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Democrats Begged Team Kamala Harris Not to Campaign With Liz Cheney (www.rollingstone.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's literally 2016 but worse somehow.

One source close to the Harris campaign tells Rolling Stone they reached out to several staffers in and around the campaign to voice concerns about the candidate embracing Dick and Liz Cheney.

“People don’t want to be in a coalition with the devil,” says the source, speaking about Dick Cheney. They say a Harris staffer responded that it was not the staff’s role to challenge the campaign’s decisions.

A Democratic strategist says they warned key Harris surrogates and top-level officials at the Democratic National Committee that campaigning with Liz Cheney — and making the campaign’s closing argument about how many Republicans were supporting Harris — was highly unlikely to motivate any new swing voters, and risked dissuading already-despondent, infrequent Democratic voters who had supported Biden in 2020. The strategist says they also attempted to have big donors and battleground state party chairs convey the same argument to the Harris campaign.

Another Democratic operative close to Harrisworld says they sent memos and data to Harris campaign staffers underscoring how, among other things, Republican voters, believe it or not, vote Republican — and that the data over the past year screamed that Democrats instead needed to reassure and energize the liberal base and Dem-leaning working class in battleground states. “We were told, basically, to get lost, no thank you,” says the operative.

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[+] [email protected] -14 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

I had no issue with Harris campaigning with Cheney. Cheney and I disagree on 99% of things, but we agreed that Trump is a corrupt piece of shit. Cheney and Kinzinger sacrificed the easy Republican win to go against Trump. As did Romney to a slightly lesser extent.

To me campaigning with Cheney was a way to signal to dissatisfied Trump Republicans that an alternative exists. That your could vote for Harris and still be a capital R Republican.

I've met (e.g. was raised by) these people. I thought it was a large part of the voting population.

Clearly I was fucking wrong. Clearly this was a niche. But I understood the strategy. I see people complaining that Harris moved too far to the right but I can't think of a single right wing policy she picked up. Sure she picked up/was always following neoliberal policy, which aligns with neocon policy, but that was a given. We already had Biden, Harris was an extra step towards progressive, but not a leap. In either case I was happy enough.

Suffice to say I don't buy the argument that Cheney cost Harris any voters.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Nah I have republican family, they didn't see cheyney voting for kamala and say "oh wow I should do that too," they said "that fucking turncoat, rot in hell!"

I mean, what would you think if you saw idk fucking AOC or Ilhan going "man I'm going trump over this gaza situation?" Bet you still wouldn't have voted trump lol, it's a "nice try" but it is also the dumbest most out of touch move tbh.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I mean if AOC/Ilhan said they were voting Trump I would pause and listen to the why. If someone does something that unexpected, I would pay attention.

It wouldn't have got me to change my vote because from a policy standpoint, it just wouldn't make sense.

However if we look at Bernie Sanders, look at his last minute plea to Democrats. I was already planning to vote for Harris, but if I was on the edge due to Gaza I would have taken his words to heart. He said yes, this sucks, but a vote for Harris is the best option. If he had come out and said the opposite (which wouldn't have made sense), I would have again paused and taken a moment.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't think Cheney cost Harris any voters because the vast majority of people who didn't vote for Harris probably don't know and don't care who Cheney is. But celebrating the Cheney endorsement is a symptom of a campaign that is thoroughly unexciting and establishment. People who don't follow politics aren't word-of-mouth'd into being excited for something new and hopeful. Instead of democrats' excitement about the promises of a new candidate, the only word on their lips was Trump, which won't work a second time if the apolitical person's world didn't change negatively the last time trump was president.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Instead of democrats' excitement about the promises of a new candidate, the only word on their lips was Trump

I agree. I think the early complaints about Harris not having a solid platform on her website were fair. On the one hand I think giving her a little bit of a break given the speed she had to put things together would be reasonable. On the other hand we only had a few months until the election and she needed to get on it and get on it FAST. Once it was up I was surprised how little focus it got.

For example take legalizing marijuana. She put out a proposal in mid October with little fanfare and has an Instagram post the day before the election. However in reading the article about a NH woman named Kamala Harris being unsure who to vote for she said, "Kamala supports abortion which I really like. Trump says that he supports weed which I really like." This may be an anecdotal story but you CANT have people not know your message. Sure she got half the message, but Trump, who hasn't said shit about marijuana, somehow got to be the marijuana guy?

Now part of this is a result of such a short campaign, but honestly our campaigns are long enough as it is. It's clear Harris had issues getting her message out there. (And yes, we could blame the uneducated voter, but if you're the candidate, that's on you.)

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The DNC thought appealing to republicans and moderates instead of motivating the base to turn out would work. It didn’t. It never has, it didn’t work in 2016 or 2020 either. The entire DNC should be fired

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh I agree the DNC fucked up, and have fucked up for so many years in a row. My assumption, which was wrong, is that the base was already covered. If we're reaching out for Republicans it's because the base is a given.

After seeing what looks like 10 million or so Democrats sit this election out (pending the full results and an investigation of those results) it's clear Democrats didn't have the base locked down.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It only makes sense if you assume the Harris campaign was trying to lose, like in The Producers.

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