Adrian Beaumont update at 11:40am: I’ve done an article for The Conversation on Biden’s withdrawal. It’s too early to analyse polls of Harris vs Trump as Harris hasn’t been a presidential candidate until today. Economic data is improving, and Harris is much younger than Trump. But it’s a very risky move as Harris hasn’t been battle-tested in primaries, and failed in 2020. However, Democrats needed to take the risk as Biden’s age is of great concern and he’s already behind. US Senate polls have the Democrats doing well, implying Biden was a drag.
Joe Biden has announced his withdrawal from the presidential election race, “to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term”.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
Discuss.
Suddenly Trump, for some people, is more ‘the devil you know’ than the Democratic candidate.
Harris needs to tell her story well, and soon, to define herself in order to win over the further voters she needs – and to remove the fear of the unknown.
If she comes over as a decent, hard-working woman who is pleasant to deal with and who has clearly worked her way smartly to where she is, she will win new voters. It’s not always about the policies/politics directly, and many Independent voters aren’t in love with Trump even if they do also want to blow up the system a bit.
Harris also needs to project strength in foreign policy. Women are often not credited with this, unfairly of course in the main. Hillary Clinton and Nikki Haley are exceptions who demonstrated well their toughness with the bad guys and their ability to work painlessly with allies.
BTSays says Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at 6:20 pm
How quickly they forget the Iron Lady.
I like Walz (he’s definitely on the list of people I think he would be a good VP choice) because he is plain-speaking and witty, with Middle American suburban dad aesthetics and would be a good aesthetic balance to the professional liberal black woman from urban California.
Late Riser,
I’ve just discovered Kyle Kulinski as well. He speaks sensibly about political matters to hand. I like his observation about Josh Shapiro in that video. That Shapiro has taught himself to mimic the speaking style of Barack Obama. 🙂
Shapiro stated that those protesters who scream anti-semitic and racist taunts at jewish students, making them feel unsafe on campus (the context in which he was responding) were akin to the white nationalists in the KKK who behaved in the same way towards Black people. Was it a good analogy? Perhaps not. But he definitely wasn’t referring to peaceful protesters in using that analogy.
Shapiro recognised people’s right to protest, just warned employees to avoid behaviour at protests that might bring the administration into disrepute. My employer has the exact same policy for staff; it is uncontroversial and is not designed to stifle people’s right to protest, just stifle some people’s inclinations to go over the top when they attend protest rallies. Eg the kind of behaviour we’ve seen from ‘pro peace protesters’ where MP offices have been destroyed and their employees made to feel unsafe, or where people destroy private property in their endeavour to protest ‘peacefully’.
I’ve wondered from the outset how the Gaza thing would go for the Democrats if Shapiro were picked for VP, but I have serious doubts whether it would split the Democrats. There’s certainly no evidence this is a risk, much less a sure thing with the party universally uniting behind Harris.
The most recent episode of the Five Thirty Eight podcast discussed the VP pick. One downer mentioned about Josh Shapiro is that at times he could be a bit too slick.
C@t:
Feel the energy on this: https://x.com/keithboykin/status/1818051820641763496
The biggest red mark against Shapiro (far bigger than his pro Israel but anti Netanyahu stance) are the accusations his administration covered up sexual harassment allegations against one his staff.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/josh-shapiro-mike-vereb-sexual-harassment-vp-20240729.html#:~:text=Vereb%2C%2057%2C%20abruptly%20stepped%20down,members%2C%20and%20a%20female%20state
With Dems trying to paint Trump/Vance as weird anti-women extremists, this would be a liability on their ticket.
Confessions @ #1658 Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 – 7:17 pm
This here is a bit of a potential dealbreaker for him. You don’t want a controversy-ridden running mate who the campaign has to spend time, resources and energy defending. Even if it’s just a storm in a teacup, if “Harris-Shapiro” campaign surrogates are fielding questions and comments about this kind of stuff, instead of about the election and policies, or whatever talking point they want to push, then it’s a problem.
Idk enough about any of the Dem VP candidates to give an opinion of value on any of them.
What I will say, is that you can pick someone who ticks all the boxes. But you can also pick someone who doesn’t necessarily tick all the boxes, but has something of the ‘wow’ factor about them as a rising star or someone who gets attention in a good way.
So there’s good picks on paper and good picks in reality. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes they’re not.
And as has been noted on here before, the overall impact of a VP pick is generally a lot over-rated. It was very important for Trump in 2016, but that’s the exception. It was important for McCain in 2008 as he needed a ‘Hail Mary’ – initially seemed to be one but fell apart to no better than net neutral impact and the fundamentals remained heavily against McCain who lost big to Obama.
Wat Tyler @ #1659 Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 – 7:59 pm
Exactly. Just look at JD Vance!
I’m sure this stuff will be a red flag in the vetting.
US talk show host and political commentator David Pakman believes that JD Vance will be removed from the Trump ticket within 10-12 days. He’s too weird, too gaff-prone, probably still hates Trump but likes the idea of being a heartbeat (of an obese 78-year old man) away from the Presidency:
https://youtu.be/btrc3Sx_u8s?si=lDhTTqv7x103hg8y
BTSays says Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at 8:05 pm
The problem for McCain is that it cast doubt on his judgement. So it wasn’t so much a perception of Palan as the one it created of McCain.
To be fair though, he cites Chuck Schumer as the source of the 10-12 days pronouncement.
Confessions @ #1659 Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 – 7:47 pm
Better to let the heat go out of the issue and let it be resolved, as opposed to putting a Bunsen burner under it by picking him as VP candidate.
Confessions @ #1658 Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 – 7:33 pm
That’s what I’m talking about! 😀
But did you read the bigoted reply that video received?
Ben Wigley
@TheBaldRussian
·
13h
she is not a “SISTER”. She was raised indian by her MOTHER… and very PROUDLY proclaimed that in 2019
It suggests to me that the Russians are worried too.
Today I listened to the Breaking Points YouTube channel discuss the various VP possibilities. It included a video of Josh Shapiro and it does sound like he made a conscious decision to imitate Barack Obama’s vocal cadence. It sounds thoroughly inauthentic and annoying and it made me wonder what type of adult would do that. Developing a public speaking style that is genuinely yours is such a basic aspect of the maturation process.
C@t:
The Russians have been reported in MSM trash talking Harris and the Democrats since Biden’s withdrawal.
Clearly unhinged, and doesn’t that say it all!
And yet his condolence speech for the fireman who took Trump’s bullet at that rally 2 weeks ago was entirely empathetic for the man’s family and wholly in keeping with what locals said at the time was how Shapiro approached his job as Governor.
I get you want to rain shit on the man. You’re just built that way that you can’t separate your own ideological purity from real life human beings enough to view people as actual people. But whatever. You do you.
Confessions @ #1669 Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 – 10:03 pm
The Russians are definitely on the case against Kamala Harris. I wonder who provided that AI deep fake ‘Harris campaign video’ to the Trump acolyte on X that Musk reposted?
This is an interesting comment under the JVL/AB Stoddard Bulwark podcast:
C@t:
It definitely sounds as if the internal leaking against Shapiro has amped up in recent days at the same time Walz is experiencing a renaissance of positive media around him.
Confessions @ #1673 Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 – 10:23 pm
Yeah. I’m down to Walz or Kelly now, but as that person said in their comment, no one knew they were even vetting Admiral William McRaven until he pulled out! And betting markets are suggesting a Texan potential nominee? Which I hope isn’t Beto, btw, much as I love him.
A Texan would more likely be Julian Castro, no?
FWIW this is the new USPOL thread:
https://www.pollbludger.net/2024/07/31/us-presidential-election-minus-14-weeks/
Shapiro is a bait pick. Too much controversy, the KKK comments and the Obama speech pattern are a unqiue mix of controversy that makes him unappealing to most people.
They need to cut off lines of attack and Shapiro would open up a few.
No one wants to end their career by being Harris’s VP pick.
I’d say they’ll either have to tap some crusty old Senator or go the Sargent Shriver type pick route.
Trump, there’ll be Deep State pushback if he tries to dump Vance, so he’ll fold quickly.
Latest Trump ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olRj4cE_aW8&t=91s