Kamala is doing a great job. Yes, it is a party now, we are enthusiastic and energize, but to imply that we are somehow drunk, or like Axelrod said "Irrationally exuberant" is an insult to us democrats. We are rational and critical thinkers. Kamala knows what she is doing. I am tired to hear "Kamala should do this, Kamala should do that" as if she were a puppet and the brilliant puppeteers here know better than she does. Too many cooks spoil the stew. If she listened to every single "brilliant mind" out there, she would be so confused. Let her be herself.
Donald Trump checkmated himself on immigration when he tanked the Lankford/Murphy bill because he wanted to campaign on the issue rather than solve the issue and give Biden anything to run on. Harris needs to stuff that up his ass, and remind people that after checkmate, the game is over.
I think Bill’s tone is more measured but a lot of people complaining about a lack of questions are those in the media who get to ask them. I say they are doing a great job and deserve our trust.
These people (DJT, JDV, and others who believe in Project 2025 must be stopped now!! Please support The Disclosure Act that Senator Whitehouse and democratic congesmen are introducing to try to stop concealment of mega donors to PACs.
Who is Harris supposed to do all this for? Pundits, the media? It's not like trumpers will be swayed and it's not like all the low propensity, low information voters will even hear about it. 🤷♀️🙄
I question the proposition mentioned above that the Walz pick has somehow energized centrists in addition to progressives. Specifically, I wonder whether the selection of a very progressive Minnesota governor has left behind some of the white collar suburban voters, like those outside Philadelphia, who remain critical to the Electoral College race. Remember, pre-selection, the conventional wisdom was that Kamala would move to the center with her VP pick, and, in the end, she most definitely did not. as she selected a very progressive governor from a progressive state. We will see whether this costs her critical votes among well informed centrist voters who are concerned about things like marginal tax rates and business regulation.
If providing school lunches to K-12 students is somehow a negative to white collar suburban voters in Philadelphia, then they were never going to a Dem anyway.
Let's be specific of what policy Biden-Harris-Walz champion before we say it won't play with voters.
Harris can explain/distance herself from previous positions in way that seems to make sense and quickly pivot to the future and how her actions compare to the disastrous chaos that Trump offers. She can do the same with the perceptions of the Biden/Harris administration’s weaknesses. The result will be to turn perceived weaknesses into strengths.
Green New deal.
She can reframe the issues into jobs, economic, national security issues in addition to the environmental benefits. It goes like this:
• “I was in the senate for four years, so I know how legislation gets done. It’s all about negotiations and compromise. May aspects of what was originally termed as the “green New Deal” were not pragmatic as policy nor as passable legislation. The support I voiced were nothing more than a start to the negotiations, you might say it is the art of the deal (coyly smiling when saying this).
• The green energy component of the IRA is an example of what I was seeking.
• Republicans have responded by mischaracterizing what is in it. They say that it mandates that Americans buy only EVs, that is simply not true. Some have said that it hands battery manufacturing to China, in fact, it is the exact opposite.
• First, we need to recognize two facts,
o 1) green energy is the future, whether we like it or not, for a number of reasons.
o 2) Currently, China dominates in green energy component manufacturing (and power generation).
o They are the number one manufacturing of EVs. In fact, one Chinese company, BYD, is the single largest manufacture of EVs, even larger than Tesla.
o They are the number one manufacturer of solar panels. Producing nearly 80% of panels used in the US.
• We can bury our heads in the sand, and let China’s domination only increase, giving them nearly all of the jobs and gaining leverage over the economies of all other nations.
• We learned from the pandemic that sourcing critical components, in that case chips, give that country leverage over our economy.
• Giving China that kind of leverage over our economy is a national security issue.
• The green energy legislation is already enabling the US to challenge China in green energy, with the goal of US dominance, rather than China.
• We are already seeing the impact of the IRA with capacity and jobs being created across what has been called the Battery belt- in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, down through Kentucky, and out across Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas.
• Solar panel manufacturing and capacity is already expanding in the US.
• This will only continue and can ultimately lead to millions of new jobs in the US, helping our economy and workers in the transition to green energy.
• Preventing China from dominance, enhances our national security.”
• “Years ago, scientist predicted that one impact of climate change would be an increase in the number, and intensity, of storms and hurricanes. As well as wild fires. We are already seeing this come to fruition.
o This not only disrupts the how Americans live, but has also driven skyrocketing insurance rates in certain areas in the US.
o The inflationary impact causes severe strain on many Americans.
o We are also seeing dramatic impacts to our agriculture regions and dairy farmers.
o This will not only lead to inflation, but can cause food scarcity, and lead to reliance on foreign sources of food.
o This will not only create adverse impacts to our economy, but become a national security issue as well.
• It is vital that we take our heads out of the sand and strategically plan our transition to green energy to mitigate the threat this poses to our economy and national security.”
• Trump proposes that we bury out head in the sand, ceding to China all of the future green energy jobs and gain leverage over our economy.” (This allows her to pivot from the criticism but makes the case while she supports working class jobs, climate change while also making it about our national security and the pocket books of Americans)
Economy:
Reframe Biden’s performance, Trump’s performance and pivot to contrasting future policy:
“We measure a president’s economic policy actions, not by how they act when they inherit a strong and improving economy, as Trump did. But how they respond to economic challenges/crisis, as Joe and I did.
• We have to think of it this way. Just like covid has long covid symptoms, there was also what I call, Economic long covid. The other western economies are still dealing with the three symptoms of: inflation, stagnant GDP and high unemployment.
• Under our administration we quickly cured the symptoms of high unemployment and stagnant GDP. In our first year in office, we got unemployment to under 4% and kept it there for 27 straight months, the best in about 60 years. The unemployment rate hit 3.4%, also the lowest in about 69 years. Black unemployment hit an all-time low. We achieved this while keeping inflation at a level not worse than the other economies.
• Inflation, as measure by Fed’s PCE index is in the mid 2% range, only slightly above the target rate of 2%.
o If you had asked any economist in early 2021 if we could achieve all of this, they would have said that you are dreaming.
o If you recall some were projecting stagflation, or that we would need to see unemployment over 6% for a number of quarters in order to get inflation down. We truly are the economic envy of the world.
o We are painfully aware of the toll that inflation has been are our citizens and we have taken the actions we could to combat that. We are on track to eliminate the inflation problem in the first quarter of 2025, and then we have our economy firing on all cylinders.
• When Trump came into office, he inherited a good economy that was on an upward trend. He maintained that trend, but in the process spiked up our national debt. Even when we reduce the $8T he added by the $3T related to covid, he still would have added $5T.
• That is almost double the amount from Obama’s second four-year term. In fact, if you look at 2 years of Trump’s second and third years, after his tax cuts, he added $2.5T to the national debt, that is just slightly under the second 4 years under Obama.
• So, when you make your decision this November, don’t let him tell you to look back at his “great economy”, when he accelerated the increase in the national debt, rather look at what he proposes for the future.
o He wants to extend the debt busting tax cuts on the wealthy and even increase the rate of debt increase further by lowing the corporate tax rate from the current 21% to 15%.
o He is proposing a 10% across the board tariffs. Don’t believe his lies that China paid for his past tariffs, it is the American companies that import these products who pay the tariffs. They then pass those costs onto the consumer, resulting in inflation.
o Even worse is his proposed mass deportations. This will pull millions of employees currently working in the already tight service sector. This will dramatically drive-up inflation as companies compete for the smaller available workforce. It will throw many service sector companies, who can’t compete for the workers, out of business. This will have a ripple effect throughout our economy throwing us into a major recession while at the same time spiking inflation., and causing economic chaos.
Do you want to cast your vote for the strong economy that I will bring you, or the economic distress and chaos that Trump will bring you?
This shouldn't be hard. Vance made a hard-core shift from hating Trump to wanting to be on a couch with him. All she has to say is she has listened to others, learned a lot more as VP, and has changed her mind on some issues.
Changing one's mind about a person isn't quite the same is changing one's mind on issues. But the latter is certainly possible -- and most of us do it on occasion.
It’s not hard. We all know what she’d say. Any one of us could write the script. It’s almost superfluous for her to have to say it at all. I guess Andrew, Bill, and Vance have the burning questions. Not so sure the rest of us care.
There are pros and cons about Walz. Our individual opinions on this have no effect. I'm just focused on ACTION STEPS to keep Trump away from the White House.
People are certainly feeling more hopeful with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz (compared to Biden). But I’m concerned that many people seem complacent. There are thousands of swing state voters who aren’t clear on how they’d benefit by voting Democratic. Incredibly, some people cannot see how dangerous Trump is. Some Democrats get that, but hesitate to vote for Kamala because they don’t like Biden’s handling of Gaza. And some people are dumb enough to not realize that voting for RFK Jr. is essentially voting for Trump.
Phone banking is a waste of time; people don’t answer unknown numbers. Texting people just makes them angry.
I believe the most effective way to generate Democratic votes in swing states is Focus4Democacy. They have decades of experience crafting effective campaign messages. Look at their website and see their deep bench of expertise. Only $300 spent on their outreach gets a Democratic vote, in contrast with other options that cost thousands just to get 1 vote. They actually have research to back this up. Their next Zoom is Sunday, August 18 at 5PM PT/8PM ET
Register at https://bit.ly/F4D18Aug They do a zoom every 2 weeks where they explain how they test and refine messages that generate more Democratic votes in battleground states. And they track the results. They need donations. If you can't donate, pls. forward Focus4Democracy's info to everyone you know. https://www.focus4democracy.org I’ve forwarded it to many people and together, we’ve garnered several thousand dollars in donations.
Alternatively, contact people you know in the swing states. Former colleagues, friends, relatives – anyone you know in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina.
People, time to take off the party hats and get moving! Who will join me in taking action?
I saw that too. I'm still concerned that many people don't understand that, due to our 2-party system, a 3rd party candidate is only a spoiler, like Ralph Nader was.
I started with and am clinging to optimism over Harris /Walz, but sometimes the glowing coverage of the Harris/Walz campaign reminds me of things pundits said in 2015/16--e.g., she'll wipe w/ the floor w/ him at any debate; people are off-the-charts excited at the prospect of voting for a female president; Trump is melting down/imploding/floundering. I may be misremembering that election cycle, but I confess I worry....
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The Harris campaign should monitor the polls and keep their finger to the wind. They should respond promptly when needed. She’s doing better as the days pass. Sabato was on MSNBC today. He cited a recent MI poll that showed her up. He said GA and AZ are also looking rosy. For now, enjoy the party. Watch Trump dig his own grave.
Kamala is doing a great job. Yes, it is a party now, we are enthusiastic and energize, but to imply that we are somehow drunk, or like Axelrod said "Irrationally exuberant" is an insult to us democrats. We are rational and critical thinkers. Kamala knows what she is doing. I am tired to hear "Kamala should do this, Kamala should do that" as if she were a puppet and the brilliant puppeteers here know better than she does. Too many cooks spoil the stew. If she listened to every single "brilliant mind" out there, she would be so confused. Let her be herself.
Progressive policies are main stream policy!
I lived in SF from 1978-2004.
Donald Trump checkmated himself on immigration when he tanked the Lankford/Murphy bill because he wanted to campaign on the issue rather than solve the issue and give Biden anything to run on. Harris needs to stuff that up his ass, and remind people that after checkmate, the game is over.
When do Orange, Advance, Sissy Graham, et al explain their position changes. Why are they not accountable?
I think Bill’s tone is more measured but a lot of people complaining about a lack of questions are those in the media who get to ask them. I say they are doing a great job and deserve our trust.
About taking questions...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-oTJ49nls
These people (DJT, JDV, and others who believe in Project 2025 must be stopped now!! Please support The Disclosure Act that Senator Whitehouse and democratic congesmen are introducing to try to stop concealment of mega donors to PACs.
Who is Harris supposed to do all this for? Pundits, the media? It's not like trumpers will be swayed and it's not like all the low propensity, low information voters will even hear about it. 🤷♀️🙄
I question the proposition mentioned above that the Walz pick has somehow energized centrists in addition to progressives. Specifically, I wonder whether the selection of a very progressive Minnesota governor has left behind some of the white collar suburban voters, like those outside Philadelphia, who remain critical to the Electoral College race. Remember, pre-selection, the conventional wisdom was that Kamala would move to the center with her VP pick, and, in the end, she most definitely did not. as she selected a very progressive governor from a progressive state. We will see whether this costs her critical votes among well informed centrist voters who are concerned about things like marginal tax rates and business regulation.
If providing school lunches to K-12 students is somehow a negative to white collar suburban voters in Philadelphia, then they were never going to a Dem anyway.
Let's be specific of what policy Biden-Harris-Walz champion before we say it won't play with voters.
Why is he “very progressive”? Please define that and be specific. Thanks
Harris can explain/distance herself from previous positions in way that seems to make sense and quickly pivot to the future and how her actions compare to the disastrous chaos that Trump offers. She can do the same with the perceptions of the Biden/Harris administration’s weaknesses. The result will be to turn perceived weaknesses into strengths.
Green New deal.
She can reframe the issues into jobs, economic, national security issues in addition to the environmental benefits. It goes like this:
• “I was in the senate for four years, so I know how legislation gets done. It’s all about negotiations and compromise. May aspects of what was originally termed as the “green New Deal” were not pragmatic as policy nor as passable legislation. The support I voiced were nothing more than a start to the negotiations, you might say it is the art of the deal (coyly smiling when saying this).
• The green energy component of the IRA is an example of what I was seeking.
• Republicans have responded by mischaracterizing what is in it. They say that it mandates that Americans buy only EVs, that is simply not true. Some have said that it hands battery manufacturing to China, in fact, it is the exact opposite.
• First, we need to recognize two facts,
o 1) green energy is the future, whether we like it or not, for a number of reasons.
o 2) Currently, China dominates in green energy component manufacturing (and power generation).
o They are the number one manufacturing of EVs. In fact, one Chinese company, BYD, is the single largest manufacture of EVs, even larger than Tesla.
o They are the number one manufacturer of solar panels. Producing nearly 80% of panels used in the US.
• We can bury our heads in the sand, and let China’s domination only increase, giving them nearly all of the jobs and gaining leverage over the economies of all other nations.
• We learned from the pandemic that sourcing critical components, in that case chips, give that country leverage over our economy.
• Giving China that kind of leverage over our economy is a national security issue.
• The green energy legislation is already enabling the US to challenge China in green energy, with the goal of US dominance, rather than China.
• We are already seeing the impact of the IRA with capacity and jobs being created across what has been called the Battery belt- in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, down through Kentucky, and out across Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas.
• Solar panel manufacturing and capacity is already expanding in the US.
• This will only continue and can ultimately lead to millions of new jobs in the US, helping our economy and workers in the transition to green energy.
• Preventing China from dominance, enhances our national security.”
• “Years ago, scientist predicted that one impact of climate change would be an increase in the number, and intensity, of storms and hurricanes. As well as wild fires. We are already seeing this come to fruition.
o This not only disrupts the how Americans live, but has also driven skyrocketing insurance rates in certain areas in the US.
o The inflationary impact causes severe strain on many Americans.
o We are also seeing dramatic impacts to our agriculture regions and dairy farmers.
o This will not only lead to inflation, but can cause food scarcity, and lead to reliance on foreign sources of food.
o This will not only create adverse impacts to our economy, but become a national security issue as well.
• It is vital that we take our heads out of the sand and strategically plan our transition to green energy to mitigate the threat this poses to our economy and national security.”
• Trump proposes that we bury out head in the sand, ceding to China all of the future green energy jobs and gain leverage over our economy.” (This allows her to pivot from the criticism but makes the case while she supports working class jobs, climate change while also making it about our national security and the pocket books of Americans)
Economy:
Reframe Biden’s performance, Trump’s performance and pivot to contrasting future policy:
“We measure a president’s economic policy actions, not by how they act when they inherit a strong and improving economy, as Trump did. But how they respond to economic challenges/crisis, as Joe and I did.
• We have to think of it this way. Just like covid has long covid symptoms, there was also what I call, Economic long covid. The other western economies are still dealing with the three symptoms of: inflation, stagnant GDP and high unemployment.
• Under our administration we quickly cured the symptoms of high unemployment and stagnant GDP. In our first year in office, we got unemployment to under 4% and kept it there for 27 straight months, the best in about 60 years. The unemployment rate hit 3.4%, also the lowest in about 69 years. Black unemployment hit an all-time low. We achieved this while keeping inflation at a level not worse than the other economies.
• Inflation, as measure by Fed’s PCE index is in the mid 2% range, only slightly above the target rate of 2%.
o If you had asked any economist in early 2021 if we could achieve all of this, they would have said that you are dreaming.
o If you recall some were projecting stagflation, or that we would need to see unemployment over 6% for a number of quarters in order to get inflation down. We truly are the economic envy of the world.
o We are painfully aware of the toll that inflation has been are our citizens and we have taken the actions we could to combat that. We are on track to eliminate the inflation problem in the first quarter of 2025, and then we have our economy firing on all cylinders.
• When Trump came into office, he inherited a good economy that was on an upward trend. He maintained that trend, but in the process spiked up our national debt. Even when we reduce the $8T he added by the $3T related to covid, he still would have added $5T.
• That is almost double the amount from Obama’s second four-year term. In fact, if you look at 2 years of Trump’s second and third years, after his tax cuts, he added $2.5T to the national debt, that is just slightly under the second 4 years under Obama.
• So, when you make your decision this November, don’t let him tell you to look back at his “great economy”, when he accelerated the increase in the national debt, rather look at what he proposes for the future.
o He wants to extend the debt busting tax cuts on the wealthy and even increase the rate of debt increase further by lowing the corporate tax rate from the current 21% to 15%.
o He is proposing a 10% across the board tariffs. Don’t believe his lies that China paid for his past tariffs, it is the American companies that import these products who pay the tariffs. They then pass those costs onto the consumer, resulting in inflation.
o Even worse is his proposed mass deportations. This will pull millions of employees currently working in the already tight service sector. This will dramatically drive-up inflation as companies compete for the smaller available workforce. It will throw many service sector companies, who can’t compete for the workers, out of business. This will have a ripple effect throughout our economy throwing us into a major recession while at the same time spiking inflation., and causing economic chaos.
Do you want to cast your vote for the strong economy that I will bring you, or the economic distress and chaos that Trump will bring you?
South Dakota, sure: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/how-south-dakota-became-haven-dirty-money/620298/
This shouldn't be hard. Vance made a hard-core shift from hating Trump to wanting to be on a couch with him. All she has to say is she has listened to others, learned a lot more as VP, and has changed her mind on some issues.
Changing one's mind about a person isn't quite the same is changing one's mind on issues. But the latter is certainly possible -- and most of us do it on occasion.
Why is that? Does not embracing a person imply embracing his positions?
It’s not hard. We all know what she’d say. Any one of us could write the script. It’s almost superfluous for her to have to say it at all. I guess Andrew, Bill, and Vance have the burning questions. Not so sure the rest of us care.
There are pros and cons about Walz. Our individual opinions on this have no effect. I'm just focused on ACTION STEPS to keep Trump away from the White House.
People are certainly feeling more hopeful with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz (compared to Biden). But I’m concerned that many people seem complacent. There are thousands of swing state voters who aren’t clear on how they’d benefit by voting Democratic. Incredibly, some people cannot see how dangerous Trump is. Some Democrats get that, but hesitate to vote for Kamala because they don’t like Biden’s handling of Gaza. And some people are dumb enough to not realize that voting for RFK Jr. is essentially voting for Trump.
Phone banking is a waste of time; people don’t answer unknown numbers. Texting people just makes them angry.
I believe the most effective way to generate Democratic votes in swing states is Focus4Democacy. They have decades of experience crafting effective campaign messages. Look at their website and see their deep bench of expertise. Only $300 spent on their outreach gets a Democratic vote, in contrast with other options that cost thousands just to get 1 vote. They actually have research to back this up. Their next Zoom is Sunday, August 18 at 5PM PT/8PM ET
Register at https://bit.ly/F4D18Aug They do a zoom every 2 weeks where they explain how they test and refine messages that generate more Democratic votes in battleground states. And they track the results. They need donations. If you can't donate, pls. forward Focus4Democracy's info to everyone you know. https://www.focus4democracy.org I’ve forwarded it to many people and together, we’ve garnered several thousand dollars in donations.
Alternatively, contact people you know in the swing states. Former colleagues, friends, relatives – anyone you know in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina.
People, time to take off the party hats and get moving! Who will join me in taking action?
In the NYT’s polling section yesterday I saw that the presence of Kennedy on the ticket actually slightly favors Harris in most swing states.
I saw that too. I'm still concerned that many people don't understand that, due to our 2-party system, a 3rd party candidate is only a spoiler, like Ralph Nader was.
I started with and am clinging to optimism over Harris /Walz, but sometimes the glowing coverage of the Harris/Walz campaign reminds me of things pundits said in 2015/16--e.g., she'll wipe w/ the floor w/ him at any debate; people are off-the-charts excited at the prospect of voting for a female president; Trump is melting down/imploding/floundering. I may be misremembering that election cycle, but I confess I worry....
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The Harris campaign should monitor the polls and keep their finger to the wind. They should respond promptly when needed. She’s doing better as the days pass. Sabato was on MSNBC today. He cited a recent MI poll that showed her up. He said GA and AZ are also looking rosy. For now, enjoy the party. Watch Trump dig his own grave.