I Hope The DNC Doesn't Bail Out The Consultants she Owes Money To
I hope you got the idea the other day that I don’t want to see Kamala run again— not for governor of California and certainly not for president. She’s too much of a careerist to be a good public official and she’s too inauthentic to be a good candidate.
Drunken Florida ambulance chaser and political donor John Morgan was a guest on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show. I don’t agree with Morgan much— especially not when he’s on TV kissing up to the powers that be so he can have a say over which judges get appointed. But in this instance, he was right. The overspending “disqualifies her forever. If you can’t run a campaign, you can’t run America… The same thing is going to follow Harris for the rest of her career. She cannot be trusted with the money, and the donors are going to be, like, ‘Where is this money?’” Worse than the spending per se if the way the campaign wasted all that money.
I have no doubt that had she spent the money registering voters she and the whole Democratic ticket would have done better. Throwing a piece of campaign literature at someone’s front door is not fieldwork. Objectively, the advertising didn’t move votes. It’s not that difficult to ascertain this; you run targeted ads, and you poll before and after. The fact that none of that has been released, or even discussed, speaks volumes. $20 million in debt after blowing through $1.5 billion? And who’s owed that money? Consultants? Awwww…
“‘All of a sudden, everybody’s got the keys to the candy store, ad buyers, talent consultants. There’s 100 days to do it, and the money started pouring in,’ Morgan said, adding that ‘ego’ and a ‘crazy’ desire to obtain commissions on placed ads drove much of the spending. It included $15 million for ‘event production,’ $4 million in private jets and an additional $1 million to Oprah’s company, among other pricy purchases. When asked if Morgan believes someone possibly stole the money, he said, ‘Maybe legally.’”
Yesterday, I wrote a personal check for Mike Siegel’s Austin runoff election. I know Mike well enough to know he won’t be wasting the contribution on anything frivolous. The money is going to help him win so he can do a good job for working families in Texas. I didn’t give any contributions to Kamala’s boondoggle and when people asked me, I suggested they not do so either.
Yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein wrote that until the mid-twentieth century being vice president “just wasn’t a stepping stone to the presidency in most cases, unless they did it directly because the president died. Indeed, no sitting vice-president was nominated for the big job, win or lose, from the Civil War until 1960. He not betting on— or against— Kamala for 2028.
Morgan was 1 year ahead of me at UF Law. Sharp elbows are thrown in UF student politics, and Morgan (who also attended UF undergrad) was reputed to have some of the sharpest elbows of all. I would've preferred him running the Harris campaign over O'Malley Dillon, over Plouffe, and over anyone else in the "leadership" of that organization.
Paul Lukasiak's comment about Trump net favorability IMPROVING during the course of the Harris campaign says it all as to how poorly that campaign was run.
considering how little time Harris spent visibly campaigning, she could at least have made sure that the money she raised was spent effectively. But clearly... I don't think any data point better exemplifies how utterly incompetent her campaign was than this -- between the time Harris was annointed by Biden through election day, Trump's net favorability rating rose 3 points. Imagine being so bad at this, she can't put together an effective negative campaign against a candidate who personified the phrase 'target rich environment'. (I mean was there a single ad -- a single MENTION -- of Trump's theft of classified documents? )
I'm sure she's seen as good "corporate board" material even by the nazis. She's corrupt and a coward and has already proved that she's been bought (see: steven mnuchin and his violations of the CA mortgage fraud laws).
She's a slightly better candidate than biden (gaffes), not nearly as good as obamanation or slick willie at smarmy lies ("I FEEL your pain", "hope for change; yes we can"; "I support a PO"...). What she lacked are what got them elected: either a third party to skim votes from the nazi or a perfectly timed economic disaster that could be blamed on nazis. Her party has done nothing else to be elected since VRA and CRA. And the economy issues …