I wonder what the logic was here. How does she appeal to anyone besides establishment Democrats? A California lawyer. Not seeing the strategy.

Not the top of my list, but they spent a long time on it. Maybe she's as tough as she is going to need to be. And I think Biden is going to need her.

Ah yes, picking the fucking cop just as people are asking to defund cops.

Or as someone else put it, the field is now down to a segregationist/rapist & criminal prosecutor vs. a billionaire/rapist & christian dominionist, all four of whom are ardent capitalists.

Two lines of discussion:

1) Is it a good or bad pick politically; and

2) Is she or is she not a duplicitous, self-serving finger-in-the-wind politician who will say anything and do anything to advance her own career and who has not a single conviction or belief or principle she's not willing to abandon at a moment's notice when convenient.

(2) is easier because it's a matter of opinion so I can state mine and leave it at that. I prefer not to argue politics so I'll resist the temptation to clap back on any disagreements of opinion about the lady. I lived in the SF area and have watched her career since her Willie Brown days so my opinion is not casual but is the result of decades of following her career. I just mention a couple of items but there are dozens.

*When she was the Attorney General of California she busted large numbers of pot smokers; then when she declared her candidacy she gave an interview and bragged about being a stoner and gave her trademark cloying giggle which frankly makes me want to strangle her. It's so effing insincere and shows that she is emotionally disconnected from the serious consequences in people's lives.

* She also gave that sadistic and not-cute-though-she-thinks-it-is giggle when she was interviewed about throwing an African-American single mom into jail because her kid was truant. Expect to see the Trump campaign playing this clip.

https://twitter.com/WalkerBragman/status/1089831581030797312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1089831581030797312%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2F2010-video-shows-kamala-harris-gleefully-talking-about-prosecuting-parents-including-a-homeless-mom-with-two-jobs-whose-kids-missed-classes

She was savagely criticized FROM THE LEFT for this policy. See for example

Also see https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-kamala-harris-truancy-20190417-story.html

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/kamala-harris-spins-facts-on-truancy-law/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-truancy-arrests-2020-progressive-prosecutor_n_5c995789e4b0f7bfa1b57d2e.

* She sought to keep prisoners is jail longer than their sentences for the free labor. Apologies for the RW source but a lot of the Internet's been scrubbed in prep for her candidacy. Yeah that happens.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/kamala-harris-office-sought-to-keep-inmates-locked-up-so-that-california-could-use-them-for-cheap-labor

Anyway I could pile on all day. She's devoid of compassion for the people she supposedly serves and has no principles or human decency whatever. I oppose her totally.

(1) That said, all in all I think it's a very good political pick, probably the best. One. Kamala's big with the Clinton and Obama people. She's part of the neoliberal centrist Dem establishment. The money will pour in from Wall Street and the big donors. The Biden/Harris ticket IS the centrist DNC. Now maybe a couple of months ago this wouldn't have been such a good idea. But today you have the Dems tacking back to the center amid the chaos in the cities. Rather than pick a bombthrower they're picking a prosecutor. The calculation is: The left will have to vote for us anyway because Trump. So the pick did NOT throw a bone to the left. They doubled down on the Biden wing. AOC and Bernie lost today no matter what kind of rhetoric they put in front of Biden to read. This is a centrist ticket. So the question is: Will the left show up for this pair of corporatists?

She has some big weaknesses. In the primaries voters sensed her insincerity a mile away. Her campaign faded before the first primary contest.

She is great with prepared soundbites. "That little girl was me." The problem is she ALWAYS backs down the next day. After hitting Joe on busing it turned out that Harris's busing policy is basically the same as Joe's. And she did that same thing over and over: deliver a sharp line one day and walk her position back the next. Voters didn't like her in the primaries and she didn't get any more likable since then.

Her street cred is dubious. Black? Her mom is Indian, her dad's Jamaican, her grandfather owned a slave plantation. And this is an election season where a lot of African-American voters are tired of the Dems' condescension as exemplified by Joe "you ain't black if you don't vote for me" remark and that other foot-in-mouth about Latinos being more diverse than Blacks. Kamala does not mitigate those issues in the least in my opinion.

Expect to hear the names of Anthony Bologna and his sons Michael and Matthew in the coming weeks. They were gunned down in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant with multiple prior violent felonies. The killer had been protected from deportation by SF's sanctuary city policy as enforced by then-mayor Gavin Newsom and you-know-who Kamala, who was the SF district attorney at the time. The family pleaded with Harris to seek the death penalty but she opposed that. [For the record I also oppose the death penalty. I'm just talking about what the GOP will be saying here, not taking sides].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Bologna_family

But does any of that matter? Middle class and elite liberals love her. The left can go pound sand, this is the DNC we're talking about, they ALWAYS screw their base. And where are the AOC and Bernie crowd going to go?

All the other possible candidates had much worse baggage. Liz might have had a chance but once Maxine Waters said that Joe better pick someone Black, that was the end of that.

So like I say, I hate her as a human being but I am not surprised and all in all, it's a solid pick. She does have appeal to a large segment of the Democratic voters and the mainstream big donors. The rest can shut up and accept the corporatocracy. The DNC has decreed it. Again. Whatever happens, do not be fooled by any leftist rhetoric. This is the Wall Street and war ticket. A big winner in Dem circles lately, isn't that sad?

The Democrat strategy is to play the sex/race card. Narrowing your picks based on sex and race will severely limit your choices if you're also trying to win over a battleground state. So the Dems are putting all their political eggs in one basket - identity politics.

What’s a good pick? That you like her or that she will help to defeat Trump?

I think she's appealing to centrists, who are going to ultimately decide this election.

ps to my previous post ... She doesn't bring in a state. California goes to the Democrat, period. Running up the score in a state you've already won does not help you, as Hillary found out. The more I think about this, the more I wonder if she's going to turn people off. As we saw in the primaries, she has superficial appeal to a lot of people but once they see her in action they don't like her. But what was Joe's other choice? Every other African-American female had major problems (Bass = commie, Demings = cop, etc) and Liz and Tammy were too pale for Maxine Waters. So it goes in the late stages of the empire.

...all four of whom are ardent capitalists. — StreetlightX

Getting things back to normal...

:mask:

The last thing this imploding republic needs is 'more politicking sizzle & less governing steak' in the WH. Perhaps the senator would have made a great AG after Sessions' & Barr's banana republicanization of the DoJ ... — 180 Proof

@fishfry@Harry Hindu

:100:

I think she's appealing to centrists, who are going to ultimately decide this election. — Philosophim

Probably this. Also there's the anti-Trump Republicans to consider. Someone like Harris is more likely to win their vote than someone like Warren.

But at the end of the day, what do Vice Presidents do other than break ties in the Senate and take over if the President is incapacitated or removed?

Well Biden is pretty much incapacitated right now so...

Wait I figured this out. Kamala is the white liberal's idea of an acceptable black person. Not unlike half-black Obama. That's the play. And the media are all calling her Black as if on cue. I'm thinking that actual African-American voters won't fall for it but we shall see.

It's a referendum on the incumbent and not a choice election, remember? re: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" blah blah blah ...

:up:

I am black - and as far as we are concerned - Senator Harris is black, especially (though not only) because she identifies herself as black. Nonblacks - whether "whites" or not, "liberals" or not - don't get to define the color-ethnic identity of anyone else but themselves or their own. That's colonialist, sir; that's racist. :shade:

So the Dems are putting all their political eggs in one basket - identity politics. — Harry Hindu

Oh right. As if every other US presidential ticket of white males has not been rooted in "identity politics" ... STFD.

no, see, white identity politics (like the white identity/grievance/fake-victim politics that got Donald Trump elected) magically doesn't count as identity politics, because reasons. Identity politics of any other identity, otoh, now that's identity politics.

And the Harris pick is... meh. Would have preferred an actual progressive or someone with a less wildly inconsistent record, but there certainly were worse options than Harris and its not like the VP pick actually matters in any significant way anyways, so mostly its a whoopty-fucking-do afaic.

the more positive news today, imo, is that Ilhan Omar steamrolled her rightwing-funded opponent in her primary this evening (woot!), which effectively means she was re-elected since the 5th Congressional district in MN is about as strongly/safely Dem as you can find, making the general election mostly a formality. :cool:

Ah yeah - identity politics only if "those people" do it, not when "we" do it - like terrorism. :ok:

Yep exactly. There's a (double) standard here that must be respected.

(btw, aren't you a MN/U of MN guy? You see that Ilhan Omar won her primary- and effectively her re-election- tonight?)

Yeah, grad school in the 90s! Another primary win for The Squad. :victory:

Yep, you love to see it! :up:

From where I sit (Australia, but with a son who is permanent US resident), Kamala Harris looks great. Liked her from the outset (and follow US politics with a keen interest.)

But the racial symbolism seems to be the headline - Black and of Indian Descent. (Oh yeah, and also a lawyer). How is it not about identity politics? It’s racial and gender identity first. I don’t want to comment on racial politics - what really strikes me is ‘the society of the spectacle’ the ‘panopticon’ or Baudrillard. Race/gender first - how s/he appears first, before anything about policy or principle. I would like to have thought that the principle of a non-racist culture was that ethnic heritage didn’t account for much, that it was secondary or incidental, but it’s so obviously front and centre.

Make no mistake, if I were a US voter I would be a Democrat - all my new in-laws are - and I’m hoping that moron in chief gets the shellacking he so richly deserves. But I wish it were more about policy.

But I wish it were more about policy. — Wayfarer

:up:

Actually not even policy, so much, but ideas. World seems barrelling full-tilt towards some kind of Armageddon, yet the headline is....well, you know.....

//I mean, it’s like a sitcom./

On the other hand, to answer my own objection, 'it has to work on TV'. This being the situation we're in, whomever was chosen had to be telegenic and answer a variety of perceived needs. Hopefully it doesn't end there and I really don't believe it does - I'm longing for a big change in American politics, and hopefully Biden and Harris will be that change. There's only so much doom and gloom you can take in a single year. :sad:

How does she appeal to anyone besides establishment Democrats? — Xtrix

Biden has repeatedly said he will be a transition president, so he may be taking the long view. Black and brown voters will soon form the majority in America. When the Dems first pick Obama, and now Harris, they are essentially locking in a majority for some time to come. And then the Repubs help out by electing and then supporting a loud mouth ass who routinely disrespects both Blacks and Hispanics.

After reading your summary I think she's a bad pick. I was partial to Tammy Duckworth.

I am black - and as far as we are concerned - Senator Harris is black, especially (though not only) because she identifies herself as black. Nonblacks - whether "whites" or not, "liberals" or not - don't get to define the color-ethnic identity of anyone else but themselves or their own. That's colonialist, sir; that's racist. :shade: — 180 Proof

I agree in part and disagree in part. Historically, bright line definitions of race have been used for nefarious purposes. Whether it be the discrimination of blacks, Jews, the Japanese, or any other group of people being placed upon particular suspicion, it's never a good sign when the majority population starts searching another's ancestral history for impurity and declaring who's fit and who's not.

There's a curious distinction in the Kamala Harris situation because those you accuse of racism are trying to declare her non-black. That is, they are trying to claim she's less qualified for the lofty position of VP due to her non-blackness, meaning being black in this situation is a benefit, not a detriment. An interesting consequence of progress, I suppose.

This situation reared its head more notoriously in the Rachel Dolezal case, which you'll recall was a white woman who self-identified and presented as black and rose to the position of president of her local NAACP chapter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal . That case challenges the significance of self-identification as being a basis to establish race, and it offers legitimacy to the argument that a search of ancestral history should be the final determinant in establishing one's race. That is to say, if we can negate Dolezal's claims of blackness based upon an analysis of her genes, then we can challenge Harris' claims of blackness based upon an analysis of her genes.

The problem, I'd submit, is our ethical acceptance that race matters. I live in the same world as you, and I fully understand that race does in fact matter, but I have a problem in claiming it ought matter. While Biden wants to be President and he realizes the reality is that he must choose a black running mate, the fact that he might choose someone on the basis of race does not make it the ethically right thing to do. Harris should be chosen by the content of her character and not the color of her skin. That sentence ends with a indelible period.

The point being that whether Harris is black, and whether you believe her to be black ought be entirely irrelevant to this whole discussion. To those who argue Harris is not black and therefore should not be voted for by other blacks, I share in your calls of racism and your objections to her trying to be delegitimatized. Logic, however, dictates the same calls of racism to any who might vote for her because she is black, meaning anyone who delves into the debate of whether she is or is not black enough seems to be conceding that her blackness matters. It shouldn't.

Left wing progressives of the Democratic party loose again. But of course, the Dems aren't a genuine leftist party.

She's devoid of compassion for the people she supposedly serves and has no principles or human decency whatever. I oppose her totally.

(1) That said, all in all I think it's a very good political pick, probably the best. One. Kamala's big with the Clinton and Obama people. — fishfry

Sounds like a great political pick! You couldn't have the Clinton and Obama people unhappy, could you?

I can feel the enthusiasm from other commentators here too.