- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Kamala Harris has launched her campaign for the White House, after President Joe Biden stepped aside Sunday under pressure from party leaders.
The vice president has Biden’s endorsement, and is unchallenged as yet for the Democratic nomination, which will be formally decided at the Aug. 19 convention in Chicago.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
In her statement, the vice president paid tribute to Biden’s “extraordinary leadership,” saying he had achieved more in one term than many presidents do in two.
Huh, didn’t know her birthday offhand. So she’ll be 35 by Jan 20, 2025? And she of course is a natural born US citizen who has lived in the US for the requisite number of years.
Normally POTUS candidates pick VPs that in their minds shore up their perceived weak spots among voters to make them overall more electable. So who do you think Harris would do worst with and why would AOC draw that demographic in?
AOC is an actual progressive. I don’t know very much about Harris, and I’m going to vote for her regardless, but I’m not a big fan of law enforcement in general. I’m reading through her Wikipedia page, which seems to be the only non biased source I can find that goes over her LEO career.
AOC is outspoken about issues that I care about, she seems to actually want something better for the working class. It’s hard to feel that a former state prosecutor has the best interest of the working class in mind.
Besides the obvious magas and Republicans, who would never vote blue anyway, Kamala will be weakest with progressive young people. And I know people like to say there’s no use going after those people (now half the voting population!) because they don’t vote, but they actually DO vote when you give them someone worth voting for. Their numbers are also growing, while the centrist boomer population is declining.
I could see two strategies.
Some leftist people who are hard core ACAB, for those AOC may be so appealing that they don’t mind voting for a prosecutor.
However if they want to moderate concerns of sexists and racists, they would want to run some milquetoast white guy. While the full on sexist/racist is a lost cause, there are people who are more unconsciously racist/sexist they might think to get the vote of.
I’m guessing they see the latter as the biggest risk to mitigate.
A former prosecutor selecting AOC also suggests a semblance of growth on the part of the prosecutor.
Yes, she put away a lot of people on drug crimes and I’m sure other BS. The conservatives are already circulating memes with a collage of black faces she put in prison. As if they give a fuck about black people in any capacity outside of when it’s politically expedient. They’ll be in the camps with the rest of us if Trump wins.
Someone like AOC diffuses some of the Israel and ACAB criticism. Or it could be turned to say AOC is a sellout, which I think is a hard argument to make. No one saying that should really be taken seriously given her record.
In this political climate of violence, it’s basically also a giant “fuck you” to the right. You’ll get this centrist woman, or you’ll get this left leaning woman. It hints where a Kamala Harris admin is wanting to take the country in the future and could also serve to finally motivate the youth vote.
AOC seems to understand realpolitik better than the many on the left, and I think she’ll eventually save us all. I know she probably won’t be on the ticket, but manifestation is a thing right?
I will keep my overall prediction, that they don’t think they are at risk of losing the further left voter base, that they are more concerned about the more “up for grabs” voters that might vote either way. I think milquetoast straight white guy is the order of the day when they have a woman person of color running as the other half of the ticket.
It’s not necessarily how it should be, but the strategy they will presumably use to address the reality of the electorate.
I mean, that is essentially how Biden ended up as VP.
And aside from the racial angle how Pence ended up as VP - a milquetoast, boring standard politician type to counterbalance Trump’s lunacy, someone hypothetically to be the adult in the room.
Yeah, I’m not able to recall a successful ticket where both candidates were “exceptional”. I still think whatever chances McCain might have had were blown when he went with Palin as a VP to try to sate the extra crazy wing of his party. Trump’s choice to do Vance seems like a strategic failure. Tim Scott must be mad that he crawled all the way up Trump’s ass for nothing when everyone speculated that Trump would try to pander to the black vote with a token black VP.
Yeah but I doubt subconsciously sexist/racist people would be willing to vote for Trump… They’re stuck with whomever the DNC runs