Biden sees support from Democrats slip 10 points after debate

MSN News ^ | June 28, 2019 | Tal Axelrod, The Hill

[nathanbedford]

,I agree with your analysis. From a slightly different perspective looking at it from the Democrats point of view, I also get to Harris by the process of elimination, as you do.

Biden and Bernie are old and white, while Bernie still has his wits Biden as almost certainly lost a step. Next up, Pocahontas. She has so you humiliated herself in at least two self-produced videos that she has become a walking self-parody. Booker is reliably cringe-worthy without needing to put himself forward on self-destructive videos. Buttigieg, while articulate and unflappable, lacks charisma as do the two female senators who will go nowhere.

Harris has the charisma, the drive and the ruthlessness that make her formidable. Democrats are also betting that she can revivify the Obama enthusiasm of the African-American block vote. I believe the Trump campaign is smart enough to assume the worst so let's look at her from the perspective of President Trump.

His approval ratings seem to be firmly planted in a fixed range. His base approves of him 100% but it is the mushy middle who will likely decide the election. The last two elections, 2016 at 2018, have apparently turned on the fickle affections of white, educated, suburban women. It is unnecessary to add that these women will play a role in places like the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, around Madison Wisconsin etc. Trump's challenge is to improve his favorability among these women as much as possible-which is probably not very much in absolute terms but still might be enough to replay 2016 where he had their affections.

On the other hand, most of the judgments about Donald Trump the man, as opposed to Trump the acting president, are going to be very difficult to move. Therefore, his option is to replay 2016 by substituting, Harris for Hillary Clinton in the public perception. Many say that only Donald Trump could have beat Hillary Clinton but I think it is worthy to ponder that Donald Trump could have bested only Hillary. In other words, Trump has got to make, Kamala Harris thoroughly unattractive to suburban females. That is quite a different proposition than simply making her hateful to the Trump base. The key is to define her in terms which offend women voters as women.

To translate that into policy, I think Trump has to emphasize that her grandiose giveaway programs of open borders, of single-payer healthcare and the rest of it will deprive the children of suburban mothers of a decent education and the mothers and fathers of suburban women of their healthcare late in life which will throw the burden of their care back on women voters. She should be painted as doing this not out of compassion for the tribes she is pandering to, but out of naked ambition.

In undertaking to do this, the last place I would look for advice would be from conservative Men on Free Republic, Donald Trump already knows how to communicate with us, rather, I would find female consultants who can read that demographic and translate conservative words into something that is compelling to suburban females.

[ek_hornbeck]

I agree with most of your analysis. With Biden being thrown under the bus, the DNC and its media allies will throw all they've got behind Kamala. If Biden is pushed aside, the rest of the pack are niche market candidates like Buttigieg for urban hipsters/gays or Bernie for now passe old-school class warfare types.

The outcome of a hypothetical election between Harris and Trump will depend entirely on moderate, often apolitical or barely political swing voters. The question is to what extent such people are capable of thinking independently as opposed to swallowing what the mass media feeds them.

People compare Harris to Obama, but she's much more strident, angry, and openly radical. Obama was careful not to alienate moderates with blatant racial grievance rhetoric on the campaign trail and eschewed insanities like slavery reparations as part of his platform. Of course, once in office he was anything but the "postracial" uniter he pretended to be, but that's beside the point. Kamala Harris doesn't even bother with the pretense of moderation and sanity.

Has society degraded to the point where she can get away with rhetoric and actions that Obama wouldn't or couldn't get away with in 2008 or 2012? Perhaps. On the other hand, the type of moderate swing voters we're talking about tend to be turned off by angry politicians with huge chips on their shoulder.

[nathanbedford]

Good analysis.

In comparing Obama's appeal to Harris' presumed appeal, especially to squishy moderates, I would venture that the novelty of the first black president is gone. It might well be that the African-American vote will revive itself on behalf of Kamala Harris, but I wonder if white suburban, educated women will feel the same need to signal their enlightened tolerance by voting for another black candidate?

Harris, though, is not just a black candidate she is a black female candidate and that adds another unknown to the equation. In a rare moment of humility let me stipulate that as an aging conservative male, I have no idea what moves suburban women when it comes to exercising their franchise.

As I said in the very beginning of this thread, Harris must be exposed for the very unattractive person she is and that unattractiveness must somehow be in the terms that other women viscerally react to. Screwing her way to advancement with Willie Brown might be something that generates a visceral reaction, my guess is it is not. Her abrasive style in debating might sufficiently turn off women. She might strike suburban women as not a strong woman but as a bitchy woman, and opportunist, one who will be governed solely by her own ambition.

How that is to be presented to the mushy middle, especially to independent women, without backlash, is something that is beyond me.

[ek_hornbeck]

Perhaps the suburban women you speak of will be turned off by the thought of having their taxes raised not for the sake of social services that they or their kids might potentially benefit from, but for slavery reparations - i.e. writing someone else a blank check for a grievance over something that happened nearly two centuries ago.

If I had to venture a guess, this voting block is going to support whichever candidate they perceive as being less of an extremist and least likely to disrupt their lives. If they focus on policies and reality rather than rhetoric, the advantage will go to Trump.