitimate strength in a party occasionally obsessed with identity politics. Harris also is something of a Washington outsider, or could claim to be, at least, having served in Congress for less than three years. Unlike Biden, she has not spent decades on Capitol Hill making tough choices or agreeing to imperfect compromises.

If any of this rings familiar, it’s because it is. The last Democrat to win the presidency, Barack Obama, was all of those things, save for the obvious. That is why some Republicans take it as an article of faith that by the time the Democrats gather in Milwaukee a little less than a year from now to coronate their nominee, Harris will be the guest of honor. Who else could they possibly nominate? some Republicans have told me, convinced. But in dismantling Biden on the big stage in Miami, Harris showcased how she might earn it—and why next week’s debate in Detroit could be decisive…

Ben Terris, in the Washington Post — “Who is Kamala Harris, really? Ask her sister Maya”:

… The Harris sisters don’t look all that much alike. Kamala resembles their father: taller and angular; where Maya has the softer features of their late mother who clocked in at 5-foot-1. But the sisters share a contagious, body-shaking laugh so similar that strangers often guess they’re related.

Only now, Maya kept a straight face. Getting exercise and sleep aren’t a treat, she said, but a necessity. Maya has always got Kamala’s best interest at heart, whether it’s ignoring the former prosecutor’s joke comparing a campaign to incarceration, making sure she’s fully up to speed on policy, or getting enough rest — and not just because she’s Kamala’s little sister, but because she’s Kamala’s campaign chairwoman.

show full post on front page

Election 2020 Open Thread: The “Real” Kamala HarrisPost + Comments (81)