If she loses, the person most responsible is Joe Biden due to his failure to make good on his pledge to be on a one term president. His legacy is on the line.
Dems' laudatory response to Biden dropping out still annoys me. He didn't get nearly enough of a penalty for waiting so long to drop out when we all could see he was losing it. I get why they reacted that way - they wanted to reward him for doing the right thing - but by waiting so long, Biden put the party and the country in a dangerous position.
As far as anyone can know, Biden did Harris a huge favor by dropping out late. She needed to be appointed/anointed, since she can't compete with other Dem candidates, as she has proven to be a terrible candidate who runs terrible campaigns, per the primary 4 years ago and per this stumble to nowhere, and nowhere good. She owes Biden and the Democrat Establishment - utterly terrible himself and themselves - for everything. She has been the utterly obedient-to-power handpicked candidate of the Dem Establishment her whole life. That's why she constantly tacks right into the establishment, away from popular positions, of any scale, as her base is the monied establishment and not the populace as it always has been. She might be able to buy another victory despite both her social media incompetence in campaign and the fact that like Hillary and unlike Bill and Barack, she is a lousy bullshitter, comes across as a transparent liar, whereas Bill and Barack, though equally bankrupt in their policies, come across as true believers in their own spin. Notice that Bernie, AOC, Rashida Tlaib - they don't have these particular deficits of character and politics. That's why the pillagers and profiteers hate them. The US is a one party state that has enough resources to pretend that it's a two party state, so if you can't convincingly bullshit as a candidate of the One Party, on behalf of your own wing, then given the endless fraud and corruption and worse, the reality of the lie shines through - and cozying up to Republicans can really destroy the spin, the illusion of choice - you're perceived as a menacing opportunistic liar, and that makes it tough to be popular enough to win votes. Big money is there to bail you out but even that can only do so much.
Biden’s co-conspirator Harris will share the responsibility for all she did to hide Biden’s obvious infirmity until none of us could forget what we had just seen. “Sharp as a tack…..”
-2020 Dems coalesced around a weak Biden partly bc win or lose he would leave an open lane in 2024
-Biden, a weak candidate, then picked a subpar political talent for VP so he wouldn’t be outshined
-2024 Democratic A-tier talent didn’t challenge Harris partly bc win or lose, she’d leave an open lane in 2028
-Harris, a weak candidate, then picked a subpar political talent for VP so she wouldn’t be outshined
The current predicament is at least partly the result of the A-tier political talents supporting weak candidates specifically because they are less of an impediment for their own political ambitions.
I think that's correct. It's a very odd set of events. If Harris wins, the A tier will be frozen out until 2032, and you will have had a 12 year stretch between open Democratic primaries.
I'd only add that I think Walz is a step up from Harris from 2020. Walz could probably top the ticket and run a better race than her. He had experience winning tough races in Minnesota.
I’m sure she has a bright future getting liberals to pay her big bucks for word salad speeches, a book no one will read and playing martyr. I’ll save my sympathy for actual Americans struggling to deal with everything costing a fortune and communities overrun by illegals and fake asylum seekers.
I’m always in awe of what you write and find it clarifying and wise. This misses the mark for me.
Her campaign has been amazing - bringing the party from a sure loss to a 51/49 shot of winning thing this. Why are you so quick to say she’s “obviously of lesser political stock than Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, or any other leading Democratic senator or governor who would have probably competed in an open primary”?
if she’s really so bad why haven’t you been writing about that more directly for the past couple of months?
if she loses I do think it will be hard for her. It was hard for Hillary for a long time too. And if she went out as a one term VP she’d be a Dan Quayle. She stood up and I’m really excited.
The vice president is going on Fox on Wednesday and was just on 60 Minutes. The View and Call Her Daddy appearance lit up the internet for days. Who ever planned that run of appearances did great work.
She’s running against someone who breaks every norm and had to make up a word for his confusing fact-lite speaking style: “the weave”. I don’t think a big sit down with The Washington Post or PBS is going to change much for the couple thousand people in PA who claim to still need more information.
It's obvious the woman is literally incapable of speaking a paragraph with a coherent thesis. She comes off like a mildly retarded kindergarten teacher.
I agree with you, Ross Barkan missed the fact that the corporate media has failed to cover trump for his age, lies and mental decline. She is prepared to be president. I honestly believe Joe Biden believed that when he chose her as his vice. He knew he might not be able to serve out his term. Many smart people Republicans know trump is a fraud. She may lose, but democracy will be destroyed 😢
There is no one in America who wants Kamala to lose more than Gavin Newsom.
If she wins, Gavin has to sit on the bench for at least 4 years and most likely 8, when he will be out of office for many years and struggling to maintain a national profile—and Gavin was not born to play the bench.
If she loses, Gavin will have a 2028 campaign up and running no later than next winter, stuffed with many millions with many more to come, with Gavin out in front of the Resistance 2.0.
Also, no one knows her better than he does, they both started in SF politics over 20 years ago, and it must gall him to watch her struggle and babble nonsense when he loves the spotlight and eviscerating opponents.
Gavin also knows that Kamala wouldn't even be considered for Director of the DMV if she didn't have a vagina of color, while he was born and bred to be Prez.
Doubt he could be weaker, he can speak extemporaneously and intelligently on policy and is not afraid of any opponent or forum, regardless of how truthful or accurate. Then again he is pale, stale and male, but he is also rich, handsome and telegenic which will go a long way. And his campaign will be loaded w Cali cash.
Either way, he looks in the mirror and sees a future Prez and must resent Willie Brown's dimwitted paramour jumping ahead of him. On Election Day, behind closed doors, he will be pulling for Trump like it's his fave team in a Game 7.
(1) I don't understand why you wrote this post. Why should your readers be concerned about K. Harris's career if she loses? You've had a productive career after you lost your primary in Sept 2018 and I'm sure she also find something useful to do if she doesn't win.
(2) Your post is an typical of the problem that I see in the writings of most pundits. It is filled with subjective arguments that cannot be proven.
Here is an example " ... but she is obviously of lesser political stock than Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, or any other leading Democratic senator or governor who would have probably competed in an open primary. None of these Democrats would have dodged the media for more than a month. "
It is not obvious that she is obviously of lesser political stock. Except for Buttigieg, none of these people have run a national campaign. We've seen a lot of supposedly skilled politicians (DeSantis, Rubio, Walker) run terrible campaigns when they ran for president. In fact, Gretchen Whitmer just had to apologize for a video that offended the Michigan Catholic Conference.
You also have no way of proving that none of these Democrats would have dodged the media for more than a month. Maybe it offends you she avoided the press in Sept but you really don't know that it would have made a difference in the polls.
The whole “Kamala isn’t doing enough traditional interviews and press conferences” is the latest example of the media being too full of itself. Trump has shown us the last 8 years how little the traditional media matters to Americans. His Twitter feed is just one example of how he cuts out the middle man to engage voters directly. The reality is, most Americans don’t base their political opinions on who is saying what on the Sunday morning TV circuit anymore. Not saying Kamala has run a perfect campaign, but her lack of traditional interviews/press conferences has neither hurt nor helped her.
This was spectacular. I think if Harris wins and runs for reelection in 2028, the Democratic rank and file should push for a primary. I don’t think she can last two terms, especially if the GOP finds a way to get past Trump and nominate a Brian Kemp or Glenn Youngkin type candidate. The Democratic Party has had no true identity since Trump came on the scene and it is not clear what it will be going forward. The Never-Trump Republicans will leave the coalition, and they still haven’t made inroads in parts of the electorate they have lost since the Clinton years. The next four years will be crucial for Democratic Party bolstering and setting a foundation as a true center-left—preferably Social Democratic—party.
A sane take. If she can manage to beat Trump, and if she holds to her current positions - which are Biden's positions, the Establishment's positions of pillaging and profiteering - then not even the Dem Establishment will be able to prevent her from being primaried, from the left, it would appear.
This is deadly accurate. The menace and vacuity of the Democrat Establishment is on full display with Kamala Harris, as it is with Joe Biden. What did Biden initiate that Bernie and the Squad and Elizabeth Warren did not put forth in the first place and insist on? Biden's vision: "Nothing will change." Kamala Harris's vision: I'm Biden only basically more Republican-deluded and right-wing. Meanwhile Biden and Harris fund and arm and participate in the genocide in Western Asia and promise more of the same while the world and its bodies burn. Amazingly, Con Don Trump and the Republicans are even worse. Kamala Harris and the Democrat Establishment deserve to beat Con Don Trump and the death cult Republicans by exactly one vote in this shit show of epic proportions. Con Don Trump is the only candidate that the FUBAR Harris campaign, and vision, and the FUBAR Democrat Establishment could defeat. Even so, the outcome is very much in doubt, a coin flip, as far as anyone knows, and even a win would be a Pyrrhic victory - certainly for the Palestinians and many others in Western Asia and beyond. What a disaster the Democrats are mining as their voter registrations these past four years tank in comparison to Republican and Independents, a sign of the slow motion implosion of the current party of genocide and "nothing will change" venality writ so large that no sane person can miss it. The wealth of this country that basically owns the place backs the worst among us and the most fraudulent: the king cons and the casually cruel.
How do you square your perspective with record-breaking early voting and voter registration drives we’re seeing in the swing states? Isn’t that what wins elections?
Ah, the wisdom of the 50 Democratic insiders, superdelegates all, who retired to their smoke filled room and decided for the rest of America that Harris was to be joyfully anointed despite never having won a single vote for President from a single voter in any primary election in 2020 or 2024.
If she loses, the person most responsible is Joe Biden due to his failure to make good on his pledge to be on a one term president. His legacy is on the line.
Dems' laudatory response to Biden dropping out still annoys me. He didn't get nearly enough of a penalty for waiting so long to drop out when we all could see he was losing it. I get why they reacted that way - they wanted to reward him for doing the right thing - but by waiting so long, Biden put the party and the country in a dangerous position.
As far as anyone can know, Biden did Harris a huge favor by dropping out late. She needed to be appointed/anointed, since she can't compete with other Dem candidates, as she has proven to be a terrible candidate who runs terrible campaigns, per the primary 4 years ago and per this stumble to nowhere, and nowhere good. She owes Biden and the Democrat Establishment - utterly terrible himself and themselves - for everything. She has been the utterly obedient-to-power handpicked candidate of the Dem Establishment her whole life. That's why she constantly tacks right into the establishment, away from popular positions, of any scale, as her base is the monied establishment and not the populace as it always has been. She might be able to buy another victory despite both her social media incompetence in campaign and the fact that like Hillary and unlike Bill and Barack, she is a lousy bullshitter, comes across as a transparent liar, whereas Bill and Barack, though equally bankrupt in their policies, come across as true believers in their own spin. Notice that Bernie, AOC, Rashida Tlaib - they don't have these particular deficits of character and politics. That's why the pillagers and profiteers hate them. The US is a one party state that has enough resources to pretend that it's a two party state, so if you can't convincingly bullshit as a candidate of the One Party, on behalf of your own wing, then given the endless fraud and corruption and worse, the reality of the lie shines through - and cozying up to Republicans can really destroy the spin, the illusion of choice - you're perceived as a menacing opportunistic liar, and that makes it tough to be popular enough to win votes. Big money is there to bail you out but even that can only do so much.
Biden’s co-conspirator Harris will share the responsibility for all she did to hide Biden’s obvious infirmity until none of us could forget what we had just seen. “Sharp as a tack…..”
Ross, your piece jogged a thought loose for me:
-2020 Dems coalesced around a weak Biden partly bc win or lose he would leave an open lane in 2024
-Biden, a weak candidate, then picked a subpar political talent for VP so he wouldn’t be outshined
-2024 Democratic A-tier talent didn’t challenge Harris partly bc win or lose, she’d leave an open lane in 2028
-Harris, a weak candidate, then picked a subpar political talent for VP so she wouldn’t be outshined
The current predicament is at least partly the result of the A-tier political talents supporting weak candidates specifically because they are less of an impediment for their own political ambitions.
I think that's correct. It's a very odd set of events. If Harris wins, the A tier will be frozen out until 2032, and you will have had a 12 year stretch between open Democratic primaries.
I'd only add that I think Walz is a step up from Harris from 2020. Walz could probably top the ticket and run a better race than her. He had experience winning tough races in Minnesota.
I’m sure she has a bright future getting liberals to pay her big bucks for word salad speeches, a book no one will read and playing martyr. I’ll save my sympathy for actual Americans struggling to deal with everything costing a fortune and communities overrun by illegals and fake asylum seekers.
I’m always in awe of what you write and find it clarifying and wise. This misses the mark for me.
Her campaign has been amazing - bringing the party from a sure loss to a 51/49 shot of winning thing this. Why are you so quick to say she’s “obviously of lesser political stock than Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, or any other leading Democratic senator or governor who would have probably competed in an open primary”?
if she’s really so bad why haven’t you been writing about that more directly for the past couple of months?
if she loses I do think it will be hard for her. It was hard for Hillary for a long time too. And if she went out as a one term VP she’d be a Dan Quayle. She stood up and I’m really excited.
Well, I have.
https://rosselliotbarkan.com/p/what-is-kamala-harris-afraid-of
https://rosselliotbarkan.com/p/the-media-isnt-cnn
The vice president is going on Fox on Wednesday and was just on 60 Minutes. The View and Call Her Daddy appearance lit up the internet for days. Who ever planned that run of appearances did great work.
She’s running against someone who breaks every norm and had to make up a word for his confusing fact-lite speaking style: “the weave”. I don’t think a big sit down with The Washington Post or PBS is going to change much for the couple thousand people in PA who claim to still need more information.
Good she's doing it now but spent a crucial 5 week period in a condensed campaign doing nothing media wise
She's also apparently going on Rogan - a smart move, and something I suggested last month
Your arguments are bandwagon fallacies. Harris has nothing to say; she’s shockingly vapid and unprepared despite four years’ preparation.
The edited 60 minutes interview on top of 2 different answers to the sane question. She flunked it big time. All her flip flops do not help her
Did she edit the interview herself?
Could be or CBS did it at her direction. The softball questions are not helping either.
Blaming her for not doing enough interviews and then blaming her for the questions journalists ask her is confusing to me.
It's obvious the woman is literally incapable of speaking a paragraph with a coherent thesis. She comes off like a mildly retarded kindergarten teacher.
Republicans hosted a hard hitting impromptu sing along tonight. https://x.com/bryanllenas/status/1845979703452037352?s=46&t=TH5-U3JefF7rTVPgi7nw7Q
My mother was a kindergarten teacher for about 40 years and is a solid Harris voter … in PA!
I agree with you, Ross Barkan missed the fact that the corporate media has failed to cover trump for his age, lies and mental decline. She is prepared to be president. I honestly believe Joe Biden believed that when he chose her as his vice. He knew he might not be able to serve out his term. Many smart people Republicans know trump is a fraud. She may lose, but democracy will be destroyed 😢
There is no one in America who wants Kamala to lose more than Gavin Newsom.
If she wins, Gavin has to sit on the bench for at least 4 years and most likely 8, when he will be out of office for many years and struggling to maintain a national profile—and Gavin was not born to play the bench.
If she loses, Gavin will have a 2028 campaign up and running no later than next winter, stuffed with many millions with many more to come, with Gavin out in front of the Resistance 2.0.
Also, no one knows her better than he does, they both started in SF politics over 20 years ago, and it must gall him to watch her struggle and babble nonsense when he loves the spotlight and eviscerating opponents.
Gavin also knows that Kamala wouldn't even be considered for Director of the DMV if she didn't have a vagina of color, while he was born and bred to be Prez.
Wow. You’re probably right, but Newsom would be an even weaker candidate. It’s all so depressing.
Doubt he could be weaker, he can speak extemporaneously and intelligently on policy and is not afraid of any opponent or forum, regardless of how truthful or accurate. Then again he is pale, stale and male, but he is also rich, handsome and telegenic which will go a long way. And his campaign will be loaded w Cali cash.
Either way, he looks in the mirror and sees a future Prez and must resent Willie Brown's dimwitted paramour jumping ahead of him. On Election Day, behind closed doors, he will be pulling for Trump like it's his fave team in a Game 7.
(1) I don't understand why you wrote this post. Why should your readers be concerned about K. Harris's career if she loses? You've had a productive career after you lost your primary in Sept 2018 and I'm sure she also find something useful to do if she doesn't win.
(2) Your post is an typical of the problem that I see in the writings of most pundits. It is filled with subjective arguments that cannot be proven.
Here is an example " ... but she is obviously of lesser political stock than Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, or any other leading Democratic senator or governor who would have probably competed in an open primary. None of these Democrats would have dodged the media for more than a month. "
It is not obvious that she is obviously of lesser political stock. Except for Buttigieg, none of these people have run a national campaign. We've seen a lot of supposedly skilled politicians (DeSantis, Rubio, Walker) run terrible campaigns when they ran for president. In fact, Gretchen Whitmer just had to apologize for a video that offended the Michigan Catholic Conference.
You also have no way of proving that none of these Democrats would have dodged the media for more than a month. Maybe it offends you she avoided the press in Sept but you really don't know that it would have made a difference in the polls.
The whole “Kamala isn’t doing enough traditional interviews and press conferences” is the latest example of the media being too full of itself. Trump has shown us the last 8 years how little the traditional media matters to Americans. His Twitter feed is just one example of how he cuts out the middle man to engage voters directly. The reality is, most Americans don’t base their political opinions on who is saying what on the Sunday morning TV circuit anymore. Not saying Kamala has run a perfect campaign, but her lack of traditional interviews/press conferences has neither hurt nor helped her.
She’ll just become an influencer (which she already is).
This piece is trash, mean spirited, and I am done with you.
Your take is incoherent and sees to only come from ignoring the benefit of hindsight.
This was spectacular. I think if Harris wins and runs for reelection in 2028, the Democratic rank and file should push for a primary. I don’t think she can last two terms, especially if the GOP finds a way to get past Trump and nominate a Brian Kemp or Glenn Youngkin type candidate. The Democratic Party has had no true identity since Trump came on the scene and it is not clear what it will be going forward. The Never-Trump Republicans will leave the coalition, and they still haven’t made inroads in parts of the electorate they have lost since the Clinton years. The next four years will be crucial for Democratic Party bolstering and setting a foundation as a true center-left—preferably Social Democratic—party.
I fully expect that, if she is elected, Harris will look as good to the American public in 2026 as Jimmy Carter did is 1978.
A sane take. If she can manage to beat Trump, and if she holds to her current positions - which are Biden's positions, the Establishment's positions of pillaging and profiteering - then not even the Dem Establishment will be able to prevent her from being primaried, from the left, it would appear.
This is deadly accurate. The menace and vacuity of the Democrat Establishment is on full display with Kamala Harris, as it is with Joe Biden. What did Biden initiate that Bernie and the Squad and Elizabeth Warren did not put forth in the first place and insist on? Biden's vision: "Nothing will change." Kamala Harris's vision: I'm Biden only basically more Republican-deluded and right-wing. Meanwhile Biden and Harris fund and arm and participate in the genocide in Western Asia and promise more of the same while the world and its bodies burn. Amazingly, Con Don Trump and the Republicans are even worse. Kamala Harris and the Democrat Establishment deserve to beat Con Don Trump and the death cult Republicans by exactly one vote in this shit show of epic proportions. Con Don Trump is the only candidate that the FUBAR Harris campaign, and vision, and the FUBAR Democrat Establishment could defeat. Even so, the outcome is very much in doubt, a coin flip, as far as anyone knows, and even a win would be a Pyrrhic victory - certainly for the Palestinians and many others in Western Asia and beyond. What a disaster the Democrats are mining as their voter registrations these past four years tank in comparison to Republican and Independents, a sign of the slow motion implosion of the current party of genocide and "nothing will change" venality writ so large that no sane person can miss it. The wealth of this country that basically owns the place backs the worst among us and the most fraudulent: the king cons and the casually cruel.
How do you square your perspective with record-breaking early voting and voter registration drives we’re seeing in the swing states? Isn’t that what wins elections?
It's easy. Trump is noxious. People want to vote against him. Harris is not a strong candidate but she's better than what Biden offered
The Do nothing while Palestinians are DYING of US weapons.
Ah, the wisdom of the 50 Democratic insiders, superdelegates all, who retired to their smoke filled room and decided for the rest of America that Harris was to be joyfully anointed despite never having won a single vote for President from a single voter in any primary election in 2020 or 2024.
Thank you ever so much!
She is not a blank slate--look at her advisors: war mongers & hedge funds thieves and tech billionaires. Puhlease