Let the Harris Campaign Postmortems Begin!

December 4th, 2019

Most campaign postmortems are of the “failure to launch” variety, but the Kamala Harris campaign achieved liftoff, started climbing, and then fell back down to earth followed by a giant explosion.

So let’s dig into her campaign’s cataclysmic demise!

First up, Charles C. W. Cooke can barely contain his glee over her departure:

Kamala Harris is no longer running for president. This is excellent, welcome news — the cause for celebration. Good riddance! May Harris’s failed attempt to find higher office destroy her career and sully her reputation for all time.

I’m told that I’m not supposed to feel like this — or, at least, that if I do feel like this, I’m not supposed to say so in public. People worked on that campaign, you see. People tried really hard. But that, I’m afraid, is a load of old nonsense. Harris was running for the presidency, which is another way of saying that she was running to acquire power. I did not want her to have that power. It is true that some people tried their best to help her gain that power. They’re probably upset today. But they’ll get over it. She’s not that special.

On the contrary: She’s a would-be tyrant whose primary contribution to American life thus far has been to fight “tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors”; who has openly promised to act without Congress; and who showed us exactly who she is during the Kavanaugh hearings, at which she implied that she knew something terrible about the nominee for the sole purpose of sharing the insinuation on her Twitter feed. Harris is a woman who, if successful (“successful”), would have overseen the mass confiscation of millions of firearms, the seizing of patents, the federalization of abortion law, and, depending on the polling, the elimination of (her word) the private health insurance plans of 180 million people.

Everything that is wrong with American politics is summed up in Kamala Harris. She’s a weather vane. She’s dishonest. She’s a coward. She’s condescending. And she’s a phony. She’s the answer to no useful or virtuous question. Nothing good has come from her election. She has nothing of value to offer America.

Tell us what you really think.

Jim Geraghty wonders not why Harris departed, but why so many of the no hopes stay in the race:

After you’ve heard Jim Gilmore insist he’s going to win the New Hampshire primary after getting twelve votes in the entire Iowa caucus, treating no-hope candidates as if they still have a shot starts to feel like we’re all enabling delusional people and playing along with their denial.

John Delaney? Senator Michael Bennet? Guys, I don’t know how to break it to you, but most people forgot you were running. Julian Castro? Sorry, pal. On paper, you had a shot, but in reality, people just weren’t interested in buying what you were selling. Tom Steyer? It’s your money, but most Democrats would prefer you spent it in other ways, and the longer you hang around, the more they’ll see you as a fool using up valuable resources on a narcissistic Quixotic effort.

This is precisely why I urge Steyer to stay in the race.

This largely sympathetic piece suggests that she had no core ideological convictions:

Harris routinely insisted that she was still introducing herself to Americans. But Harris’s campaign, dogged for months by questions about her health-care stance, her political ideology, and, ultimately, her staff’s infighting, never seemed to settle on a single consistent answer to a question voters kept asking: What was she about? At times on the trail, she presented herself as a matter-of-fact progressive, a comforter-in-chief, and an unapologetic prosecutor. Harris, and those who’ve known her for decades, insist all of these are accurate descriptors, but that at her core she’s a results-oriented pragmatist with a long-running disdain for ideological boxes. That, they often said, is precisely what the country could have used right about now. Yet as Harris tried appealing to as broad a swath of the Democratic electorate as possible, she found that in an overflowing field led by three far better-known characters, being a consensus-style candidate who can offer something to everyone meant it was especially difficult to offer everything to anyone.

When Harris sat down over the weekend to re-evaluate her plans and dig deep into her campaign’s financial state after a pair of brutal reports from the New York Times and Washington Post, she saw an operation quickly running out of cash and low on realistic paths to victory, even though she already qualified for the December debate. She spoke with family and close aides, and considered both her short-term options and her political future beyond the primary race. On Monday, she determined there was no politically acceptable way for her sputtering campaign to keep competing. She opted for an abrupt halt to a fall that would have been unfathomable back in Oakland in January, but which could have worsened in the unforgiving Iowa winter.

It would soon get harder, but at the time, the aftermath of the Detroit debate felt like a new low for Harris’s campaign. Looking back four months later, that stretch crystalized what went wrong. As she struggled to find a meeting of minds with the voters she needed between spring and fall — while Biden held onto his support and Elizabeth Warren gained steam — Harris and her team tried out a series of different messages. They didn’t stop trying until they ultimately settled on “Justice Is on the Ballot” late this year. Some political allies urged her to return to the “fearless” message she’d used while running for Senate in 2016. (“Fearless” was also the name of a TV ad she’d ran that was based around footage of Warren praising her.) Others grumbled that her early focus on “truths” meant little to voters, and that her subsequent “3 A.M. Agenda” wasn’t ambitious enough. “Sometimes her over-preparation comes across as a lack of preparation,” said one of her advisors. Still, most in Harris’s corner were convinced that she was close to hitting the right note. “The political consultant class gnashes their teeth over this — they have to market a product,” a Harris friend and longtime political ally told me this fall. “The problem that they have is: She is what she is. She’s complicated.” After the second debate, her team advised her to start telling more personal stories on the campaign trail, fearing the career prosecutor who was campaigning on her toughness was coming across as too lawyerly.

But then, and throughout the campaign, the advice wasn’t always consistent. “I don’t know who’s in charge,” one former Harris aide who remains close with her team told me repeatedly over the summer and fall. Harris has long been surrounded by a wide array of advisors — in addition to campaign chair Maya Harris (her sister), and campaign manager Juan Rodriguez, there were strategists Sean Clegg, Ace Smith, and Laphonza Butler, former chief of staff Rohini Kosoglu, adman Jim Margolis, and pollster David Binder, among others. “It’s a Kamala thing to have 9,000 people whispering in her ears, thinking they’re running the show,” said another of her ex-aides.

That doesn’t sound like an effective strategy for running a campaign, or governance. Indeed, it sounds like even more reasons to celebrate the demise of her incompetent campaign long before she could inflict that dysfunction on the White House.

More on the “no core convictions” theme:

Kamala Harris has ended her presidential campaign. Thus fades into history one of the most overhyped candidates in recent memory.

It’s not hard to see why Harris failed.

She was half the aggressive prosecutor and half the noble social justice warrior, half practical Democrat and half proud progressive, and it was never clear where she stood. With Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders consolidating the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, and Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg fighting over the center ground, Harris’s uncertain political identity denied her a foundation to build on. Instead, the California senator appeared to copy policies that she assumed would be popular in any one moment: most ignominiously, her call to ban President Trump’s Twitter account.

For a Democratic Party craving authenticity, as well as a candidate who can beat Trump, Harris’s strategic ingredients were a poor match for success. The basic point is this: As my colleague Tiana Lowe noted back in the summer, Harris simply wasn’t ready for prime time. She was too desperate to win and lacked established values.

It’s interesting that both Harris and Beto O’Rourke were hyped early and heavily, but both ended up bowing out even before the first primary votes were cast. (You could put Kirsten Gillibrand in this category as well, but honestly, the only people hyping her seemed to be female journalists from New York; everyone else seemed to regard her as a hopeless lightweight.) Neither seem to have ideas or convictions important enough to run a low-cost insurgency campaign ala Jerry Brown in 1992. For Harris and O’Rourke, it was either First Class or nothing.

And now some tweets:

Finally: “Kamala Harris Demoted To Meter Maid After Failed Campaign.”

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NEWSFLASH: Kamala Harris Drops Out

December 3rd, 2019

Naturally, as soon as I predict she’ll be in through South Carolina and Nevada, Kamala Harris drops out of the presidential race.

California Democrat Senator Kamala Harris has ended her bid to become the next President of the United States.

“I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life. My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Harris stated in a letter posted at Medium. “I’m not a billionaire. I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.”

“In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do.”

The only surprise her is the timing, given she had been in freefall for quite a while. She peaked at 20% in one poll on July 2nd, just two points back of Biden, on July 2 after months of media boosting and one good debate performance. With hard left policies and multitudinous intersectionality brownie points, she was an early favorite of many Social Justice Warrior media types, until the relentless glare of the campaign trail showed her manifest organization incompetence (see Monday’s clown car update) and the fact that she actually sucks as a candidate, something not exposed in the friendly confines of her previous one-party California electoral campaigns. She’d been in the low single digits (and still falling) for a while before she pulled the plug.

This is just a quick lunchtime update, and I might do a longer piece on her epic implosion tomorrow.

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Predicting The Order Democrats Exit the Clown Car

December 3rd, 2019

Ann Althouse noted Steve Bullock’s departure from the presidential race and asked what will be the order the next candidates drop out in?

Here’s my guess.

Before the primaries:

  • Michael Bennet
  • Julian Castro

After Iowa:

  • John Delaney
  • Marianne Williamson

After New Hampshire:

  • Deval Patrick

After South Carolina/Nevada:

  • Kamala Harris
  • Cory Booker

After Super Tuesday:

  • Tom Steyer
  • Amy Klobuchar
  • Andrew Yang

Taking their campaign all the way to the convention floor:

  • Joe Biden
  • Bernie Sanders
  • Pete Buttigieg
  • Elizabeth Warren
  • Michael Bloomberg
  • Tulsi Gabbard

I believe Bloomberg and Gabbard will soldier on despite no hope of winning. There’s a chance Yang takes this route as well. There’s also a chance Castro and Harris stay in until Super Tuesday in hopes of winning home state delegates in Texas and California, but I think they’re already toast. And with Patrick’s campaign essentially stillborn, there’s a chance he packs it up before Iowa as well.

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Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for December 2, 2019

December 2nd, 2019

Biden noms his wife in public, an ex-staffer reveals how badly Camp Harris sucks, Sestak drops Out (or at least stops pretending he was in), Gabbard weaponizes Joe Rogan, and New Hampshire voters beg Tom Steyer to make it stop. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!

At little lite, as you would expect after Thanksgiving week. Who wants to talk about any of these turkeys over real turkey?

Update: Shortly after I posted this, I learned Steve Bullock also dropped out.

Polls

  • Economist/YouGov (page 181): Biden 23, Warren 17, Sanders 15, Buttigieg 12, Harris 4, Klobuchar 3, Yang 3, Bloomberg 3, Gabbard 2, Booker 2, Williamson 1, Castro 1, Patrick 1, Steyer 1, Delaney 1, Bullock 1.
  • Emerson (New Hampshire): Sanders 26, Buttigieg 22, Biden 14, Warren 14, Gabbard 6, Yang 5, Harris 4, Steyer 3, Klobuchar 2, Booker 2, Bloomberg 1, Williamson 1.
  • CNN: Biden 28, Sanders 17, Warren 14, Buttigieg 11, Bloomberg 3, Harris 3, Steyer 3, Yang 3, Booker 2, Klobuchar 2, Castro 1.
  • Survey USA: Biden 32, Sanders 117, Warren 16, Buttigieg 12, Harris 5, Yang 4, Klobuchar 2, Booker 2, Gabbard 2, Steyer 2, Castro 1.
  • Quinnipiac: Biden 24, Buttigieg 16, Warren 14, Sanders 13, Harris 3, Bloomberg 3, Klobuchar 3, Yang 2, Booker 2, Bennet 2, Castro 2, Gabbard 1. Warren’s fall to third in this poll is pretty relevant, since Quinnipiac was the only national poll that ever showed Warren up over Biden. Biden maintains his frontrunner status, but it’s essentially a dogfight for second among Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders. There’s a significant possibility that all four of them have enough money, popularity and organization to take their four-way fight all the way to the convention floor.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls
  • Election betting markets.

    • Pundits, etc.

  • “The Democratic presidential campaign has produced confusion rather than clarity.” Really? What first tipped you off?

    Early in the year, the party’s liberal wing seemed to be ascendant, defined by the candidacies of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and the embrace of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health-care program. Sanders and Warren were calling for other dramatic changes to the system — economic and political — and their voices stood out. Some other candidates offered echoes of their ideas.

    That proved to be a misleading indicator of where the Democratic electorate stood on some of the issues, particularly health care, in part because fewer moderate voices were being heard. Former vice president Joe Biden didn’t join the race until April. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg wasn’t being taken very seriously. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) wasn’t breaking through.

    The candidate debates provided the setting for the arguments to play out before a larger audience. Warren and Sanders came under attack from moderate Democrats at the first debate in June in Miami, with former Maryland congressman John Delaney the most vocal. But Warren and Sanders more than held their own. The progressive wing appeared to be on solid ground.

    Subsequent debates, however, have produced a different impression. The progressives have been much more on the defensive and the moderates more assertive. Biden tangled with Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) in the Detroit debate over the issue of health care. Harris subsequently modified her position, moving toward the center. On the issue of Medicare-for-all, the ground has shifted.

    During the Atlanta debate in late November, even Sanders seemed to be tempering his overall message. Asked about comments by former president Barack Obama, who had earlier told some wealthy Democratic donors that the country wasn’t looking for a revolution, Sanders replied, “He’s right. We don’t have to tear down the system, but we do have to do what the American people want.”

    Judged by the current polling in the four early states, the more-moderate candidates are prospering. To the surprise of many, Buttigieg is at the top of the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. No one would have predicted that last spring.

    Maybe not. But it was possible to do it when he led Q2 fundraising.

  • Democrat’s nightmare scenario: Bloomberg can’t win, but he can choose which Democrat to make lose:

    What is the worst-case scenario for Democrats in their upcoming primary? Is it a contested primary all the way to the convention, where no candidate gets enough delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot?…

    Is it Joe Biden hanging on, leaving a lot of progressives disappointed and uninspired, a sense that they’re counting on a man who just turned 77, and who’s looked not so sharp in the debates, to beat Trump? It’s not hard to imagine a “grumpy old men” general election, where Trump is his usual wildly unpredictable self with raucous, incendiary rallies, and Biden responds with his own meandering stories about “Corn Pop,” implausible anecdotes, un-woke language, cringe-worthy gaffes, and repeated insistence that his son did nothing wrong by joining Burisma’s board.

    With Elizabeth Warren tumbling fast, Bernie Sanders locked in around the high teens in most places, and Pete Buttigieg still a long way from frontrunner status, Biden stumbling his way to the nomination doesn’t seem so implausible. Lots of people comment on how Buttigieg is struggling to gain support among African Americans, but Warren and Sanders aren’t doing that much better than him among this demographic.

    But there’s one other new factor that could make things go even worse for Democrats. As noted on The Editors podcast, I don’t think Mike Bloomberg can be the king, but he could become the kingmaker. Having $30 million or so to spend on television advertising every week means Bloomberg can more or less take a sledgehammer to any rival whenever he wants. For Democrats, the nightmare scenario is that Bloomberg spends his millions tearing down anyone in his way, driving up voter disapproval of all the other candidates, but proves too unpopular to win the nomination himself — leaving the party angry and full of recriminations as Biden accepts the nomination on July 16 of next year.

    • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Appeared on the CBS Intelligence Matters Podcast. Insert your own Deep State joke here.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. He launched a “no malarkey” tour of Iowa, eveidently because that tested better than “Cut the Jibber Jabber,” “Dagnabit,” or “I Wore An Onion On My Belt, Because That Was The Style At The Time” as a tour name. On that tour, he chewed on his wife’s fingers while she was speaking like a playful Rottweiler puppy. Can the “black left,” AKA #BlackLivesMatters, stop Biden? Given that Harris was their champion, and they haven’t achieved any significant victories themselves, I’m going to go with “no.”
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Jumped In. Twitter. Facebook. Too bad for Bloomy he’s the most unpopular and unelectable candidate in the race.

    But that’s not stopping him from carpet bombing the race with money:

    Brace yourselves, America. This week you’re getting $30 million in television ads touting former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg to be the Democratic nomination. And don’t think that you’ll be missing out if you live in some small television market — Bloomberg’s campaign is spending $52,000 in Fargo, N.D., and $59,000 in Biloxi, Miss.

    The most enthusiastic supporters of Bloomberg’s bid appear to be television-station-ad sales reps, Bloomberg employees, and the Republican National Committee. Don’t think of it as an election, America; think of it as an acquisition by Bloomberg LP. Don’t listen to the people who say Bloomberg is trying to buy the nomination and the presidency; think of it as buying hearts and souls.

    Democrats complain a great deal about how terrible money in politics is, while secretly accepting the assistance of $140 million in “dark money” in the 2018 midterm elections. Bloomberg is going to be a great test of whether Democrats think and make decisions the way they want to believe that they do. On paper, Bloomberg is a terrible candidate. But if he gets traction in this race, it means Democratic primary voters are as easily persuaded by slick television ads as much as any other demographic. Note that Tom Steyer, a diminutive billionaire who is a walking vortex that no charisma can escape from, qualified for the last two debates and is at 2.5 percent in Iowa, 3 percent in New Hampshire, 3.5 percent in Nevada and 4 percent in South Carolina. But the most recent poll in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina all put Steyer at 5 percent. TV ads build name recognition.

    Bloomberg does not seem like the most natural choice for a party that is hell-bent on beating an incumbent president they see as an egomaniacal billionaire from New York with authoritarian impulses. You don’t have to be a conservative to recoil from Bloomberg (although it helps); you just have to dislike any smug billionaire who believes the rules don’t apply to him and that he knows what’s best for everyone.

    He says that Xi Jinping is not a dictator:

    I also can’t see this winning him many friends, well, anywhere:

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Had a mini-campaign telethon on Face the Nation because, like an 80-year old millionaire on a honeymoon with his new 20-something stripper wife, he needs all the help he can to keep going.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: In. Twitter. Facebook. Another GOP attack ad against him…for the senate campaign he hasn’t launched yet. Update: He suspended his Presidential campaign this morning and says he’s not running for the senate.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He once sought the support of the Tea Party. I’m sure Democratic Party activist will be sympathetic and understanding about that. “Our Poll Shows That Buttigieg’s Post-Debate Bump Is Still Just His Base.”

    If Buttigieg was hoping his high debate marks would help him diversify his base of support, that hasn’t happened yet. The demographic cross-tabs in our poll show that he mainly made inroads among groups where he already enjoyed a disproportionate amount of support, like the college-educated, white voters and older voters. He had little success winning people over among groups where he has tended to struggle, like with black and Hispanic voters.

  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Mark your calendar, as Castro actually said something that wasn’t absurd left-wing pandering: He wants to reform opiod laws so people that actual need them can get them, and says he’s open to decriminalizing drugs. I hope he enjoys probably the only “attaboy” he’ll receive from me until he inevitably ends his moribund campaign.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? No time for Grandma Death this week.
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. BEEEEEFCAAAAKE!
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Comes in at 6% in a New Hampshire poll. Unfortunately for her, it’s not a debate qualifying poll. She’s “weaponized” her Joe Rogan interview:

    I’m not a Gabbard backer, but she makes several cognizant points in that clip. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. The rats are really complaining about conditions on the sinking ship:

    A blistering resignation letter from a member of the Kamala Harris campaign paints a picture of low morale among staffers of a directionless campaign with “no real plan to win” ahead of the crucial Iowa caucus in 2020.

    According to the New York Times, the sentiments expressed in a letter from now-former state operations manager Kelly Mehlenbacher were corroborated by more than 50 current and former campaign staffers and allies, speaking largely on the condition of anonymity to disclose the campaign’s many flaws and tactical errors, from focusing on the wrong states to targeting the wrong candidates, as a frustrated campaign staff draws closer to 2020 Democratic primaries, which at one point counted the California Senator as a likely star.

    Ms Mehlenbacher’s letter came a few days after a November staff meeting during which aides pressed campaign manager Juan Rodriguez about strategy and finances after sweeping layoffs ahead of the campaign’s movement in Iowa.

    “While I still believe Senator Harris is the strongest candidate” in 2020, Ms Mehlenbacher said, “I have never seen an organisation treat its staff so poorly … I no longer have confidence in our campaign or its leadership. The treatment of our staff over the last two weeks was the final straw.”

    She said it was “unacceptable” to move campaign staff from Washington DC to headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, “only to lay them off without notice” with “no plan for the campaign” and “without thoughtful consideration of the personal consequences to them or the consequences that their absence would have on the remaining staff.”

    I can believe both that departing staffers are unaware how highly uncertain and contingent presidential campaigns are and that Harris treats her staff like shit.

  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Probably not? Keeping him up here one more week so you can taste test this fine whine:

    Former Attorney General Eric Holder is “frustrated” former President Barack Obama did not emphatically encourage his presidential aspirations, those close to Holder and familiar with his thinking say.

    Holder, who has warned Democrats to be “wary of attacking the Obama record,” was reportedly “frustrated” that Obama, who he considers a close friend, did not actively encourage his presidential aspirations.

    Obama has remained notably silent throughout the Democrat primary – a development that should come to no surprise to those closely following the race. The former president signaled he would not endorse a primary candidate or speak out in an overly critical manner of any of the presidential hopefuls. According to Politico, Obama views his role as “providing guardrails to keep the process from getting too ugly and to unite the party when the nominee is clear.”

    Obama has, largely, stuck to that strategy, refusing to endorse his former running mate Joe Biden (D) and refraining from encouraging the presidential aspirations of his “close friend” Holder, who teamed up with Obama’s Organizing For Action to create the All On The Line campaign, a redistricting project “aimed at thwarting the use of so-called gerrymandering across the country.”

    While reports, as recently as early November, indicated Holder was still mulling a last-minute presidential bid, the doors are slowly closing. Politico reported Holder was reportedly “frustrated” Obama did not encourage his plans for a presidential bid, with a source close to Holder telling the outlet that “he’s [Holder’s] still pretty sensitive about it.”

    Bet Obama never encouraged his plans to become an NBA center, either…

  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. NYT writer says she’s actually expanding her campaign and may be peaking at the right time.

    As her rivals falter, Ms. Klobuchar has outlasted some national figures, like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and former Representative Beto O’Rourke, and she is one of just six candidates, so far, to have qualified for the next debate in December. Enough money has flowed in for her to expand her operation; she has doubled her offices in Iowa and her staff in New Hampshire at a time when many of her rivals are worried about contracting. After months stuck toward the bottom of the polls, she has earned around 5 percent in several recent surveys of early-voting states, as voters give her a second look.

    And in perhaps the highest mark of progress yet, her strong performance in last week’s debate inspired a spoof on “Saturday Night Live,” albeit one largely focused on her quivering bangs. (Ms. Klobuchar said she was standing under an air vent during the debate and hadn’t used enough hair spray.)

    Hoping to ride a wave of post-debate attention, Ms. Klobuchar planned to blaze through New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina this week, stopping briefly in Des Moines for a Thanksgiving Day celebration at the home of her campaign’s state chairwoman.

    “I’m hearing more talk about Amy. It’s picked up in the last couple weeks,” said Laurie McCray, the Democratic Party chairwoman in Portsmouth, N.H. “People have heard from the other candidates and they’re still looking.”

    The fresh interest comes as Democratic leaders express vocal concerns about whether sweeping progressive policies, like Medicare for all, could hurt the party in key battleground states. As some center-left voters seek an alternative to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and as former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York have entered the race, the competition to emerge as the party’s moderate standard-bearer has intensified.

    She’s certainly doing better than Booker, Bullock and Bennet, and the departed Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, and Inslee, and has a real chance to pass Harris…for fifth place. That’s not exactly winning. She might well be peking at the right time and still garner* no delegates…

  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: In. Twitter. Facebook. Baby Yoda > Deval Patrick.

  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Ross Douthat, theoretical conservative, makes the case for Bernie Sanders:

    The theory of the Kamala Harris candidacy, whose nosedive was the subject of a withering pre-mortem from three of my colleagues over Thanksgiving, was that she was well suited to accomplish this unification through the elixir of her female/minority/professional class identities — that she would embody the party’s diversity much as Barack Obama did before her, and subsume the party’s potential tensions under the benevolent stewardship of a multicultural managerialism.

    That isn’t happening. But it’s still reasonable for Democratic voters to look for someone who can do a version of what Harris was supposed to do, and build a coalition across the party’s many axes of division.

    And there’s an interesting case that the candidate best positioned to do this — the one whose support is most diverse right now — is the candidate whom Obama allegedly promised to intervene against if his nomination seemed likely: the resilient Socialist from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.

    Like other candidates, Sanders’s support has a demographic core: Just as Elizabeth Warren depends on very liberal professionals and Joe Biden on older minorities and moderates, Bernie depends intensely on the young. But his polling also shows an interesting better-than-you-expect pattern, given stereotypes about his support. He does better-than-you-expect with minorities despite having struggled with them in 2016, with moderate voters and $100K-plus earners despite being famously left-wing, and with young women despite all the BernieBro business.

    This pattern explains why, in early-state polling, Sanders shows the most strength in very different environments — leading Warren everywhere in the latest FiveThirtyEight average, beating Biden in Iowa and challenging him in more-diverse Nevada, matching Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire and leading him easily in South Carolina and California.

    Now, I have stacked the argument slightly, and left out a crucial axis of division where Sanders does worse than you expect: He struggles badly with his fellow Social Security recipients, the over-65. This weakness and Biden’s strength with these same voters are obvious reasons to doubt the case for Bernie as the unifier, Bernie as the eventual nominee.

    Real analysis or concern trolling? You make the call. Sanders also gets an interview with WYFF in Columbia, South Carolina.

  • Update: Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak: Dropped Out. He dropped out December 1, 2019. “Former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) announced Sunday that he would drop out of the Democratic primary race after failing to gain traction in national polling despite months of campaigning.” His primary race accomplishments are talking coherently about defense policy and the threat posed by China, and to outlast Wayne Messam in the longshot derby. Plus all the Land of the Lost memes:

  • Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. “New Hampshire voters to Steyer: Make it stop!” (I try, but sometimes you can’t improve on the original headline.)

    Maggie and Libby knew Tom Steyer’s ad by heart: “I’m going to say two words that will make Washington insiders very uncomfortable: Term limits!” they recently chirped in unison at the dinner table.

    Unfortunately for Steyer, their votes can’t be bought — they’re 10 and 13.

    “It was like a comedy act,” the children’s father, Loren Foxx, said. “His ads are on constantly.”

    Some Granite staters said they’re seeing Steyer’s ads dozens of times a day — and it’s become more grating than ingratiating. A POLITICO reporter who watched YouTube music videos this week by Pentatonix, a popular a capella group, endured 17 Steyer ads in just over an hour.

    Even some of Steyer’s local staff privately acknowledge the volume of ads has gone overboard.

    Steyer has massively outspent other Democratic candidates on social media in an effort to gain traction in polls and ensure he makes the debate stage. But the recoiling of some New Hampshire voters suggests there are limits to the strategy — Michael Bloomberg beware. Indeed, some residents feel like they can’t touch a piece of technology without seeing his face.

    “There is a point of no return in terms of visibility,” said Scott Spradling, a New Hampshire media analyst. “At some point, you become the uninvited guest. He uniquely is becoming dangerously close.”

    Little Tommy Steyer is bringing his special type of campaign to Nevada. And he wants Bloomberg to drop out, in much the same way the Miami Dolphins’ third string quarterback would like the first string quarterback to retire…

  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Watching the Warren campaign burn down to the water-line:

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s downfall has begun and it’s not happening gradually. New polling shows that her support has been nearly cut in half, a sure sign that, as voters get to know her more, they find her less and less palatable.

    I actually wrote a piece speculating about Warren’s issues a little over a month ago.

    The last debate exposed Warren for who she is. She’s inauthentic, whiny, and way too rehearsed. Democrats love her and the media swoon when she’s reading off her talking points. When she’s pressed and shows no ability to answer real questions, she suddenly is revealed for the weak candidate she is…

    …For now, she’s still in the thick of things, but the longer the status quo drags on, the tougher it will be for her. The hype train is beginning to go off the tracks.

    It looks like the hype train has not only come off the tracks now, but plummeted into a ravine followed by explosions. Quinnipiac has a new poll out that shows Warren’s support has been cut in half since their last survey. Further, support for so called “Medicare for All” has cratered.

    Snip.

    But I’m not even sure this is all about policy realities. Warren’s fall coicindes with her last debate performance. I’ve been saying for a long time that she’s just plain unlikable. She’s Hillary Clinton but angrier. The running to her campaign rallies, dance moves, and rant sessions all just come off as incredibly inauthentic. Two decades ago, Warren was basically a Republican. Now, we are supposed to believe she’s a progressive warrior? Democrat primary voters certainly are beginning to suspect it’s all an act.

    Her socialized medicine plans may be ludicrous, but on the other hand, so is her plan for forgiving student debt.

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Her campaign event seem to take place exclusively in yoga studios now. Here’s one at Heartland Yoga in Iowa City, and she also spoke at at Body and Soul Wellness Center in Dubuque. BoldStrategyCotton.jpg.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He raised $750,000 in 24 hours. Honestly, of all the candidates outside the big four, I like Yang’s chances the best, as he seems to have run the smartest and most focused campaign. Problem: Bloomberg garnered* more media mentions in a week than Yang has all year. Maybe the DNC-led media really does hate him. Also got a hit piece about a woman claiming she fired her after she complained about pay disparity in his company in 2011. “The woman, who had worked for Yang’s Manhattan GMAT for two years when she made her complaint, said she was making $87,000 a year when Yang asked her to send employment offers to two men he wanted to hire. The men were offered $125,000 per year and a $50,000 ‘relocation bonus.'” Eh, eight years ago and no name attached. Hard to think the charge carries much juice.

    • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, who declared then dropped out, or whose campaigns are so moribund I no longer feel like wasting my time gathering updates on them:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (Dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: (Dropped out November 20, 2019)
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (Dropped out November 1, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan (Dropped out October 24, 2019)
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey

    • Like the Clown Car update? Consider hitting the tip jar:





    *Ann Althouse has been complaining about the word “garner,” so I feel compelled to throw it in every now and then…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections | 2 Comments »

    How China Manages Its Concentration Camp System

    December 1st, 2019

    A few days ago, classified documents leaked that discussed just how China runs it’s vast system of concentration camps:

    A sample of classified Chinese government documents leaked to a consortium of news organizations, is displayed for a picture in New York, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. Beijing has detained more than a million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities for what it calls voluntary job training. The confidential documents lay out the Chinese government’s deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities to rewire their thoughts and even the language they speak. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

    The watch towers, double-locked doors and video surveillance in the Chinese camps are there “to prevent escapes.” Uighurs and other minorities held inside are scored on how well they speak the dominant Mandarin language and follow strict rules on everything down to bathing and using the toilet, scores that determine if they can leave.

    “Manner education” is mandatory, but “vocational skills improvement” is offered only after a year in the camps.

    Voluntary job training is the reason the Chinese government has given for detaining more than a million ethnic minorities, most of them Muslims. But a classified blueprint leaked to a consortium of news organizations shows the camps are instead precisely what former detainees have described: Forced ideological and behavioral re-education centers run in secret.

    The classified documents lay out the Chinese government’s deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even before they commit a crime, to rewire their thoughts and the language they speak.

    The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of people for interrogation or detention in just one week.

    Snip.

    The documents were given to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists by an anonymous source. The ICIJ verified them by examining state media reports and public notices from the time, consulting experts, cross-checking signatures and confirming the contents with former camp employees and detainees.

    They consist of a notice with guidelines for the camps, four bulletins on how to use technology to target people, and a court case sentencing a Uighur Communist Party member to 10 years in prison for telling colleagues not to say dirty words, watch porn or eat without praying.

    The documents were issued to rank-and-file officials by the powerful Xinjiang Communist Party Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the region’s top authority overseeing police, courts and state security. They were put out under the head official at the time, Zhu Hailun, who annotated and signed some personally.

    (Previously.)

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    Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | 1 Comment »

    Borepatch on Naval Leadership

    November 30th, 2019

    I’m sure you heard about the firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer for his handling of the Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher case, for ignoring President Trump’s orders, and ignoring the chain of command:

    Defense Secretary Mark Esper has fired the Navy’s top official, ending a stunning clash between President Donald Trump and top military leadership over the fate of a SEAL accused of war crimes in Iraq.

    Esper said Sunday that he had lost confidence in Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and alleged that Spencer proposed a deal with the White House behind his back to resolve the SEAL’s case. Trump has championed the matter of Navy Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was acquitted of murder in the stabbing death of an Islamic State militant captive but convicted of posing with the corpse while in Iraq in 2017.

    Borepatch has some strong opinions about Navy leadership and the JAG corps:

    Remember how the JAGs screwed up the Gallagher case? Remember how testimony was dorked up, how the prosecution’s “star” witness admitted that he was the one who did whatever “crime” was committed? Remember the prosecution’s misconduct? Remember how they all gave themselves medals for what a bang-up job they did? Remember how President Trump revoked all the medals and pardoned Gallagher for the single chickens**t charge they got to stick?

    Well guess how their prosecution of the U.S.S Fitzgerald’s CO went:

    The trial would be allowed to go forward, but the judge admonished Richardson and his deputy, Moran, for violating a sacred tenet of military criminal justice: to not poison the system by making their opinions clear. By doing so, any potential jurors would know exactly what the top brass wanted.

    A month later in January, the judge handed the Navy a final blow: The admiral in charge of the criminal proceedings was disqualified for improperly using his position to help the prosecution gather evidence against Benson.

    The Navy’s case had collapsed, but more than three months dragged by before it finally dropped the remaining charges against Benson.

    [blink] [blink]

    And it gets worse, with the post clusterf**k ass covering from the Navy brass:

    (The day the charges were dropped, ProPublica had informed the Navy it would be publishing a story detailing the extensive, troubling mistakes made by the Navy’s leadership in Benson’s case.)

    The next day, the Navy took one more swipe at Benson, this time with a public letter of censure. The secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, wrote an admonishment that repeatedly used the same words and phrases, such as “failure” and “unworthy of trust,” basically restating the charges the Navy was unable to bring to court, without an avenue for appeal. In an email, Spencer’s spokeswoman declined to provide details about why he wrote the letter.

    (Unless I’m mistaken, Borepatch served as a marine, so he has plenty of experience with the joys of naval oversight.)

    He concludes: “The JAG corps needs to be nuked from orbit, and the Navy brass needs to get purged of the ass-coverers. Holy cow, it looks like Barack Obama was successful in fundamentally changing America’s Navy.”

    Under the Obama Administration, war-fighting capability wasn’t a priority for our armed forces: social justice and social engineering was. President Trump’s moves in the Gallaghaer case was widely popular with the rank and file, but quite unpopular among many Obama holdovers. President trump is busy undoing all those Obama mistakes, so no wonder the people who benefited from the old arrangements are fighting him tooth and nail…

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    Posted in Military | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for November 29, 2019

    November 29th, 2019

    Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! Enjoy a complimentary Friday LinkSwarm before your Black Friday battles!

  • Supreme Court to Democrats: “No Trump financial records for you!”
  • “Last week the presidential campaign of Donald Trump announced a six-figure ad buy across black radio stations and in black newspapers. The newspaper campaign targeted 11 major markets in key states across the nation, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Virginia — all states that the Trump team believes will be in play in 2020.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Border apprehensions are down almost 70% since May, meaning those border detention facilities Democrats love to yammer about are no longer overcrowded. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Tories headed toward 80 seat majority.
  • President Donald Trump signed a bill expressing support for Hong Kong protestors.
  • This comes on the heels of a huge pro-Hong Kong, anti-Beijing majority being elected in Hong Kong district council elections.
  • Map of Chinese defense spending by university.
  • The first rule of Frozen 2 Machete Brawl Club is is you don’t talk about Frozen 2 Machete Brawl Club. Bonus: This takes place in Birmingham, UK, and the video displays an awful lot of that vibrant diversity the last Labour government imported…
  • A look at how details of Steve Job’s illness were withheld from the public…and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
  • Texas woman killed by feral hog attack.
  • Heartwarming dog story:

  • New exhibit of futuristic vehicles from dystopian SF films.
  • Speaking of futuristic vehicles, I don’t think that this is eligible for Iowahawk’s Car ID Service…
  • How much for financial fraud, how much for voter fraud?

  • Gahan Wilson, RIP.
  • The horror of Microsoft Teams.
  • Whale falls.
  • “Millennials In Panic As Outraged Boomers Threaten To Withhold Participation Trophies.”
  • Why are Social Justice Warriors so stupid?

  • Gobble Gobble:

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Republicans, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    November 28th, 2019

    Best wishes to all my readers on Thanksgiving Day!

    Enjoy a few Thanksgiving-related links:

  • Here’s William Shatner with last year’s reminder not to set yourself on fire frying a Turkey.
  • ExJon suggests that you stop driving yourself crazy with social media outrage clicks. “This Thanksgiving, and in the days to follow, choose gratitude. Be thankful for the nation, for your life, for those whom you love and those who love you, flaws and all. Like a muscle, you can strengthen this virtue with regular exercise.”
  • H.P. Lovecraft’s recipe for how to brine a turkey, plus “raise the Shape of any dead Ancestor for study and labor.” Sadly, HEB was all out of missing sailors from the Black Gulf of Tartarus…
  • From the same source: How to Survive Thanksgiving With Your Not-Quite-Leftist-Enough Family.
  • Finally, enjoy A Very Fail Army Thanksgiving, and don’t do anything shown here:

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    Posted in Social Justice Warriors, video | 1 Comment »

    John Simon, RIP

    November 27th, 2019

    Via Dwight comes word that movie and theater critic John Simon has died.

    I found Simon an extremely valuable movie critic for National Review, because he seemed to hate 90+% of all movies. That meant you couldn’t take a negative review by him as gospel. However, on the rare occasions he raved about a film, you knew it was worth watching. Two films that I remember seeing based almost entirely on Simon raves were the original Japanese version of Shall We Dance and Donnie Brasco, both worthy of your attention.

    Today there’s no one who fills their niche. Sure, there are SJW critics who are always wrong, but their wrongness doesn’t always translate into hating all great films in a way you can trust…

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    Posted in Media Watch, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    The Twitter Primary for November 2019

    November 26th, 2019

    As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

    Three months ago I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

    I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update.

    The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 10,027,745 (up 229,970)
    2. Cory Booker: 4,401,991 (up 15,451)
    3. Joe Biden: 3,965,181 (up 49,834)
    4. Elizabeth Warren: 3,504,758 (up 79,433)
    5. Kamala Harris: 3,252,966 (up 34,028)
    6. Marianne Williamson: 2,764,694 (up 929)
    7. Michael Bloomberg: 2,343,799 (new)
    8. Pete Buttigieg: 1,556,876 (up 50,422)
    9. Andrew Yang: 1,045,469 (up 62,655)
    10. Amy Klobuchar: 816,810 (up 16,338)
    11. Tulsi Gabbard: 734,646 (up 16,998)
    12. Julian Castro: 434,802 (up 18,464)
    13. Tom Steyer: 249,321 (up 1,606)
    14. Steve Bullock: 188,787 (up 1,280)
    15. Deval Patrick: 51,868 (new)
    16. Michael Bennet: 42,033 (up 1,462)
    17. John Delaney: 37,451 (up 406)
    18. Joe Sestak: 13,543 (up 343)

    Removed from the last update: Beto O’Rourke

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 67,030,782 followers, up 704,954 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 27,163,640 followers, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

    A few notes:

  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • Sanders crushed it this month, adding nearly 230,000 followers; no one else even came close six digit follower gains.
  • Elizabeth Warren gained 237,827 followers last month, but only 79,433 this month. Even though that’s the second biggest gain, it suggests that her campaign may have peaked and that she failed to become the far-left alternative to Sanders.
  • Andrew Yang’s momentum seemed to slow as well, but it was still enough to carry him up over the 1 million mark.
  • Along with Joe Biden, Warren and Yang, Tulsi Gabbard was the only candidate to gain over 100,000 followers last month. That momentum seems to have slowed dramatically, with just under 17,000 new followers for November, which is right in line with what Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro did. All are below The Andrew Yang Line, and none seem a threat to break into a higher tier anymore.
  • Michael Bloomberg joins the list in seventh place, with 2,343,799 followers, a majority of which I would guess are New York City/business related. Can he gain the 400,000+ followers to overcome the moribund Williamson campaign for sixth place between now and Iowa? I’d bet not.
  • Deval Patrick joins the race with 51,868 Twitter followers, or the sort of numbers garnered by people who drop out of the race, not get in it.
  • No one below Joe Biden is on a trajectory to pass Joe Biden in followers before Iowa.
  • Marianne Williamson’s second straight sub-1,000 gain month shows that the magic is gone and probably isn’t coming back.
  • Steyer still seems to be getting a pretty pathetic return on his Twitter ad buys.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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