That campaign is collapsing completely - that is eight senior staffers resigning in a matter of a few days. Evidently they didn’t believe his protestations of innocence
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To me the story is the perfect illustration of the weird thing we have in our politics where people intuitively treat something as more disqualifying if is was revealed as part of a journalistic scoop than if freely offered out in the open. I mean, as out there as some of the naked Africa stuff is, is it really any worse than proclaiming publicly that some of the electorate just need to be killed?
Its not that the crime is worse than the cover up, but that whole segments of people involved in elections or covering them only seem to be able judge something as bad if there it is hidden from the public
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What planet is Vance from?He needs to go back and take the orange one with him.
You answered your own question…he will crash and burn, looking forward to that, because it will shatter the orange twat!
This election will move more into a Trump decisive win unless Harris starts doing multiple unscripted interviews within the next couple of weeks.
I am not sure if the Harris campaign is trying the Biden strategy of 2020 (minimal exposure), if they are its a failing proposition. 2020 will never be replicated without another national disaster that keeps people indoors and afraid. 2020 could not have been more perfect for the democrats due to the enormous mail in advantage they have had in place for years. All Biden had to do was not fuckup and let all the negative trending indicators do their work (economy, jobs, inflation, etc, all trending negatively). This election, there are negative trends once again, so imo Harris should be doing more interviews to combat these trends, and needs to stop trying to throw more mud at Trump, he has enough mud, more isn’t helping (unless its assassination attempts).
Republicans are going to win the Presidency, and even more likely the Senate. I have not seen anything that has changed my mind on the outcome.
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Methinks you are being a tad disingenuous with this post. Are we really to conclude that you are offering advice on how you think the Harris campaign might prevail , or more likely is it that your desire is to see ‘multiple unscripted interviews’ more in the hope that she slips up ? And she should stop being nasty to Trump too !
‘I have not seen anything that has changed my mind on the outcome.’ - try this ; https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics
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Or that he mainlines RW talking points.
The outcome is binary. It is not “hard” to close your eyes and pick one of the two possible outcomes and be “right.” It is a lot harder to characterize what is actyually happening and describe what will cause the outcome we’ll see to have occurred.
e.g. Trump did NOT win in 2016 because he was more popular, no matter how many trump supporting uber drivers you spoke to.
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Whatever happens in the final vote… IMO, I think Kamala has done as good a job as possible, given the limited time she has had at the ‘coal face’… and the fact she has had to go up against, possibly, the most vile creature on this earth…
I hope she romps home
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I think what she is doing is pretty simple - the first time her Favorable rating topped her Unfavorable rating was a week ago (!). That is a gain of almost 11% in less than two months, which is simply astonishing. You don’t change that momentum or direction until there is a compelling reason to do so.
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Re Trump. imo, I think from a logical pov its not helping. How much more mud can you really throw at the guy that hasn’t already been thrown? Do you honestly think it will sway any more undecided voters vs an interview that lets your know about her policies?
Re her slipping up. Well that her problem, Trump/Vance does it enough, if you cant handle it then you shouldn’t be running for one of the most important jobs in the world. BTW this is why I think her campaign is restricting/preventing interviews, not sure why as its a given that she will mess up at some stage. I think it is a balancing act for Harris, its just that at this moment she isn’t doing any therefor its totally unbalanced.
And its not advice its and opinion. I’im not that conceited to think they are going to listen to me.
I don’t think this is coming from undecided voters. She is going to win the popular vote imo, I dont think it will be as much as Biden did.
If the trendline continues upward, at some point it has to be coming from undecided voters. As I say, you don’t mess with a trendline before you have to.
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The only trend lines that matter are how voters think she will do on the economy, border, Foreign policy. At this stage the trends show she is going to be a popular loser in the election.
I think this is where you have to distinguish between the ideal situation, where elections are decided based on competence of the candidates and their policies.
Unfortunately, elections have almost always been popularity contests, and just based around vibes, e.g. conservatives are better for the economy (demonstrably false), better for law enforcement (again, demonstrably false).
I think the “weird” characterisation of the Republican ticket is something that actually has stuck, finally. And it’s also a good way for the Democrats to get their message across, that the Republican platform is based on weird obsessions and grievances, as opposed to actually building a firm future for people. It’s also a pretty good way to convey how out of touch the ticket is, especially compared to a ticket where you have Tim Walz.
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To me it’s seeming like more of a mistake not to have selected Shapiro. I didn’t really have an opinion pre selection, but have since read a few articles that I agree with.
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And hopefully Walz will get to ram that message home during the upcoming debate. Not to mention the fact that Vance is bound to be grilled on his admission of ‘creating’ stories (cats and dogs) since the mayor of Springfield has come out since both to deny it and confirm that Vance was told it was untrue.
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Im sure they are both going to get hammered on past mistakes and past lies.
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Well, I think you can all but discount foreign policy. I don’t think foreign policy has ever rated a top 3 in terms of ballot box voting, even at incredibly polarized times like 1960. Americans don’t vote on the basis of foreign policy, for better or worse. Not for Israel, not for Ukraine, not for all the US allies put together. The only exception is really a major fuck-up, and even when Reagan beat Carter, Iran only rated 4th!
On the border, the Democrats clearly intend to keep hammering at the fact that Trump obstructed a deal with the GOP, and in the near-term, I don’t think they have any other options.
On the economy, the fact that the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, and by such a margin, is about as good a pre-election stimulus as you could ask for - I am actually surprised that there aren’t more right-wing conspiracy theories about it. The actual indicators are all pointing upward, and will likely be accelerating over the next 7 weeks. The only way it could be more favourable for the incumbent would have been if the rate cut had come in June.
At the same time, Trump’s unfavorable rating is significantly higher than his current level of support. That suggests that growing his share is going to be very very difficult. His VP candidate certainly won’t help with that, Vance has gained Unfavorable at least as fast as Harris has gained Favorable.
So, with 7 weeks any political strategist worth their salt will not be making fundamental changes to communications strategy. It is the final approach, time to focus on key battlegrounds. The only real macro fight is trying to frame the election so it is decided on the ballot box issues your side wants. For the Democrats, that really is not the border, that is a Republican issue that they want to make the ballot box issue. So you play to neutralize that, not a sales pitch. On the economy, well, you cannot avoid that one, but the fundamentals are moving in a favorable direction for Harris, so communication is probably just continuing positivity. For me, the real question is what issues do the Democrats actually want to frame, what issues do they want the archetype voters to be thinking about as they cast the ballot. I am not quite sure about that.
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Shapiro, the man to alienate even more of their base with how ignorant he is of the plight of Palestinian civilians? Sure, if the Democrats wanted to lose Michigan he would have been a great pick.
More importantly, I think Walz brings a strong salt of the earth image that Shapiro can never hope to match with his J.D. from Georgetown. I’m not saying that makes him a terrible candidate, I just think Walz brings a great balance to the ticket and something unique that really contrasts. It’s the whole “who would you rather have a pint with” vibe that Shapiro wouldn’t be able to match.
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I don’t think anything can be possibly done at this stage other than policy from Harris and voters belief that it will help, so far nothing much has been forthcoming. Any actions now will not effect the economy enough in the next 2 months.
The border, much the same.
Foreign policy, yip you right, very low on importance scale. I think the fear is that it will escalate under the path its on now, and the blame will be correctly/incorrectly be placed on the current administration.