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In this alternate universe she would have some kind of sincere belief to advocate for. Obama clearly believes in socialized medicine or he wouldn't have fought for Obamacare. Trump clearly believes in barriers that separate the nation from the outside world or he wouldn't be so consistently interested in walls and tariffs. Kamala Harris doesn't seem to actually believe in anything, and that's the problem.
I think it's a lot harder to be a charismatic leader if you don't actually believe in anything.
That being said: Just pick one! Pick a direction and start directing people! She was running for President, people must have been beating down her door to give her policy proposals. She was VP for four years! Did she not have a single idea in four years?
To be honest, I don't think that would stick to a VP who was trying to spread their wings and fly in a new direction. The answer to that question is obviously "Because I was the Vice President, not the President." Everyone watching that clip would know that's what the answer is. This isn't an obscure point of political minutia, everyone knows the VP isn't allowed to go behind the President's back like that. It's an empty gotcha and I doubt it would resonate.
If- and this is the sticking point- if she actually stood for something, if Harris had hit the floor day 1 advocating for Medicare for All in a clear departure from Biden's policies, I think people would respect her for that. The problem is that she actually doesn't have any policy differences from Biden. My read on Kamala Harris is that she wanted to be President because she likes to be the top banana, not because there's something in particular she wants to do with the most powerful office in the world.
I think it was much longer than 4 years where she didn't have a single idea.
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She believed in what can be, unburdened by what has been 😁
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And what's the answer to the other question: "Was Joe Biden a bad president for not listening to you on Medicare For All/Free Palestine/Abolish Prisons/Annex Cuba?"
Kamala would never survive being disloyal to Biden. She would have been electorally doomed if she was perceived as disloyal.
Friendly media gave Harris easy opportunities to differentiate herself from Biden without being disloyal. The correct answer to "what would you have done differently?" is not "Nothing" - it is "With hindsight, we should have stopped the pandemic-era emergency spending as soon as everyone who wanted to be was vaccinated and pivoted to controlling inflation."
"So why didn't you do it?"
The problem is that, while the VP has no formal powers, a politician good enough to be President should be the kind of person who exerts power just by existing in the space.
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"Joe Biden was a great president, and we've worked together to achieve great things over the past four years. We delivered a great economy, we passed legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and Build Back Better that helped millions of Americans, and (<insert third thing here, I'm having trouble remembering what Biden did during his term>). I consider myself privileged to have been given four years to learn from one of the great statesmen of our time."
"But there are so many more things to do. As your nominee for President of the United States, I'm ready to build upon everything President Biden and I achieved together over the last four years. To that end, I am proud to introduce a new piece of legislation for consideration of Congress (or whatever you say when you do that), the Medicare for All Act, co-sponsored by my good friend Bernie Sanders. I believe that America is the greatest country in the world, and I believe that we can deliver healthcare to every single citizen of this great nation."
"It won't be easy. Trump and his Republicans are going to fight us on it every step of the way. That's why I need your help, America. I need you to come out on election day and give me the Democratic majority I need to get this bill through Congress. I need you to give me four more years! If you choose me to represent you as your president, I promise I will deliver healthcare for every - single - American!"
(Hold for applause from friendly L.A. or New York studio audience.)
No personal offense meant, but any time you start writing a fanfiction speech for a politician, just realize that one is wrong.
You are the one who asked. This is an answer to your question.
Step 1: Ask question.
Step 2: Get answer.
Step 3: Blue screen.
Step 4: Accuse interlocutor of writing fanfiction?
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For what its worth, I agree with most of what you're saying. I think it would be trivially easy for a savvy politician to show that, while she respects Joe Biden and agrees with him on most things, there's still a few specific differences that she's going to focus on. Anyone who isn't completely brainrotted by partisan politics can handle that sort of nuance.
But... she was in sort of a unique situation where people were really unhappy with some things and Joe Biden was taking the blame. Covid, inflation, the fall of Kabul, and everything else bad, were all seriously tanking Biden's favorability ratings. I think it also could have been a valid campaign strategy to completely throw him under the bus, criticizing him strongly and presenting herself as a completely different president (even if her actual policies would have been pretty much the same as his). A savvy career politician like Biden would understand that winning elections is more important than being nice to him personally.
But in the end she did... nothing. "Nothing comes to mind." She just kinda floated along with the current and wasted the entire 107 days.
I don't think Biden would have stomached that. Throughout the process he was not willing to be a bullet magnet.
He already kinda stomached it when he chose her to be his VP, even though she was quite nasty to him during one of the primary debates. After he chose to drop out and give her the nom... he can't really do much, he doesn't have the power to control her campaign messaging. I guess he could publically come out and torpedo her back but I just don't see him doing that, especially the 82 year old Biden we saw at the end of the campaign.
Most of the reporting from inside the Biden-verse indicated that he only dropped out begrudgingly and with guarantees of personal protection.
The movers also aren't necessarily Joe, whose next phase of life is death, it's the hangers-on and handlers who want to secure their own legacy and job security. Blinken and co. They don't want to be thrown under the bus either.
Cmon man, we've all been through the election just a year ago. There's a million rumors about how that went down and nothing is certain. Obviously Biden didn't want to leave, that's just human nature. But at the same time, no one can force him to abandon the nomination if he was really stubborn. You shouldn't treat rumors like "inside sources say theres a secret puppet master in the DNC who forced Biden out by threatening hin with a pee tape" as if they're a reliable fact. Biden might br in bad health, but he's still very much alive, and no one used the 25th amendment on him.
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I think this sums it up. There are a lot of things she could have done, and if she had picked one of them and committed to it I think she'd have had a chance. But she didn't, so she didn't.
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