Kamala's Launch Energizes Depressed Democrats

Unburdened by Joe Biden, the party unites

In the past two days I wrote about how the entire Democratic machine, energized after Joe Biden’s exit, was going to pull out all the stops for Kamala Harris to create the most overproduced campaign in history — and we didn’t have to wait long to see what that looks like. Having locked up enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot, the first thing Kamala did was go to Wisconsin, where her message was: “A choice between freedom and chaos.” The crowd, larger by far than any Biden saw in his campaigning, chanted “lock him up”. The Democratic money machine went into action on all sides, with Wall Street donors whirring back to life, Bernie Bros memeing away, and white women flocking to the KHive — totaling $231 million dollars raised on her first day. To say that this is a permanent shift in momentum is premature, but to say that it’s real right now is undeniable. The early polls may not have shifted much, but that’s what the money’s for.

What Republicans have to be hoping for at this point is that Kamala’s big launch plays out just like her last introduction to the American people. That was without a doubt the most impressive campaign launch of 2020, where she spoke to 20,000 energized supporters in Oakland before crashing and burning in the coming months, undone by staffing problems, behind the scenes fractures, and a general devotion to being light on policy and “too online”. As the Times described it: “Ms. Harris is the only 2020 Democrat who has fallen hard out of the top tier of candidates. She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions.”

Except that was a competitive primary contest, surrounded by other candidates, and with reporters eager for stories and gossip about the internal fractiousness of campaigns. Now they have a media establishment that is almost entirely invested in Kamala’s success, and relieved that they no longer have to wallow in the lies they repeated for years about Joe Biden’s wisdom, endurance, and boundless well of energy and instead suddenly get to notice that Donald Trump is old. So the shape of things isn’t likely to do Republicans any favors.

For the alternate view, Byron York runs through the potential buyer’s remorse:

On Tuesday, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio released a memo predicting a media-driven “Harris honeymoon” over the next few weeks. But couldn’t the opposite occur, too — that after an initial mindless euphoria, some Democrats could develop a Harris hangover?

It’s good to remember that Harris was a terrible candidate in the 2019 Democratic presidential primary campaign. (She was so bad that her campaign did not make it to 2020, when the actual primary and caucus voting took place.) As the stampede was beginning over the weekend, the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle posted, “I feel like I am watching a lot of people who previously agreed that Harris was not a very good candidate suddenly convince themselves that actually, she is a spectacular candidate.” Here’s a guess: She won’t be a spectacular candidate.

Some observers might say, wait, there’s just 27 days until the convention. There’s no time to rethink the Harris choice. To answer that, look at something that the journalist Mickey Kaus, a pioneer blogger, calls the “Feiler faster thesis.” “The basic idea is this,” Kaus wrote way back in 2000. “The news cycle is much faster these days, thanks to 24-hour cable, the web, a metastasized pundit caste constantly searching for new angles, etc. As a result, politics is able to move much faster, too, as our democracy learns to process more information in a shorter period and to process it comfortably at this faster pace. Charges and countercharges fly faster, candidates’ fortunes rise and fall faster, etc.” What was true then is even more true now.

I’m skeptical, for all the reasons above. But the fundamentals of the race are still in Trump’s favor, and as much as Kamala has united her party, the Rust Belt looms as a challenge she will have to struggle to overcome.

More below on new details about the Trump assassination attempt, WRM on Kamala’s tension with Israel, health and income support, and Martin Gurri on Biden.