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Notes -
I think it's an indictment of Harris' political instincts. Buttigieg is the best communicator in the Democratic Party. Harris and Walz are both weak speakers and weak debaters who struggle to connect with the voters. She could have picked the person who shored up her weakness, but instead she chose someone who had the same weakness. She was so fixated on identity (Walz is a white male football coach therefore white men will vote for me?) that she missed the larger issue.
Her assumption that her greatest political weakness is being a black woman shows a lack of self-awareness. She didn't need a straight white man to shore up her weakness of being a black woman, she needed a charismatic speaker to shore up her weakness of being an uncharismatic machine politician.
But the problem with that would be that her running mate would then overshadow her, and that was her exact problem with Shapiro, which is why she picked Walz instead.
Kamala is a little insecure, or rather she seems to find it hard to make decisions quickly and second-guesses herself and (allegedly) doesn't take advice well, but then blames staff around her when things go wrong. So picking someone who would be the Bill Clinton or Obama charisma-wise of the campaign, thus relegating her to second place, would be exactly the thing she would never do.
It also just doesn't work for the Veep to be the driving personality.
It's one thing if she was some grey eminence but she had a mediocre time as Senator, an awful time as a campaigner in 2020 and her record as a prosecutor was of dubious value. What does she bring then to balance the impression that her Veep should be President instead?
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They were both the identity candidate. Being a straight white male football coach just means he was also picked for the color of his skin over his competence.
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The more I think about it, the more I think you're right, no notes.
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