This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
Tagged with: Kamala Harris
If the stories about Harris and her Chief of Staff being difficult to work with and occasionally treating other staff poorly are true, that would make her similar to almost every other elected official. A powerful politician not treating staff well is a dog bites man story. However, the questions of why it is being reported and who benefits from these stories is more important.
The ceremony, including the evening video, was very well done and even moving at times. It was also a reminder of the potency of American soft power when it is in the right hands. Outside of the US, those who like America and see it as an ally or potential ally saw a country that was diverse, strong, sober and aspiring to deeply admirable values-in short the kind of country you want on your side. For those who see America as a rival or enemy, the inauguration was a reminder that America has the ability to move past the democratic rollback of the Trump era and still has enormous human and other resources.
Harris is an unusual politician in that she has the legal and political skills to humiliate people like Attorney General William Barr during a hearing regarding the Mueller Report, but also has an infectious laugh and upbeat disposition. In this way she is able to use her ample political talent, while also showering herself to be human and likable as well. That skill set will be very valuable both during the campaign and as part of the Biden administration if the ticket wins.
Every four years a subset of pundits and political junkies speculate about a brokered convention where no candidate comes into the convention with enough delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot, thus leading to discussions, multiple ballots and deal-making before a nominee is finally chosen. For much of American history this was common, but in the last half century or so that has changed. The last genuinely brokered Democratic convention was 1952 when the eventual nominee was Adlai Stevenson. Early opposition to Donald Trump among many Republicans led to speculation that the 2016 Republican convention would be brokered, but it didn’t work out that way.
As the New Year begins it would be foolish to predict with any certainty who the Democratic nominee will be, particularly with a new and extremely well-funded, but untested outside of New York City, candidate competing in primaries beginning in March. However, there are several scenarios that could unfold in phase one. Each would lead to a different set of major contenders in phase two.
In the last few weeks, Seth Moulton, John Hickenlooper, Kirsten Gillibrand and Jay Inslee have dropped out of the Democratic primary campaign for president. Hickenlooper and Inslee both had resumes that in previous elections could have made them frontrunners for the nomination, but their campaigns never got any traction this year. Both also immediately turned their attention to other elections. Inslee will seek a third term as governor of Washington while Hickenlooper will run for the Senate in Colorado against Republican incumbent Cory Gardner. Moulton, like Eric Swalwell a few weeks earlier, has decided to run for his safe congressional seat rather than continue a presidential campaign he had almost no chance of winning. Gillibrand will return to the Senate.
As the 2020 election approaches, we will inevitably encounter more commentary reminding us how the future of the US is at stake. That is clearly true, because if Donald Trump is reelected the pace of democratic rollback will be accelerated, perhaps irrevocably, while a Democratic victory may just reverse that rollback and make it possible to rebuild a cohesive and democratic country. However, despite the future being at stake, the election itself will largely be a debate about the past.
Over the last few election cycles we have learned pretty definitively that we know a lot less about electability than we think we do. Our last two presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, were both viewed as axiomatically unelectable when they began their campaigns for the White House. Moreover, most candidates have both positive and negative and electoral traits so their overall electability becomes a post facto assessment rather than having any predictive value. For example, in 2016 Hillary Clinton was very electable until she wasn’t. Similarly, had John Kerry beat George W. Bush in 2004, the punditry would have explained that as a war hero with years of experience he was the perfect candidate, but he lost narrowly, so we have been told he was a northeaster liberal with limited charisma and therefore a week candidate. Given this, when somebody tells you they think a particular primary candidate is electable, what they usually mean is simply that they are supporting that candidate.
This means that rather than turning to our attention to who might win Iowa, which candidate is racking up the most endorsements, the latest great speech, gaffe or negative story about a candidate, we might be better off paying attention to a different set of issues. The question of whether or not the 2020 election is likely to be conducted freely, fairly and democratically is much more central to the future of our country than whether Kirsten Gillibrand or Corey Booker is in third place in Iowa or other such inside baseball campaign dynamics. The questions of which states are passing more restrictive voting laws, which of these laws are being upheld in the courts, why the federal government continues to do nothing to protect our elections from further Russian interference like what we saw in 2016, and the extent to which major media outlets traffic in lies and fear-mongeringare among the much extremely critical issues that too easily get overlooked as we all handicap the Democratic primary.
Although the midterm election is almost upon us, many pundits have already begun to look towards the 2020 election. Correspondingly, something of a cottage industry has developed around earnest warnings that Donald Trump is in a good position to get reelected in 2020. These warnings are better understood as conservative talking points, or pundits enjoying sparking debate, rather than rigorous political analysis. While it is extremely unlikely that 2020 will be a Democratic landslide, the Democratic nominee, whoever that may be, will likely be in a much stronger position that these warnings indicate.