The Morning Jolt Elections
By Noah Rothman
August 7, 2024 9:09 AM
Harris’s Veep Pick Error
In selecting Minnesota governor Tim Walz to join her on the presidential ticket in November, Harris has declined to make the most of the impossibly rare chance to skip over the fractious and embittering dynamic that typifies primary elections. By selecting Walz over Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, the Harris campaign has signaled that the lady is not for triangulating. Rather than appealing to the middle of the electorate, this will be an election in which both parties try to maximize turnout among their respective partisans.
Partisan Democrats insist that Harris’s pick was the path of least resistance. Walz is inoffensive to every faction of the Democratic Party — progressives, youth voters, minority voters, squishy moderates, and low-information voters whose political preferences are determined by optics and sentiment. But as Nate Silver opined shortly after Harris’s decision was revealed, Walz’s value is not in helping deliver these voters, most of whom are already sufficiently enthused by Harris herself. He is a pick meant to pacify the loathsome malcontents in orbit around the Democratic Party.
“This Walz choice was designed to maintain the social fabric of the Democratic Party,” Silver wrote, “and avoid news cycles about a disappointed left and Democrats’ internal squabbling over the War in Gaza.” This is not a cost-free proposition for Democrats, as former Obama official and CNN commentator Van Jones confessed. “You also have antisemitism that has gotten marbled into this party,” he observed. “How much of what just happened is caving in to some of these darker parts in the party?”
When an honest Democrat is willing to describe anti-Jewish bigotry indelibly woven into the fabric of the party he supports, there’s a much deeper rot spreading within the Democratic firmament. To the extent that Walz’s elevation represents a sop to some of the most odious elements of American society, his selection is indicative not of the Harris campaign’s confidence but its cowardice.
So why did the Harris team pass over Shapiro? Maybe Harris’s vetting team, led by former attorney general Eric Holder, found some horrific skeletons in his closet — far more horrific than the opposition research Shapiro’s opponents dug up. Regardless, we can guess that the explanations for Harris’s choice have so far failed to satisfy Democratic bigwigs who are telling the New York Times that they were unnerved by the sordid, vaguely antisemitic whisper campaign deployed against the governor. So far, the campaign’s efforts to mollify this disquieted group are not convincing.
“Josh Shapiro was seen as not someone who could deliver the state of Pennsylvania based on internal polling,” NBC News reporter Yamiche Alcindor said, citing sources within Harris’s orbit. “The source also said Harris’ team was unconvinced that any one person could guaranteed [sic] any of the battleground states for the ticket.” There’s nothing at all reassuring in this excuse — assuming you are willing to believe that the well-regarded governor of a state he won by 15 points just two years ago is electoral poison in Pennsylvania. The Harris campaign is plying the notion that, with Kamala at the top of the ticket, no one — neither Shapiro nor Walz — has the political skillset necessary to drag her over the finish line. And they’re saying that in her defense.
Internal polling notwithstanding, this rationale doesn’t make a lot of sense. What does make sense is the reporting in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere indicating that Harris felt intimidated both by Shapiro’s natural political talents and his ambition. As NOTUS reported, Harris’s allies believe she was “looking for ‘more of a governing partner’ than an electoral boost.” In other words, Harris would rather leave Electoral College votes on the table than be upstaged by a more talented subordinate. That could soon prove a fatal error.
Nor is it the only example of the Harris campaign’s timidity. It is hard to blame the vice president for basking in the relief enjoyed both by Democratic partisans and media professionals following Joe Biden’s decision to bow out of the 2024 race. A more daring campaign might have taken that opportunity to reintroduce its candidate to voters by having her sit down for a friendly interview or two with known quantities in the media landscape — the party’s most reliable “homers” who wouldn’t press too hard but would prime the candidate to face sharper interlocutors later in the campaign. Instead, the campaign made Harris into an abstraction in the effort to preserve for as long as possible the Democratic euphoria that followed Biden’s defenestration.
Kamala Harris’s First Big Mistake
By Noah Rothman
August 7, 2024 9:09 AM
Harris’s Veep Pick Error
In selecting Minnesota governor Tim Walz to join her on the presidential ticket in November, Harris has declined to make the most of the impossibly rare chance to skip over the fractious and embittering dynamic that typifies primary elections. By selecting Walz over Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, the Harris campaign has signaled that the lady is not for triangulating. Rather than appealing to the middle of the electorate, this will be an election in which both parties try to maximize turnout among their respective partisans.
Partisan Democrats insist that Harris’s pick was the path of least resistance. Walz is inoffensive to every faction of the Democratic Party — progressives, youth voters, minority voters, squishy moderates, and low-information voters whose political preferences are determined by optics and sentiment. But as Nate Silver opined shortly after Harris’s decision was revealed, Walz’s value is not in helping deliver these voters, most of whom are already sufficiently enthused by Harris herself. He is a pick meant to pacify the loathsome malcontents in orbit around the Democratic Party.
“This Walz choice was designed to maintain the social fabric of the Democratic Party,” Silver wrote, “and avoid news cycles about a disappointed left and Democrats’ internal squabbling over the War in Gaza.” This is not a cost-free proposition for Democrats, as former Obama official and CNN commentator Van Jones confessed. “You also have antisemitism that has gotten marbled into this party,” he observed. “How much of what just happened is caving in to some of these darker parts in the party?”
When an honest Democrat is willing to describe anti-Jewish bigotry indelibly woven into the fabric of the party he supports, there’s a much deeper rot spreading within the Democratic firmament. To the extent that Walz’s elevation represents a sop to some of the most odious elements of American society, his selection is indicative not of the Harris campaign’s confidence but its cowardice.
So why did the Harris team pass over Shapiro? Maybe Harris’s vetting team, led by former attorney general Eric Holder, found some horrific skeletons in his closet — far more horrific than the opposition research Shapiro’s opponents dug up. Regardless, we can guess that the explanations for Harris’s choice have so far failed to satisfy Democratic bigwigs who are telling the New York Times that they were unnerved by the sordid, vaguely antisemitic whisper campaign deployed against the governor. So far, the campaign’s efforts to mollify this disquieted group are not convincing.
“Josh Shapiro was seen as not someone who could deliver the state of Pennsylvania based on internal polling,” NBC News reporter Yamiche Alcindor said, citing sources within Harris’s orbit. “The source also said Harris’ team was unconvinced that any one person could guaranteed [sic] any of the battleground states for the ticket.” There’s nothing at all reassuring in this excuse — assuming you are willing to believe that the well-regarded governor of a state he won by 15 points just two years ago is electoral poison in Pennsylvania. The Harris campaign is plying the notion that, with Kamala at the top of the ticket, no one — neither Shapiro nor Walz — has the political skillset necessary to drag her over the finish line. And they’re saying that in her defense.
Internal polling notwithstanding, this rationale doesn’t make a lot of sense. What does make sense is the reporting in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere indicating that Harris felt intimidated both by Shapiro’s natural political talents and his ambition. As NOTUS reported, Harris’s allies believe she was “looking for ‘more of a governing partner’ than an electoral boost.” In other words, Harris would rather leave Electoral College votes on the table than be upstaged by a more talented subordinate. That could soon prove a fatal error.
Nor is it the only example of the Harris campaign’s timidity. It is hard to blame the vice president for basking in the relief enjoyed both by Democratic partisans and media professionals following Joe Biden’s decision to bow out of the 2024 race. A more daring campaign might have taken that opportunity to reintroduce its candidate to voters by having her sit down for a friendly interview or two with known quantities in the media landscape — the party’s most reliable “homers” who wouldn’t press too hard but would prime the candidate to face sharper interlocutors later in the campaign. Instead, the campaign made Harris into an abstraction in the effort to preserve for as long as possible the Democratic euphoria that followed Biden’s defenestration.
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