Thoughts on Kamala Harris:
1) it’s good to have at least one person in the race who isn’t gonna eligible for Social Security before the next term is up.
2) I would rather stand in the way of a Caltrain than an AKA from Howard.
3) I am amused that the right is calling her a radical militant while the left is calling her a cop. I am less amused that every ticket with a woman on it has always lost. And if we’re honest, the people voting against her because of who she is would probably approve of a white male with the same record of what she’s done. The streak has to break sometime, right?
4) In my lifetime, every race until 2008 had one person on a ticket from a state with a star on the Rebel flag. Since then, Tim Kaine is the only one. This is a good development, if only because…
5) …she’s the first Californian on the ticket since Reagan. The Golden State probably has reason to feel hard done by these last thirty-six years. In the era when California was a safe Republican state from 1968-88, they had two Presidents. It’s been a stalwart Democratic vote ever since, and this is the first time they’ve had a look in.
6) It’s absurd that Kamala didn’t make it to Iowa when the likes of Yang and Bloomberg did. Error corrected.
7) To all accounts, Biden’s advisors tagged Harris as too aggressive and too ambitious, and he deliberately chose her anyway. He chose a person who went right at him in debates. He’s not afraid to be questioned and not afraid to be corrected. That cannot be overrated at this point.
8) One of the reasons I liked her for the ticket originally was because I knew the existence of a smart, sharp, attractive woman of color would cause Dolt 45 to experience a blue screen of death. Based on the first presser, this is clearly the case. I’ll be interested to see if it continues.
9) I’ve been dreading this pick, despite hoping for it, for the same reason one sits curled on the couch in the late 3rd quarter with a lead, afraid to move for fear of a jinx. But for whatever reason, I feel…hopeful? This is a ticket with two punchers. And it’s time to start swinging.
– 11 August 2020
Well here we go. The month-long campaign of pants-pissing insiders and media whores desperate for drama finally bore fruit, and Joe Biden has decided that he cannot be President and run for President against Trump and the entire mainstream media. And he chose to finish being President instead.
Is it the right decision? Not important any more. The decision is made, and the oxygen has been taken out of the whole “can he, will he, won’t he” debate. Instead, we get what the system rather points to: when the president can’t do it, his vice president takes over. This is reasonable and logical.
And it better be obvious to everyone. There is no other way to go. Like it or not, this is an incumbent ticket that faced the general electorate and was elected, then was re-elected to run again because that’s what an incumbent does. To say that there should be some kind of “blitz primary” or “brokered convention” or fill in whatever Aaron Sorkin fanfic wankery gets your juices going – that’s all bullshit. This was an insider coup, born of panic, and when we get to 2025 – win or lose – it’s officially time to read out of the Democratic establishment anyone who was there for McGovern or Mondale and get leadership in charge whose default posture is not submissive masochistic crouch. No more boomers. No more Sixties casualties. No more appeasing the mythical white working class and pretending like the only real Americans are halfwitted bigots who believe only what they see on Fox News.
This is an existential election. Every election is an existential election until the last boomer is choked to death on the entrails of the last “Reagan Democrat.” Until then, to the last moment, to the last person, to the last chance, we fight. We fight like Hell. And we fight to win.
Kamala Devi Harris, age 59, of Oakland California, Howard ’86, Hastings ’89, Alpha Kappa Alpha…you have less than four months to save the world.