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Notes -
The Harris Campaign Gives Their Side of the Story
Harris campaign staff joined establishment Democrat podcast Pod Save America for an election post-mortem.
What sticks out is how unsurprising everything is. These people are exactly the type of out-of-touch elite consultants that populists on both sides are always whining about. They come off as less woke than popularly imagined, but are every bit as uncreative, process oriented, and unaccountable as expected. Being on mobile due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m not in position to mine the transcript for key quotes, but clips from this podcast have been going viral on Twitter. A few highlights from memory:
Campaign staff had no preparation for Biden dropping out of the race.
They knew that the campaign message wasn’t getting through to young men. They still decided to prioritize on-the-ground campaigning in swing states over going on any of the bro podcasts. In their telling, Kamala was willing to go anywhere, but they simply ran out of time.
They flat-out couldn’t figure out a response to the “Kamala is for they/them” ad. Nothing they tested seemed effective.
They still think Liz Cheney is an avatar for moderate Republicans.
I listened to the whole thing. They pretended that Kamala could not go on Rogan at any point in the campaign because it would consume too much time and she was too busy on the road campaigning. They really tried hard to make it seem like a sensible logistical issue.
They are of course lying their asses off. Harris took multiple multi-day breaks in the campaign. She really wasn't that busy, judging by presidential campaign standards.
As for the illegal trans prisoners' taxpayer-paid gender reassignment surgery issue: they said any direct response to that polled worse than generic talk about the economy. I believe that. Trying to justify or qualify that position is a losing proposal. So politicians should make sure not to state on video that they support such positions.
I can't be spending time listening to that, but I have seen conservatives bitching about it on x - do they really admit internal polling never showed Harris could win?
Yes.
What's remarkable about all these admissions coming out after the fact about how Harris' internal polling never showed her winning, is how shameless they lied during the campaign. I mean, obviously you aren't ever going to admit your team has no chance. I wasn't expecting that. But to go even further, mocking Trump's internal polls (which agree with yours) that say he has the election almost in the bag, like that's a sign of how deranged he and his followers are. To frame Trump saying the public polls are fake, which you and he both know are fake, as Trump attacking democracy and preparing his following for another "insurgency". Things like that cross over from "The lies you are expected to tell" to "This is just evil" IMHO. Denying the truth is one thing. Going one over, and creating this narrative that everyone who believes the truth is insane and evil is political malpractice of the highest order.
Edit: I shit, I almost forgot how much Rasmussen polls were maligned! They were one of the only accurate public polls, and they were routinely excluded or down weighted by polling aggregates because they were considered "low quality". This despite both campaigns knowing, from their internal polls, that they were actually the most accurate!
Of course, the best arrow the Harris campaign and her spokespeople had against Rasmussen is that they are ardent 2020 "election deniers", and routinely tweet about the many ongoing lawsuits from 2020 that are continuing to this day. Funny how the most accurate polling company just can't manage to believe the 2020 election was "The most secure election ever." I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
That is exactly what you should do. If your polls show you are losing and you believe them, then one of your only chances is to convince your opponents supporters that actually they are losing in the hope they decide not to turn out on the day, and to convince some people that maybe he is actually really bad. That's why biased polls are useful. Because the polls can influence what people actually do, that is why there is so much argument about them. So yes, you absolutely should lie and mock your opponents polls even if you are certain they are correct. If you can convince enough people that Trump is a threat to democracy then you can retrospectively make the fake polls true. It's a high risk tactic and does not have a great success rate, but if you are sure you losing, then it is worth a shot.
It isn't political malpractice, it is just politics. If they didn't try it would be malpractice. You can lie about your opponent being a communist or a Nazi why shouldn't you be able to lie about their poll numbers, and that them attacking the poll numbers shows they are a Nazi in the hope that convinces people?
This is a very commonly stated model, often even just implicitly taken for granted, but I've yet to encounter anyone who's actually produced evidence that elections and polls work this way, rather than the opposite, which also seems perfectly cromulent. I'd say it's political malpractice on the part of both Republicans and Democrats to push polls biased in their own favor under the assumption that they'll help their chances without actually doing the hard work to prove to some standard that they're actually helping themselves rather than hurting.
Personally, I'd also say that, given that Democrats are supposed to be better than the Republicans, I find the notion that we'd stoop to the level of lying through our teeth to the electorate in order to manipulate them into voting for our side to be less acceptable. If such dishonest manipulation is just accepted by the party, that calls into question every other claim that's been made about how we're meaningfully better than the other side.
Personally, I'd also say that, given that Democrats are supposed to be better than the Republicans,
And here is a great example of a political success. There is very little difference between Democrat politicians and Republican ones when it comes to being a "better" person. So if they have managed to convince you there is (and of course many Republicans will believe the opposite), then people like me have been successful.
To be clear, we get the politicians we do, because we deserve them, the lies, the obfuscations, the techniques to divide, work. We vote for the people that use them successfully. Never trust a politician, left or right. In my decades in politics there are perhaps a handful I would say were actual decent people.
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