Kamala has turned out to be a phenomenal candidate

To think just two weeks ago she was coming in like forty or fifth choice of Biden replacements.

San Franciscan here. I met Kamala in person when she was doing good old fashioned retail campaigning for her 2004 DA run. Know where I met her? Outside the Castro Muni station, early in the morning, as she was out there catching commuters on our way to work. I knew then how charismatic and smart she is. Of all her achievements since, the only thing that's surprised me is how quickly she flamed out of the 2020 presidential primary. Turns out that was due more to her sister's poor campaign strategy and management, though Kamala is ultimately responsible there. Still though -- she is an extraordinary candidate, and while I still don't like how Biden has been treated by the party, I'm excited to see Kamala win the White House with a much better campaign apparatus in her corner.

I have to say that this pivot to calling cheeto and the Hillbilly "weird" is brilliant and working.

Rather than the sky-is-falling, end-of-democracy statements that Dems have been making which smacks of the much-hated liberal coastal elites, calling them "weird" and pointing out all the weirdo stuff actually resonates with the average voter.

The thing I find remarkable is how she makes her speech to this huge stadium feel very personal and intimate. Like she could be saying the same thing to you at a dinner party. It does not feel like she is talking down to you (Hillary’s flaw.)

I had no clue she was like this. She’s been in office for three and a half years, you know she’s there but you don’t know what she’s doing and you don’t really care enough to find out. Like the province of Quebec.

Trump and pulling out…there’s a sex joke there, but work today was a bitch.

“Say it to my face” needs to be on tshirts.

Not that anybody on DL would care, but I have been touting Kamala since May 2017 soon after she grilled Jeff Sessions in the first of Trump's AG Hearings. Touting her to my friends and anyone in my circle who could hear.

She was my 1st choice for POTUS in 2020, and 1st choice for Biden's VP (although I felt her talents would have been better served as AG then VP - but Biden being old, I was glad she was chosen).

With all the Kamala hate and doubt this past year, (even from some Dems), I never waivered.

This past week, I have been bombarded with "you were right!" texts and I love it!!

[quote]calling them "weird" and pointing out all the weirdo stuff actually resonates with the average voter.

r3 Because they are weird. As hell. Vance calling her a "childless cat lady" was just beyond fucking stupid. Honestly, I don't think Trump should've chosen him as VP, and frankly, I get the impression Trump didn't want him as VP, either. If he had chosen someone like Vivek Ramaswamy, at the very least that man would even out his uncouth stupidity, but of course, we can't have a VP outshine the president which is exactly what Vivek would do. JD Vance has that hillbilly, product of a meth addict background going for him, so I guess he'll appeal to the vast majority of Trump's voting base that way. Vivek would just remind the world on a daily basis how unqualified and terrible Trump actually is.

Not surprised but I have made an effort to follow her since she became AG. Always thought she had potential and I despaired at the way the Biden team was handling her until they let her out to speak on reproductive rights. Around that time, she seems to have worked with a great speech coach and it all came together.

I’m not surprised because I know how the media always does us. ALWAYS. Donald Trump should have been canceled in 1990 when he called for the Central Park 5 teenage boys to be executed and hung. Mafucker been starting riots and insurrections for over 30 years.

OP, let’s wait and see if she actually wins.

Too early to tell.

r11 I doubt it. Most men won't vote for her. Especially Black men. They hate us and would rather have the name "Toby" beaten out of them than be lead by a Black woman. That's the sad truth. A lot of Black men are doubling down on voting for Trump just to make sure she doesn't win.

R13

Boris!

She's a buffoon like Trump.

R13 ^

r14 Uhh, no bitch. I'm a Black woman acknowledging the reality of some really messed up shit. The biggest "civil war" going on in the Black community is between Black men and Black women. A lot of Black men, specifically straight Black men, are NOT voting for her just because they can't stand the idea of a Black woman leading anything.

R16. That’s brilliant and so ot here.

R17. Receipts?

The confidence seen here in the last few seconds of this clip is breathtaking. The lightness too, the happy smile of someone who knows she's taking down the bullies who've made everyone's life hell for years. Someone who fully knows her time has come.

If she keeps this kind of work up there's no way she can lose. If Hillary had shown even a sliver of this much lightly worn confidence, she'd be completing her 2nd term right now.

r19

And, anecdotally, men I know personally. It teeters between indifference and "HELL naw."

While I was certain that due to her four years experience as the VP that she would have a better opportunity to present herself as a presidential candidate this time around, I was concerned with how the public and the media would treat her. So far it has been a much better switch off from Biden to Harris than I imagined.

R20. “Lightly worn confidence.”

I’m stealing this.

de nada r23.

R21

Post fail…no clicky!

Please repost because I’m sure the post comes from a very reputable source.

The source is a fat, sour faced grifter who makes reaction videos on YouTube? Try again.

r25 There must be something wrong on your end, because the post is clickable. Anyway, I'm just posting content from the horse's mouth, since so many of you want to sit up here and say we're committing "digital blackface" whenever we try to tell you what's going on in the Black community as Black people, ourselves.

I hesitate to say this, but she reminds of none other than . . . Ronald Reagan! The reason I hate to compare her to Reagan is that I despise Reagan and everything he stood for. His presidency is when America really started to go off the rails, down the road that eventually led us to the catastrophe of Trump and the fascist political party he currently lead.

But there's no doubt that Reagan had uncommon political gifts, and Kamala shares some of them. She has his "lightly worn self-confidence" (yes, I'm stealing it too), his sunny optimism and his talent for sharply poking fun at his political opponents, while at the same time not being heavy-handed about it. Her message, like Reagan's, is focused on freedom and building a better future. Like him, she makes people feel good about America.

I think she has the ability to reach a lot of people who have been turned off by elderly, decrepit old white men who have long dominated both political parties and by the dystopian, relentlessly negative tone that American politics has taken over the past decade. The results of this election are going to surprise a lot of people.

Just three weeks ago dozens of DL members all calling for biden to step aside and who for some reason were all named Boris were all given a time out on DL for suggesting biden might not be fit for the job. Many of those were suggesting Harris instead as a what do we have to lose.

The Boris Hunter were wrong the Boris hunters wear wrong fuck the Boris hunters.

Yea Harris

Kamala always had it in her. She just needed to find her footing and voice on the national stage.

It's black women that vote and will swing this election.

No disrespect intended but black men have never been a voting block that causes great impact.

It's the same with young voters. A lot of noise is made but few actually show up to vote.

[quote]Boris hunters wear wrong fuck

Pics please.

R28 makes a very good point.

The intersection of Reagan and Harris would of course be that they are from California and their homes are actually close to each other (Reagan lived in Bel Air and Harris lives across the 405 in Brentwood).

Harris is of course from the Bay but her husband is hella Hollywood (BA from Northridge and USC law school, three decades in entertainment law).

Hollywood still knows how to do some things very well. One of those things is campaigning.

As a non American, looking in, it's really like when the show might have to close but the understudy came on and surprised everyone...but only because everyone had such low expectations of her that once she didnt fall down that was a win. It's really not a good situation. Who is really running that country...it hasn't been Biden for a very long time..unless he acted senile as that was the only reason his alleged business dealings were let slide. It really looks like you don't care what's going on, once it's not Trump. It's a sad state of affairs.

You mean like this?

R34, a non-American ripping on Democrats. How refreshing and novel.

R31 after the election look at the data as far as who votes

far more white women will vote for Harris than black women will. The black women start with far far fewer numbers and will have a smaller % that actually vote.

Their voting though will be important for a Harris win

Women in general straight women specifically will carry the day if the day is carried..

R34

“Brexit”

Nuf said about idiocy in politics if you are English

To be honest, media could make a perfect candidate out of anybody. Just few months ago Joe was a perfect candidate.

Not R17 but even the BLM didn't seem too thrilled with Kamala

[quote]BLM didn't seem too thrilled with Kamala

Which is one of the best things that can happen to her when it comes to appealing to independent voters.

R22 are you kidding when you say you were not sure how the media would treat her. Corporate donors pushed Joe out of the race and decided it was Kamala who would step in (probably to avoid complications). Of course mainstream media were going to make mix of Madame Curie and Eleanor Roosevelt out of her.

Not going to comment.

Wait I am going to comment - Central Park Five

More Franklin than Eleanor

Perhaps most black men would vote by gutt feeling, because of her skin color, because this demographic strongly identifies with race. Smaller part of them would vote for other options or stay home, remembering thag Kamala was putting black men in jail because of pot and, since they are more conservative populace they don't agree with Dem ultra liberal policies.

Sorry but today's iteration of BLM wouldn't accept any presidential candidate unless he was Louis Farrakhan.

That's half of it. The other half is that millions of potential D voters, the kinds of people who were fired up for Obama 2008 but not for Kerry 2004, were not connecting with Joe Biden AT ALL. And a lot of us knew it, we knew Biden was a lousy candidate in 2024, downright elderly and not able to really wage combat against Trump. But in D party spaces online you'd be told to sit down and shut up if you tried to say anything.

Even here on Datalounge, there was such a pushdown from posters who claimed to know "how things work" and how we'd better just suck it up and stay with the geriatric Biden because you little fools don't understand that any alternative is a pathway to certain doom.

Those posters were condescending, and were flat out wrong.

Men inc straight black and white men like strength. Energy. She comes off strong a real ass kicker. She is making Don look old weak and orange and trumps VP is making trump look idiotic.

But no happy dance here until the EC votes are in,

Surely it will be easier for Kamala to get more female votes, not only because of her gender, but because women are generally more supsceptible to propaganda and media. Men tend to be a tiny bit more independent.

LOL R50. Tell that to the ISIS recruiters. And which gender was doing most of the watching and listening to Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, etc etc and getting their minds thoroughly warped by it, for all those years?

Dump has been coasting on propaganda since day one. He would be nowhere without Rupert Murdoch, Elon, etc.

Seriously trolls, enough with the insulting women. You aren’t helping yourselves.

I remember when the 2020 primaries started thinking she could be an amazing candidate. Then when such quick work was made of her, I thought "huh. I guess not." But the way she's been for the past 11 days is exactly what I'd been picturing in 2020.

A couple of weeks ago, Keith Olbermann said on his podcast "it is being worked out. Biden will withdraw and Kamala Harris will ne the nominee." It seemed unfathomable to me, given what a sort of non-entity she's been as VP. Of course now I understand that had more to do with the office, and Biden's treatment of it, than it did Kamala.

I'm still giddy. If we pull this off, it's gonna be a PARTY.

[quote]Women in general straight women specifically will carry the day if the day is carried..

I know this was intended to sound very serious but it's such a ridiculous statement when lesbians make up around 1.4% of the general population and most young women currently identifying as 'queer' or bi are heterosexual in practice.

I am surprised. She seems to have found another gear. The sassiness she brings to the role is refreshing and she is running on quite a positive message rather than making it into an anti-Trump campaign where every speech is a dark warning about the dangers of Trump.

[quote] black men have never been a voting block that causes great impact.

R31 Neither have black women! According to the U.S. Census, Black women make up 7.7% of the total U.S. population and 15.3% of the U.S. population of women. 94% of Black women voters supported Hilary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, 54% of white women voters voted for Trump in 2016. Some impact! Black women's self-esteem is always so low they need to shit on Black men to raise it a bump. Go back to lipstick alley bitch. I don't like your agenda.

[quote]Kamala has turned out to be a phenomenal candidate

Don't know what phenomenal means?

GED's are like that.

Oh, dear.

I think R56 has it right. She has much more to say beyond “vote for me to stop Trump.” She can say that, too, of course, but she’s offering optimism and positivity, which are things Trump can’t access at any price.

That should've said female population, not general population. Here's a US-specific survey that shows how rare non-straight women are among all demographics but Gen Z and Millennials.

Harris will easily carry that vote (and gay men, as well), but of course it's straight women who decide elections.

Her appearance in Atlanta last night showed the culmination of everything she's learned in the past 4 years about communication. Warm, funny, tough, smart, gorgeous smile, beautifully groomed in those pastel pantsuits, it's all added up to a spectacularly charismatic performance.

And the contrast to the blithering old idiot will become only more apparent in the next 3 months.

R55 I don’t understand your post or point. But let me rephrase.

Straight women dominate voting because there are so many of them and because women do vote. By far most women who vote for Harris will be straight white women. That’s not a knock on anyone it’s just a fact.

I did not mention queers, bi or lesbians so I am not sure at all what you are getting at.

[quote]I did not mention queers, bi or lesbians so I am not sure at all what you are getting at.

The point you are missing is that by mentioning straight women, you do drag non-straight women into it.

R50 has to be the most brazen lie spouted here in the past 24 hours. If the internet has taught us anything it is that men can be radicalised very easily by any mouthpiece in a cheap suit and it is a very lucrative hustle.

R63 I said women specifically straight women. Because as every sane person knows there is a large shit load of straight women and just a small tiny voting block of lesbians.

The only person that brought up lesbians is you. And I still have no idea what your point is.

[quote] while I still don't like how Biden has been treated by the party

Can you please specify what you don't like? All I have observed is that the party finally convinced a man to abandon his dream of being a president at 86, a dream that would have been arrogant, self-centered and stupid even if he were in peak mental and physical condition, which Biden clearly was not.

I approve of most of Biden's presidency but that doesn't mean I believe the purpose of the presidency is to provide one man out of over 300 million people with a way to fill his time and a sense of purpose.

Any person deserves to be pushed aside if it is for the benefit of the nation, but all the more so when what that person wants is really stupid and destructive.

I'm proud the Democratic party prioritizes my wellbeing and the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people over that of Joe Biden.

[quote] Don't know what phenomenal means?

GED's are like that.

What are GED's?

And what do “GED's”possess?

It's such an advantage to go in to the main event without a bruising primary battle beforehand...

Absolutely, R56. Harris is taking what worked from Obama (we want to feel positivity and hope toward our candidate) and changing up what didn't (Obama was genteel in temperament, a community organizer by background, he was not a combat-ready criminal prosecutor by professional background... and that was OK against McCain but this is Trump, and frankly a willingness to combat and fight is what we need right now)

[quote]Surely it will be easier for Kamala to get more female votes, not only because of her gender, but because women are generally more susceptible to propaganda and media. Men tend to be a tiny bit more independent.

Oh rly? And what say you of all the blind-as-bat men who follow El Trumpo around like lemmings?

Misogyny really has no place here.

[quote]Neither have black women! According to the U.S. Census, Black women make up 7.7% of the total U.S. population and 15.3% of the U.S. population of women.

Black women of course make a small number in the overall population but point is they come out in disproportionate numbers to actually VOTE. Far more than black men tend to do, hence why they're viewed as such a pivotal demographic in the Democratic party (where many of them typically reside or vote).

Black women, white dudes, crazy cat ladies: Identity groups fuel a groundswell for Harris:

R6 There is a shirt and it's on sale.

R74 Why do I think some of the people who wear this shirt will have "N" word said to their face?

R34 here...im not English. But my comment was trying to show how self deluding you all appear to be. Kamala as President....honestly? I'm just saying you deserve better. Also, unfortunately, the USA has a huge effect on us non Americans as you well know. I don't think we're under some sky dome if ur president presses the button. So yes, looking in on the folly, and seeing u guys delude yourselves is quite the show.

R76 It would be helpful if you explained the ways in which she is so disappointing. Just claiming she is deficient and not saying why, is, of course, useless. Why are you surprised people don't share your view, when your view seems to be based on nothing but an unsubstantiated feeling on your part? We're not all required to share your feelings.

R77 Don’t bother. This guy is spamming us with these shit posts full of “u” and “ur” from several accounts.

What lovely country are you from, R76?

I agree with R76, that American electins affect us all.

If you stopped engaging in foreign wars, Ukraine and Israel than maybe you could act so arrogant when we comment here. And all of Bush and Obama's Middle eastern wars that destroyed these countries and flooded Europe with refugees are still affecting lives of people on three continents.

[quote] flooded Europe with refugees

No one made them accept the refugees. If you want to blame someone for that disaster, look no further than your precious EU.

I like the new tagline Republicans are Weird. Non threatening , non hysterical, like reasonable people scratching their head at the antics. It could draw more undecideds into the camp.

I don't know. Both parties have had weird takes on various issues. Just in different ways. They both have done and said some really weird shit and gaslit any detractors that call them out on it. Let's keep it 100. I think they should drop the "they're weird" angle. It can backfire way too easily.

True R83. JD Vance is a weirdo (Trump may be clown, but not really weird), but the situation with Biden was extremely weird. The way they claimed he was fit and put him to the primary, only to be pushed out by shady corporate donors is weird. DNC is lucky people are gullible and have the memory of a golden fish.

You mock Russia, but the oligarchs are not stronger than the government and the elected president, now matter how illiberal ia really the one in charge.

Whereas in US you wonder who is really ruling the country.

The irony of Europe blaming the US for the mess in the Middle East…….

Or having lots of wars….

Such lame trolling, such pathetic trolling, such ahistorical trolling.

I do love the phrase “memory of a golden fish” though. It may be my new favorite DL phrase.

R84 flee before Putin drops you out of a window too.

r84 And speaking of saying weird-ass goofy shit...

Elderlez, what is the difference between you who don't recognize Bush and Obama administration destroyed the Middle east and Northen Africa and a Russian who soesn't believe that their country attacked Ukraine?

[quote[“memory of a golden fish”

The foreign edition of "Idioms for Dummies" isn't as solid as one would hope.

France and England, with big assists from Russia and Italy and a final touch from Germany, destroyed the Middle East. And Russia continues to wreak havoc there as we type.

The US had nothing to do with the wretched Sykes-Picot agreement.

👆

She does speak like a Russian who doesn’t believe their country attacked Ukraine

True R90 she is crazy. That Russia, Italy and Germany destroyed the Middle east, I don't think that level of brainwashing exists even in North Korea.

France and England were just aids.

R88 first use how to quote than accuse other of making mistakes.

Btw.only trashy xenophobes mock foreigner's language skills. Decent people don't.

Ehhh..

Elderlez, read with comprehenaion. I was not talking about colonial days, we have all been colonized in some moment in the past. Still, they built rather prosperous regimes in Iraq, Lybia, Egypt etc.

I was talking who destroyed Middle east just a decade ago, who was killing civilians with drones, who created the refugee crisis (read something about refugee camps in Turkey) who destroyed the buildings and infrastructure, who made a mess of this part of world. Like Bush and St. Obama.

You seem very confused, r94, making unclear innuendos across m many decades. Are you blaming the US for the Syrian War?

I'll wait to see how Kamala does in her tv interviews and press conferences before I agree she is a phenomenal candidate. She started to return to her word salads at the prisoner swap event last night. There's a reason the campaign have not done any press yet, and it's because she struggles with the format. She's good reading off a teleprompter or going over a pre-written line of questioning like a prosecutor, but throw her a question she isn't prepared for and she doesn't think well on her feet.

She did fine in r96's clip, she was coherent and used correct grammar, unlike the other option. She wasn't very detailed in terms of how exactly Biden and the WH were able to pull off the release, but she's been busy campaigning and may not know exact specifics so didn't give them. The hostage talks had been ongoing for a number of years.

I also think it’s a poor idea to go over the specifics in public for something like that.

R97 is correct. That is not a particularly damning clip. The last sentence was circular and repetitive, but the rest of it was perfectly fine and therefore no indication she's not a fluent impromptu speaker. She's done plenty of impromptu speaking in her political career and all people can damn her with is a small number of cringe-inducing remarks. We all are aware that you could create a week's worth of cringe-inducing clips based on what Biden and the two Bushes have said in their careers and a month worth of clips based on what Trump has said.

I think Kamala sounded just fine. I imagine it was a very emotional event witnessing those reunions and also, she wouldn't have wanted to take over this moment from Biden, who deserved to be the focus.

Kamala is like Chalamet. Nothing in particular, but the corporate machinery will make her a star.

Kamala' lost son.