What was Kamala Harris thinking?
My guess is that Harris was so unused to being expected to answer hard questions on her way from high position to high position that she thought the ultimate high position – the US presidency – would be hers if she just continued along that path.
And you know what? She came way too close to winning the 2024 election, considering her abysmal performance.
Anyway, here’s the story that sparked these reflections of mine:
Vice President Kamala Harris stormed out of a meeting with powerful Teamsters President Sean O’Brien while campaigning, arrogantly telling him she didn’t need his support because she’d “win with you or without you” — just before her crushing loss to Donald Trump.
O’Brien recalled the episode on “The Tucker Carlson Show” on Monday as he discussed his union’s historic decision not to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in nearly 30 years.
O’Brien said Harris finally agreed to sit with the Teasmstars for a roundtable after President Biden dropped out of the race, just to only answer a quarter of their 16 questions. Other candidates, including Trump, answered them all.
Harris apparently didn’t even think she needed to court unions, which used to be a stronghold of Democrat sentiment. No more.
Also, here’s a one-minute segment from the interview:
I don’t think Harris had ever before had to face the consequences of conveying an obnoxious attitude of entitled arrogance. Finally, she has. Of course, she’ll probably land on her feet anyway, with some sort of cushy position and lots of money. Hey, maybe she’ll even be the Democrats’ presidential nominee again, but I don’t think so.
Harris the gift that keeps on giving!
I have seen several renditions of this exchange at various sites, but what is missing — in my opinion — is a listing of the questions and the answers she gave (to those she actually answered).
Did the campaign know what all 16 questions were and the cut it off before she made a fool of herself knowing she had no way of coming close to answering them, or did they have a framework of time where they knew she could only handle an interaction for a certain time and then the wheels came off, regardless of topic or format? These are all things that the voting public has a right to know before making the decision.
At this point there does not appear to be a good reason for the teamsters to hide this. Why would they feel a need to protect her?
Some Democrats have opined that had Biden dropped out of the race earlier, Kamala (Qué mala– so bad) would have had a greater chance of winning. She would have had more time for the voters to get to know her and her policies.
This exchange–“I’ll win with or without you”–shows that hope was nonsense. This exchange with the Teamsters is but one more example of the conclusion that the more you got to know Kamala (Qué mala– so bad), the more you saw she was perhaps the worst major party presidential candidate evah. Certainly the worst in my lifetime.
Yup.
familiarity breeds contempt, thats what she should have realized after her 2019 trial run,
I’m guessing all the mandates on transport like eletric vehicle phase out, the cost of fuel, the continued trend to outsource services,
the general disdain for blue collar work
see the uaw deal that empowered mexican production ron by China (the bloodbath scenario)
Her response was very similar to one Biden gave to a group that traditionally supported Democrats before the 2020 election (it might have been the unions as well) where he essentially said “I don’t need your votes to get elected”, which many theorized was him letting slip the knowledge of the “fortification” he knew would be taking place in the key swing states. I suppose Harris figured the ballots would magically show up for her too, and she didn’t need any support from the unions.
So 4 questions out of 16. Wow.
@Another Mike
If I recall correctly from reading a longer excerpt from this account, the questions were provided in advance, and after four questions were asked a Harris aide handed O’Brien a note that said they were done.
Question one: Are you alive? (Number Six to Colonial envoy)
Re: Harris’s arrogance
A clue might be the 92% turnover of her staff while she was VP.
_________________________________
Vice President Kamala Harris’ office has had high levels of staff turnover throughout her time in the office that far exceed other high-ranking officials in the federal government.
Nearly 92% of the initial staff members hired after she took office in January of 2021 have left at some point during her nearly four years as vice president. Only four of the initial 47 hires from her first year have remained employed without interruption, according to an analysis of records obtained by Open the Books.
https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/vp-harris-office-sees-high-rate-of-turnover-since-beginning-of-term
She was entitled. Democrats are entitled. That’s what they thought, and many still do. They are bewildered about being rejected.
“…the consequences…”
Oh come on, man, the only reason why she lost was RACISM and SEXISM.
And ACCENTISM and MEANINGISM.
And CACKLEISM and TASTEISM.
And above all, BLITHERING-IDIOTISM.
But mostly because Americans just DON’T WANT INDEPENDENT, INTELLIGENT WOMEN.
(Just ask her….)
At the risk of sounding like a Jonny-one-note here, I believe some or much of her attitude derives from the reality that substantial portions of our current political system and political regions function as a political machine. Within those portions, there is only the illusion of political choice. Of course, it’s not entirely black and white. And if a candidate screws things up badly enough, even the machine can break down.
I recall a conversation with an in-law. We would stay up late drinking too much bourbon, and I would grill him on his extensive knowledge of politics and political history. His political machine story (I don’t recall all the details precisely):
He graduated from college and wanted to do graduate studies under Leo Strauss at U of Chicago, which he did. Early on in Chicago, he had a young wife and a baby (or perhaps she was pregnant) and needed more money than his grad. stipend. So, he heard that the city was paying for get-out-the-vote workers in an upcoming election and signed up.
The advertising suggested that it was an even-handed operation without political biases, but the reality was that the workers had to promote pre-selected candidates and the Democrat party, and exclude options to the contrary. He was somewhat shocked, but he needed the money and did it anyway. And IIRC, he was curious about the inner workings of city politics and this gave him something of a look-see.
Back to Kamala… The Willy Brown machine in San Francisco was a pretty serious machine. To some extent, it’s no wonder she thinks like this.
Also, these machine operations function through the use of carrots and sticks. The video describing her interactions with a Teamster official is an example of nearly all “sticks.” “You better get on board” is a threat.
A great number of Dems are showing that they learned nothing from their loss. I include MSM, talk shows, “educators”, as part of the Dem machine
She thought the fix was in, and it would have been, had the people who carried out the fixing been assured that she was going to care of them. Instead she took them for granted, didn’t kiss their rings, etc.
This one has been linked to before but I’m pretty sure the topic of this piece was the guy who had the power to deliver Pennsylvania, and decided he preferred not to:
Democrats in CA never have to campaign. You saw how bad she did in 2020 – never got to Iowa. Then the CA system kicked in for her and she was selected for VP. Selected for Potus this year and she was sure that being selected works better than running
Landing on her feet? Landing on her back was her traditional route to success, and she’s gotten a tad long in the tooth for that now.
I actually think Kamala wanted to lose, was afraid of the work and responsibility of being president.
David, I’ve had the same thought. It’s hard to imagine why she didn’t try harder if she really wanted it.
She probably was reading the papers, or most of them, and also listening to the pollsters, or most of them.
Especially her fave newspapers…and fave pollsters….
File under: Piece a’ cake!
David, I’ve had the same thought. It’s hard to imagine why she didn’t try harder if she really wanted it.
–Mrs. Whatsit
Only two candidates in recent history have lost a presidential election, then went back into the arena and won it later — Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.
Both men were bright, driven individuals, who were always working, learning, essentially campaigning, even when out of office.
That’s not who Kamala Harris is. No small part of her loss was because she did essentially nothing while VP. She wasn’t learning the ropes and the material. She wasn’t building her own organization and looking ahead to running for president.
She’s taken a passive approach to her career, letting others do the hard work and relying on her attributes to carry her.
I agree with huxley’s take: She wanted to win, but was lazy and sloppy, ingrained in her from never having had to do much to rise to her previous positions over 30 or so years, all within California. She might have learned something from her utter failure in 2020 on the national level, but then she got the VP slot handed to her, so the easy ride continued.
@huxley:No small part of her loss was because she did essentially nothing while VP. She wasn’t learning the ropes and the material.
I’m pretty sure that was Biden and his circle which made the decision not to include her in anything substantive. Historically, the Vice-President has rarely been treated as “the next President”. Truman, whose predecessor as FDR’s VP famously compared the office to “a bucket of warm piss”, only ever met with FDR twice, was left out of everything, did not even know of the Manhattan Project (Stalin learned before Truman did!), and had to be brought up to speed suddenly and rapidly when FDR died.
The most effective Vice-Presidents in terms of making the President they serve under a success, have been those who wrangled the Senate. Lyndon Johnson, Dick Cheney, and of course Joe Biden were very good at shepherding their Presidents’ agendas through the Senate. And that is in no sense an “understudy President” sort of job.
Harris was brought in to mollify a faction in the Democratic party, but I don’t think Biden and his people had any intention of having her really do anything, and I don’t think the Democratic Party ever saw her as “the next President” until the eleventh hour.
What huxley said – she has always been the golden child/candidate/office holder, with everything basically handed to her on account of magical epidermis/vagina (and servicing the kingmaker in California politics helped as well) and didn’t think she had to do anything other than be the magical person that she was, in order for all the goodies to be handed to her without her expending any effort.
“Of course, she’ll probably land on her feet anyway, with some sort of cushy position and lots of money.”
Predict a ludicrous book deal before May 2025
Despite her arrogance and incompetence, she almost won.
Aside from the “lazy & unmotivated & entitled to it” (which in many ways includes Hillary [imho]), I reckon Kamala either knew 2020 was a stolen gig for Gropey Joe & assumed she’d benefit from the same deal or assumed that all the proper plantation dwellers would vote for the next Massa/Missus like they always had.
Thank God she was wrong on all counts.
Fred Flintstone wouldn’t have lost by much of a bigger margin if running as a dem. In fact…. No, not possible.
Whose idea was it to call Walz as VP candidate.
Fred Flintstone wouldn’t have lost by much of a bigger margin if running as a dem. In fact…. No, not possible.
Whose idea was it to call Walz as VP candidate?
Niketas Chroniates: “The most effective Vice-Presidents in terms of making the President they serve under a success, have been those who wrangled the Senate.”
Even though he’s only served 2 years in the Senate, JD Vance has made friends there and has shown that he is probably a good conciliator. Trump made such a wise choice with him.
@fullmoon
Book deal already in the works for $20 million, per the Victory Girls and Sarah Hoyt
https://victorygirlsblog.com/word-salad-kamala-lands-20-million-book-deal/
Should anyone still be laboring under the illusion that democrats can or will “learn” something from their Harris debacle,one need only take a gander at the latest issue of The Hill, where two democrat lawyer/academics advise how Trump might still be denied his rightful presidency on the basis of his being an “insurrectionist.” Yeah, they’re still gnawing at that bone and nothing and nobody is going to stop them now or at any time in the future. It’s because they truly believe they and only they deserve to govern. Or more accuraely, rule.
where two democrat lawyer/academics advise how Trump might still be denied his rightful presidency on the basis of his being an “insurrectionist.”
==
Both elderly establishmentarians with Ivy League / Oxbridge in their resume, as well as Supreme Court clerkships. One is a BigLaw attorney who was once president of the bar association in New York City, the other an investment banker. Reminds you that our elites are chock-a-block with con men.
The most effective Vice-Presidents in terms of making the President they serve under a success, have been those who wrangled the Senate. Lyndon Johnson, Dick Cheney, and of course Joe Biden were very good at shepherding their Presidents’ agendas through the Senate.
==
?
Kamala was probably counting on cruising to victory courtesy of those 15 million ‘missing’ votes. She and her people weren’t smart enough to know that play wasn’t going to work this time around.
The book deal ‘payoff’ is the last we will hear from her.
fullmoon said:
“Ludicrative” should be a word for situations like this.
Seriously, who in their right mind would want to read anything she wrote…
(Well maybe a cook book.)
Beat me to it Barry. $20 million??? Someone’s going to lose a lot of money on that …
Art Deco – Amen to that. There is no just world where John Eastman is disbarred and there is not a peep from the left about that Hill article. Maybe for the purposes of a bar investigation it matters that Eastman was providing legal advice to Trump’s campaign whereas Davis and Schulte are popping off in the press, but the offense is the same.
But Davis and Shulte are just guilty of doing what the left always does – they’ve come up with a “magical” way of achieving everything the left wants without actually following the rules. Other similar cases: (i) Obama deciding that he could will the Senate into recess to make recess appointments; (ii) Obama deciding he could “legalize” illegal immigrants without Congress; (iii) lefty pundits deciding that Obama could get around the debt ceiling by minting a trillion dollar coin; (iv) Obama and Democrats finding a way to “ratify” Obama’s Iran deal with only 33% of the Senate in favor; (v) lefty pundits coming up with 1001 ways that Obama could install Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court without Senate confirmation; (vi) Democrats deciding that they could ignore election laws in 2020 “because COVID and Trump;” (v) COVID vaccine mandates; (vii) COVID eviction moratorium; (viii) student loan “forgiveness.”
To these harebrained schemes, I would add that granddaddy of them all: electing an incompetent to the presidency because he could claim to be a moderate and then having whoever was in charge in at the White House govern like a cross between Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders.
I’m not defending Eastman. Trump, to his everlasting shame, actually tried to pull off Eastman’s “reject the electoral votes” scheme and it blew up in his face. That Democrats have actually succeeded in a few of their similar schemes doesn’t mean that Republicans should continue to try to emulate them. Each and every one of these schemes degrades the republic, whether it succeeds or not. Simply making partisans of one side or the other feel that they have power that could be exercised if only their leaders had the “courage” is like acid to a republic and a society. Obviously, breaking the rules, as Democrats have regularly succeeded in doing, degrades the rule of law.
For Pete’s sake, the rules are there to protect all of us. Just follow them.
I agree that it was shocking that she came so close to the Presidency. But she won’t be the nominee again and a year from now she’ll be a trivia question.
Of course she wanted to win the election.
As to the notion that she feared the work load and responsibility of being president, well, give me a break.
She has never in her life needed to take any of her jobs seriously because she always had people very influential people around her that put her into positions of power and would make needed decisions for her. As president she would be surrounded by Obama-people that would make all decisions for her as well.
If she became president, it would have been a vacation for her.
She would have been instructed what to say or read, what to sign, what appearances to make, what to do or not – all of which would have been facilitated by the democrat propaganda organ (the MSM).
Of course, the latter would have been ordered to supply, in advance, all questions posed to her at any interview or news conference, been instructed not to ask follow up questions if they expected to have any future access to her.
Her “presidency” would have been an analogue of a Potemkin Village; she knew it and the democrat power brokers knew it. Her presidency would have been Obama’s 4th term in office.
The finger pointing amongst her supporters, re: post-election-results, in case you have not noticed it, never, ever mention the fact that no matter what venue she was placed in by her handlers, no matter how friendly the venue, she could not hide her stupidity and ignorance. This, IMHO, was the major factor in her defeat.
Are we to believe that her handlers had not prepped her how to respond to questions?? Of course they did. But she still F’d it up.
Why?
Because she literally is too stupid and dumb; she is a moron.
And still about 49% of the voters cast their vote for her.
This election was no blow-out. It was very close and she came within a hair’s breathe of prevailing.
I am still astonished that so many voters cast their vote for an individual that clearly was totally unqualified to be president.
John Tyler
I disagree as to the voters voting for Kamala. No. The huge majority of votes which were counted as “for” her were actually votes for the dem candidate–qualified for office being irrelevant as was the actual identity–and against Trump.
The scary thing is that even a slightly more competent campaigner–carrying the radical Obama/progressive program out in front where everybody can see it–might get elected. Or the same person with a more competent campaign.
Perhaps it’s true that the celebrity appearances–paid for with huge amounts of campaign cash–didn’t appeal to people who couldn’t afford a ticket to a performance. Failing to work Pennsylvania as hard as the state dems thought would be necessary might have been a goodish-sized mistake.
But having the Trump team’s lawyers watching the voting process up close and in real time might have been the difference. That’s really scary.
I guess I’m saying a number of issues independent of Kamala’s qualifications were acting to keep her out and if such issues had been managed more competently, she’d have won.
Harris’s I’ll win with you or I’ll win without you doesn’t sound like a rational, well thought out response. It seems more impulsive and emotional. It was like something out of a movie where the woman storms out of a meeting of men who she thinks are disparaging or belittling her and then goes on to achieve success on her own. Years ago, white men might rashly and foolishly dismiss the sage advice of women or people of color and come undone as a result. Years of woke movies have turned that around. So Harris may not really have been thinking that she could win even without the Teamsters’ support. She might just have wanted to get out of the room.
In one party states, it’s often assumed that there’s a clear upward path to higher office and that one only has to follow the path to climb the next rung. Among Massachusetts Democrats, for example, time in the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office followed by winning the state Attorney General’s office has been considered the likely path to the governorship or the Senate. That’s how the current governor got where she is now. One of her predecessors both in Middlesex and in the AG’s office was Martha Coakley who was running for the US Senate in 2009.
Coakley committed a number of gaffes during the campaign. When criticized for leaving the state for a Washington fundraiser instead of campaigning, Coakley responded by saying “As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?”
Coakley lost. She thought the Senate seat was hers by right. I don’t think it was so much that Harris assumed that she was going to win or that she subconsciously feared winning and undermined herself, as it was that her easy path upward didn’t allow her to develop good political instincts and skills. Something was missing in Harris’s character from the beginning — how could she think that being appointed to offices by her boyfriend was something that would escape scrutiny and criticism later on? — but she wasn’t helped by the lack of serious opposition in her later races.
Richard Aubrey – I think you are correct. I also think that problem will be mitigated at least a bit when the GOP runs a candidate without Trump’s baggage. It might not be in 2028, because whoever the GOP runs is going to be a quasi-incumbent just as Kamala was this year. It will be hard for whoever wins to distance themselves from Trump. (Especially because, Trump being Trump, he’ll undoubtedly be threatening GOP candidates and encouraging MAGA voters to withold their votes from any who try to distance themselves from him.)
I can’t imagine that Trump, at his age, will remain relevant past 2028 or 2030.
After that, we’ll have to see how many NeverTrumpers come home. My guess is not that many, but perhaps enough to make a difference.
One shoe has dropped – the incapacity of President Biden for essentially his entire term. The other shoe will be the corruption of the Biden family, led by Joe, but again well-known by most senior Democrats, specifically including Obama and those in the Department of Justice.
Kamala will probably fade away, but there are dozens more that won’t, and who have abetted the worst presidency in our history. Get them.
Of course, she’ll probably land on her feet anyway, with some sort of cushy position and lots of money.
_______
Surely “on her feet” would be a wholly unfamiliar position for Ms Harris. I predict she’ll be drinking even harder.
Bauxite
As regards Trump’s baggage and some candidate not having such. It will be invented. See Sarah Palin.
Might just be me, but some of what Trump does and says seems almost endearing. For example, the garbage truck thing. He and the rest of the repubs were saying the dems are so unimportant that even their insults are funny.
Still, I wish he’d control his mouth, although he seems to have tightened up recently.
So, possibly, his baggage is a net positive.
I suspect the next, or the one after that, election will hang on the which side gets out their stay-at-homes.
If Kamala as Kamala motivated anything, I suspect it was causing some folks who generally voted dem to stay home. Won’t vote for Trump, can’t get excited about her.