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Kama Chameleon—But In A Good Way! · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Should we maybe do a special episode Tuesday night?
0:06
SPEAKER_02: Maybe so, yeah.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, debate special.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: And I will see you either September 11th or the following week.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this will be our September 11th.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: It's in poor taste.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: We condemn terrorism unequivocally.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: Hey, everyone.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: You're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: With the Democratic convention behind us and the September 10th debate between
0:34
SPEAKER_02: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,
0:36
SPEAKER_02: in at least a little bit of doubt,
0:38
SPEAKER_02: we wanted to take stock of the 10 weeks ahead.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: Harris has a lead.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: She needs to keep it.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: How does she intend to do that?
0:48
SPEAKER_02: Is it really as simple as just keep doing what you've been doing?
0:52
SPEAKER_02: Is that even possible as she shifts from the starting gun phase of her campaign
0:57
SPEAKER_02: straight into the final sprint?
0:59
SPEAKER_02: So we'll read between the lines of her acceptance speech for clues.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy the conversation.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to hear the whole thing, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Hey, everyone.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so let me try to set up the conversation we want to have this week really briefly.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: I feel like a decent summary of the past five weeks would go something like Joe
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Biden dropped out of his reelection campaign and endorsed Kamala Harris.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Most Democrats wanted him to drop out,
1:37
SPEAKER_02: but the second piece in Dorsen Harris came in defiance of the concerns that many,
1:43
SPEAKER_02: many senior Democrats had about her political acumen.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: She managed to unite the party in something like three days.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Then she rode that to a lead in the polls against Donald Trump.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: That's probably big enough to win if she can maintain it and it could still grow.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Then Democrats hosted a successful convention that Nate Silver, I think, detected that she started –
2:09
SPEAKER_02: getting a convention bounce even before she delivered her acceptance speech.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: And then everyone from across the party,
2:17
SPEAKER_02: from progressives to cranky centrists like Nate,
2:20
SPEAKER_02: decided that the speech was a huge success.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: So I think from like,
2:24
SPEAKER_02: at least from an internal to Democrats perspective,
2:27
SPEAKER_02: it's kind of hard to see how any other candidate could have pulled off the last
2:31
SPEAKER_02: five weeks better.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think you can only explain what she's accomplished so far by reference to
2:39
SPEAKER_02: like three kinds of appeal,
2:40
SPEAKER_02: policy appeal.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: like identity or like charismatic appeals,
2:45
SPEAKER_02: vibes appeals,
2:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
2:47
SPEAKER_02: what she says and does to make people feel better about her as a person.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: And then third is just like straight up fear of a second Trump term and everyone's
2:56
SPEAKER_02: so united to stop them that they're being extra generous about the person at the
3:01
SPEAKER_02: top of the ticket.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about like which of these is driving things
3:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, which is the biggest factor and how how they all fit together.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
3:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I just think like one thing is like we've been on this kind of seesaw,
3:20
SPEAKER_00: I think,
3:20
SPEAKER_00: in terms of evaluations of Harris.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Like I wrote a piece like back last December.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: where I was saying,
3:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I think people got,
3:29
SPEAKER_00: like,
3:30
SPEAKER_00: a little too locked in to their,
3:32
SPEAKER_00: like,
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Kamala is terrible,
3:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:34
SPEAKER_00: sort of narratives.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, she's a better politician than people are giving her credit for.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Her numbers are improving, et cetera, et cetera.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: And then,
3:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:44
SPEAKER_00: as you said,
3:44
SPEAKER_00: right,
3:44
SPEAKER_00: there was this period of,
3:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
3:45
SPEAKER_00: intense,
3:47
SPEAKER_00: like,
3:48
SPEAKER_00: ugh,
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Biden is bad,
3:49
SPEAKER_00: but,
3:49
SPEAKER_00: like,
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SPEAKER_00: Harris is going to be even worse,
3:51
SPEAKER_00: conventional wisdom.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And then she came in and she, like, popped out to a lead,
3:55
SPEAKER_00: And now I feel like everyone's like, Kamala Harris is the greatest political genius in human history.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And I just, I feel like it's like all...
4:05
SPEAKER_00: I encourage everyone to look at Nate Silver's polling averages and forecasts
4:11
SPEAKER_00: because it shows Harris has a lead.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Harris is doing way better than post-debate Biden was.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: But the lead is small.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Her odds of winning are in the low 50s, not in the 70s.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump still sucks and has many problems as a candidate.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: He's a million years old.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: He's incoherent.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all know this.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: So it's like,
4:37
SPEAKER_00: I think we're like mostly seeing that Joe Biden's inability to campaign was like really, really bad.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: And then replacing him with like a real politician who can do politics has like done a lot, right?
4:52
SPEAKER_00: But she's not, she's not like dominating in some crazy way.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: But this then leads me to say that I think the biggest thing she's achieved in your
5:04
SPEAKER_00: framework is the improved vibes.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: I think now everyone who is locked in to hating Donald Trump is like, this is good.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Whereas I feel like not just one month ago or not just after the debate,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: but like three months ago,
5:27
SPEAKER_00: if you looked at the,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: say,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: 53% of Americans who hate Donald Trump,
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Like that universe of people also like hated each other and was constantly like
5:39
SPEAKER_00: trying to knife each other.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Harris has made the hardcore anti-Trump coalition, which is like a non-trivial number of people.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: has made them all like her and like each other and want to get along.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And people continue to pursue factional political disputes,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: but it's more in the spirit of like,
6:02
SPEAKER_00: catch more flies with honey,
6:03
SPEAKER_00: right?
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Rather than be a jerk about it.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Like everyone is trying to come up with the most
6:09
SPEAKER_00: generous to themselves, possible interpretations of anything that she says.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's trying to be a good team player.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: So like the, the vibes are really, really good.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: She has, you know, um, uh, what's his name?
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Um,
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Simon Rosenberg used to talk about an anti-MAGA coalition,
6:29
SPEAKER_00: that he was confident would just kind of miraculously rally to Joe Biden's standard.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that kept not actually happening as long as Joe Biden was the candidate.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Now that Harris is the candidate, that coalition, the coalition that
6:46
SPEAKER_00: won a Senate race in Pennsylvania against Dr.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Oz that lost the House,
6:51
SPEAKER_00: but lost it by less than you would think in a midterm,
6:55
SPEAKER_00: has,
6:55
SPEAKER_00: like,
6:56
SPEAKER_00: all come together for Harris because she's,
6:58
SPEAKER_00: you know...
7:00
SPEAKER_00: what people thought she was before the 2020 primary, right?
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Which is like a pretty good charismatic politician who in particular like appeals
7:10
SPEAKER_00: to Democrats view of like their own party,
7:15
SPEAKER_00: right?
7:15
SPEAKER_00: She's like multiracial,
7:17
SPEAKER_00: she's an immigrant,
7:18
SPEAKER_00: she's progressive,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: but she's also like from California and knows tech people.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: She's bringing us into the future in like a way that's like progressive, but not super specific.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And like,
7:30
SPEAKER_00: this is,
7:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
7:30
SPEAKER_00: I only met her one time in my life,
7:33
SPEAKER_00: and it was a long time ago when she was Attorney General of California,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: and she was introduced to me as like a rising star.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And so people, long before people got locked into like Harris is terrible.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: They saw this in her, which like now everyone who hates Trump is seeing.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: I just think that's different from...
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
7:54
SPEAKER_00: she's like a true political mastermind who's assembled a gigantic lead.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: So I think I maybe am...
8:05
SPEAKER_02: going to end up where you are,
8:06
SPEAKER_02: but,
8:07
SPEAKER_02: and I,
8:08
SPEAKER_02: I know I get annoying about this,
8:09
SPEAKER_02: but like,
8:09
SPEAKER_02: I really do want to give it some time.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: So like if,
8:12
SPEAKER_02: if I had to,
8:14
SPEAKER_02: if I had to,
8:15
SPEAKER_02: um,
8:16
SPEAKER_02: like lay out why I thought she was able to pull the party together so quick,
8:20
SPEAKER_02: build a lead,
8:22
SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: and not alienate any faction of the party,
8:26
SPEAKER_02: um,
8:26
SPEAKER_02: it would be,
8:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
8:28
SPEAKER_02: the,
8:29
SPEAKER_02: her charisma and also fear of Trump.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: Like there just hasn't been that much policy to, to, to,
8:36
SPEAKER_02: explain much of anything that's happened in the last five weeks um the the effect
8:42
SPEAKER_02: has been as you say to give her a you know a four-ish point lead over trump and you
8:48
SPEAKER_02: know how that washes out when people vote it's unclear if that's going to be 52 48
8:52
SPEAKER_02: in the in the average it's like 49 45 or something like that um but she's been
8:59
SPEAKER_02: essentially putting up a point and a half in gains a week every week since she
9:04
SPEAKER_02: took over, you know, a point and a quarter or something like that.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think if it hadn't been for the convention,
9:10
SPEAKER_02: I would have said,
9:11
SPEAKER_02: this is,
9:12
SPEAKER_02: looks like it's leveling off right around here.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: And,
9:17
SPEAKER_02: and,
9:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
9:19
SPEAKER_02: that's enough probably to win,
9:20
SPEAKER_02: but not to feel super comfortable about,
9:24
SPEAKER_02: about where she is because she had the convention.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: It's been a success.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: I think that there's some reason to give it another couple of weeks.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: See if,
9:35
SPEAKER_02: She gets another two or three points in a bounce.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: And whether it's a bounce or like a bump, right?
9:40
SPEAKER_02: Does it come back down?
9:41
SPEAKER_02: Because it's a weird time.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: And I could see,
9:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
9:46
SPEAKER_02: the typical thing you expect is a couple points up and then a couple points down or
9:50
SPEAKER_02: one and a half points down.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: And because it's Trump,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: because she's so fresh on the scene and people are still making up their minds
9:57
SPEAKER_02: about her,
9:57
SPEAKER_02: I could imagine that.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: those dynamics making it more like a polling bump that she keeps through the
10:04
SPEAKER_02: election or through when she screws something up.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: Right.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: Um,
10:07
SPEAKER_02: and,
10:08
SPEAKER_02: uh,
10:08
SPEAKER_02: but if,
10:10
SPEAKER_02: if that doesn't happen,
10:12
SPEAKER_02: if she,
10:13
SPEAKER_02: if she comes right back down to 49 and then it's 49,
10:16
SPEAKER_02: 44 all the way through,
10:17
SPEAKER_02: um,
10:19
SPEAKER_02: I think it's then it's reasonable to,
10:21
SPEAKER_02: to like,
10:23
SPEAKER_02: uh,
10:24
SPEAKER_02: like reassess how much of it between her charisma and fear of Trump explains what's happened, right?
10:35
SPEAKER_02: And that if it's really just anti-Trump sentiment holding this coalition together,
10:42
SPEAKER_02: then you would probably expect it to kind of unravel pretty quickly after the
10:46
SPEAKER_02: election if she wins,
10:47
SPEAKER_02: right?
10:49
SPEAKER_02: Trump's defeated again.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: Now it's time to get down to like brass tacks, let's govern.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: Progressives are going to want certain things.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: Centrist Democrats are going to want different things.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: They're going to start fighting.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: And fortunately, Trump will be defeated, but the honeymoon will come to an end.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: And I guess I can't say I'm certain that I know either way.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: And that if she beats Trump handily, 52, 46, something like that, I could see her –
11:25
SPEAKER_02: Like,
11:26
SPEAKER_02: people start thinking about her as somebody who has political talents on the level
11:30
SPEAKER_02: of Obama,
11:31
SPEAKER_02: who for weird circumstances over the course of,
11:35
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:37
SPEAKER_02: let's say 2014 to 2020,
11:41
SPEAKER_02: like,
11:41
SPEAKER_02: they started to underestimate her.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: And we're going to look back and think, oh, that was just us being stupid.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: She really had these gifts all along.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, so can I say, I mean...
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I am a little plagued by doubt after watching Biden's unraveling earlier this summer.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's a little confusing to me why more people aren't similarly plagued by doubt.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: But it's like,
12:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that I believe Harris will completely shit the bed if she does a
12:19
SPEAKER_00: high-stakes sit-down interview or when she debates Donald Trump on September,
12:25
SPEAKER_00: if that happens.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: But
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I was really surprised.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: I know right-wingers think it was just a giant conspiracy to cover up what was going on with Biden.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And then everybody knew all along how poorly he was going to do or something.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's true.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: When people told me,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: wait till the debate,
12:48
SPEAKER_00: he's going to show you like he did at the State of the Union,
12:50
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was going to happen.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: You know?
12:54
SPEAKER_02: I just, like, honestly... I thought that they believed it, right?
12:57
SPEAKER_02: Like, the people who said that, I don't think that they were bullshitting.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Anyway...
13:04
SPEAKER_00: There was a range of opinions, let's just say.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And I have had to reinterpret a bunch of tactical decisions that Biden made in
13:15
SPEAKER_00: light of what I think became clearer about his capabilities.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: I said, no, I just don't know.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: I think that there's reason to be optimistic that
13:29
SPEAKER_00: The more we see of Harris, the more we will see a younger, more dynamic figure than Donald Trump.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I thought that the convention displayed pretty sound message-like concepts.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And then if she deploys those same concepts in more informal settings, she will continue to gain ground.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: I just don't... That to me is like an if.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, like it could go the other way.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious what... And I just don't know, you know?
14:02
SPEAKER_02: What does... I mean...
14:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to imagine like the true hero scenario where Biden drops out and is,
14:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:10
SPEAKER_02: because he picked a different VP at the outset or because Harris for some reason
14:14
SPEAKER_02: decides she doesn't want to be president.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: And so there's a,
14:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:18
SPEAKER_02: there's a sprint to find a new nominee and it's like Barack Obama or like just
14:23
SPEAKER_02: somebody with that level of skill.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: Like what do they do differently in your imagination that makes it so after five
14:34
SPEAKER_02: weeks of like launching the campaign and building the convention,
14:40
SPEAKER_02: instead of being ahead of Trump 49-44,
14:43
SPEAKER_02: they're ahead 51-44?
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Like what's the missing?
14:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I think they necessarily would have done something different.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: So here's an example of something that Harris did.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: I think that's been very true and correct,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: which is like,
14:59
SPEAKER_00: they just like didn't talk about climate change at the conventions.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: You know,
15:04
SPEAKER_00: which is the Biden team got sort of like psyoped by leftists into the belief that
15:12
SPEAKER_00: the way for him to like get young people to like him was to do like weird climate
15:18
SPEAKER_00: stuff that nobody cared about.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And Harris,
15:21
SPEAKER_00: just like much more correctly,
15:23
SPEAKER_00: sees that like she has improved her youth numbers by being younger and fresher and
15:27
SPEAKER_00: more charismatic,
15:28
SPEAKER_00: as you said,
15:29
SPEAKER_00: by tapping into anti-Trumpism and her overt messaging.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: is aimed at swing voters.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: So she didn't talk about climate change in her speech.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a big deal at the convention.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: There have been articles about it.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And the environmental groups are fine with that because the Inflation Reduction Act
15:46
SPEAKER_00: was a big deal on climate change.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: They feel like Harris is the better candidate for environmentalists to vote for,
15:51
SPEAKER_00: and they're giving her some rope to run with.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: That's a great convention stagecraft.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: When you're in a more dynamic situation, though, you're going to have to face questions about that.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: You can just choose at a convention to say,
16:08
SPEAKER_00: look,
16:09
SPEAKER_00: the optimal thing for us to say about climate is nothing because the people who
16:13
SPEAKER_00: care about this a lot know that I'm with them.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just going to message about costs and other kinds of things that speak to voters' concerns.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: When you go on TV,
16:24
SPEAKER_00: like what we know Pete Buttigieg can do is go on Fox News,
16:29
SPEAKER_00: take a question about what Fox wants him to talk about,
16:32
SPEAKER_00: parry it,
16:34
SPEAKER_00: and then like return to his talking points,
16:37
SPEAKER_00: right?
16:37
SPEAKER_00: That's what like the good TV interview politicians do.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying Harris can't do that.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying we haven't seen her do it.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: What we have seen is that when she and her team sit down to be like, what do we want to do?
16:51
SPEAKER_00: I think they're making good decisions about what they want to do, what they want to say.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: But part of making good decisions is you just avoid the thorniest topics.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Because that's smart.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: That's good politics.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: But then your opponents in a debate, in an interview, et cetera, they try to force you back onto them.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: We know that Trump is not... I don't say that Trump is good at responding to skeptical questions.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: But he's okay.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: He has this way of blustering through it that at least the people in his coalition have chosen to accept.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: She is going to inevitably face questions about why has she changed her stance on
17:36
SPEAKER_00: so many things since 2019.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Politicians change positions on things all the time.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's a big deal.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't think she's going to melt on the stand and be like, it's true, I'm secretly a leftist.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: But you don't know until you know.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think Biden was going to put up the debate performance that Biden put up.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to be a little humble in my estimate of somebody who
18:03
SPEAKER_00: we just haven't seen that much performance from.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: I felt like she made very strong choices at the convention,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: and I feel pretty good about the choices she'll make in the future based on past performance,
18:17
SPEAKER_00: but
18:18
SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: I put a lot of that into the bucket of like, let's wait and see.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I mean, I agree.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Like Buttigieg is extremely good at this, like in a way that most politicians aren't.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: But I believe that Harris is better than replacement level,
18:34
SPEAKER_02: especially now that all of her – I suspect that in 18-hour days or whatever she
18:39
SPEAKER_02: puts in every day,
18:40
SPEAKER_02: she's doing a lot of debate prep and she's doing a lot of –
18:44
SPEAKER_02: uh re rehoning of her skills away from like what are what are the needs of a
18:49
SPEAKER_02: california senator what are the needs of a presidential candidate right like and so
18:52
SPEAKER_02: her advisors are helping her navigate that instead of you know just like coasting i
18:59
SPEAKER_02: mean i would hope so right you know it's like but but like i don't think it's
19:05
SPEAKER_02: necessarily the case that um taking harris out of the equation and dropping
19:14
SPEAKER_02: a generic Democrat or even a Democrat who's like just more popular than she is into
19:19
SPEAKER_02: the role that she's had to fill leads you to the same place,
19:23
SPEAKER_02: right?
19:23
SPEAKER_02: Like you said,
19:23
SPEAKER_02: she didn't mention climate change and people,
19:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:26
SPEAKER_02: I've,
19:26
SPEAKER_02: I've seen some like random people on social media carping about that,
19:32
SPEAKER_02: but just in general,
19:33
SPEAKER_02: it has not blown up in her face or anything like that.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: She's not getting screamed at by people.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: And I think that that is,
19:42
SPEAKER_02: is reflective of a political skill that a lot of other Democrats,
19:49
SPEAKER_02: even if they're more popular than her,
19:50
SPEAKER_02: just don't have.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: Good politicians aren't just able to win on the basis of being chill and normal at
19:56
SPEAKER_02: the presidential level.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: And I don't also think that it's a sign of good politics when you see a
20:03
SPEAKER_02: presidential aspirant antagonizing the flanks of their party.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: The best way, if you can manage it, to run is to generate trust in various factions involved.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: across the spectrum of the party.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: And because you've generated trust,
20:24
SPEAKER_02: the people who trust you will interpret your political decisions generally,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: right?
20:29
SPEAKER_02: And so if
20:31
SPEAKER_02: if like Amy Klobuchar swings to the right on immigration,
20:36
SPEAKER_02: or Joe Biden swings to the right on immigration,
20:39
SPEAKER_02: right?
20:39
SPEAKER_02: Many people in the party are going to interpret that as selling out.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: But if a talented,
20:45
SPEAKER_02: charismatic Democrat does it,
20:48
SPEAKER_02: people to his or her left are going to give them running room.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: And I think-
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Bernie Sanders has this kind of spirit of generosity around him among his
20:58
SPEAKER_02: supporters because he's been consistent about a specific ideology for decades.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: And I think you mentioned Donald Trump has it.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's true.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: It's like it's different because he's not – he's a cult leader.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: But the people who support him –
21:14
SPEAKER_02: have like a deep rooting trust of him that allows him to go all over the map when
21:21
SPEAKER_02: he answers questions or puts on a convention and starts to ramble or whatever.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: I think Barack Obama had the same kind of –
21:30
SPEAKER_02: ability, especially early in his presidency.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: And then I think again, a bit at the end, like he also kind of had like cult-like adoration.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: Um,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: but,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: uh,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: I think mostly he was just really good at persuading different corners of the
21:43
SPEAKER_02: democratic coalition that he had their interests at heart.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: Um,
21:48
SPEAKER_02: and so he was moving his agenda and he was able to persuade leftists that it was in
21:52
SPEAKER_02: their interests and centrists that it was in their interests.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: And again,
21:56
SPEAKER_02: Then, you know, some people were like, I can see through him, right?
21:59
SPEAKER_02: Like he's actually a sellout and that's why he had fierce critics in the
22:04
SPEAKER_02: progressive wing of the party and fierce critics in the center.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think Harris is doing,
22:10
SPEAKER_02: attempting at least something similar and like having some success at it over the
22:14
SPEAKER_02: course of five weeks.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Can she pull it off in perpetuity or is she going to run out of runway after beating Trump?
22:22
SPEAKER_02: It's like those, that's to me the wait and see.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean, I guess, what do I say?
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's sort of two known unknowns about this.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Like one is just like, how does she perform in more extemporaneous kind of situations?
22:41
SPEAKER_00: The other is like,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Is this polling correct?
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Like,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: she has a lead in the polls,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: but it's smaller than the polling lead that Biden had in 2020 or that Hillary had
22:54
SPEAKER_00: in 2016.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Now,
22:55
SPEAKER_00: if we assume that kind of polling bias is error,
22:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:59
SPEAKER_00: has been fixed,
23:00
SPEAKER_00: or it's just random,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: then it's like she's doing great.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: But, you know...
23:04
SPEAKER_00: I think like one of the best articles,
23:06
SPEAKER_00: very underrated article about American politics was written by my then colleague,
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Tara Gulshan,
23:13
SPEAKER_00: shortly after Trump beat Hillary.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: And she said what I think is true and profound and correct,
23:20
SPEAKER_00: that people have all these like,
23:22
SPEAKER_00: why did Hillary do this?
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Why did Hillary do that?
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Kind of second guessing of her 2016 message.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: But the answer to all of those questions is that her internal polling said the
23:33
SPEAKER_00: exact same thing as the public facing polling that we all read.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, and like, if you think you're winning, of course you don't change your message, right?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Like that's,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:47
SPEAKER_00: she did what she did because she and her team sincerely believed that it was working.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: After she lost,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: we kind of like retroactively come up with all this,
23:58
SPEAKER_00: like,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: I had all these doubts,
24:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:00
SPEAKER_00: or like the vibes were bad or it was so cringe to talk about Hamilton or Pokemon go
24:06
SPEAKER_00: to the polls or whatever else.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
24:10
SPEAKER_00: if Harris actually gets three to four points more than Trump, we're going to be like, this was great.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, she like wisely avoided getting dragged into like too many tedious specifics.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, she kept the focus on Trump.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: She, uh,
24:29
SPEAKER_00: created some sense of freshness and newness without disavowing anything from Biden.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: She appealed to the center without punching the left.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: There's all these good things you can say about Harris, if she's really doing as well as the polls say.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: If we have a 2020 or 2016 scale polling error,
24:47
SPEAKER_00: we're all going to look back and be like,
24:49
SPEAKER_00: what the hell were they thinking?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: What was with all the brat memes and casual flip-flopping?
24:55
SPEAKER_00: And
24:57
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a little indifferent.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say I'm indifferent.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like,
25:06
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to say.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: It's so close, right?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Because we know it's not a parliamentary system in which you can just be like,
25:13
SPEAKER_00: 42%,
25:13
SPEAKER_00: 47%,
25:15
SPEAKER_00: those are similar numbers,
25:17
SPEAKER_00: right?
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Like a really large amount hinges on whether you slightly win or slightly lose.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And if you had to guess, she's winning.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: But I'm even just looking on this map, right?
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Where it's like,
25:33
SPEAKER_00: She's winning the blue wall states, but she's losing in Arizona and Georgia.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, okay.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: To me,
25:41
SPEAKER_00: it's closer to like,
25:43
SPEAKER_00: we're white knuckling till November than to like,
25:47
SPEAKER_00: let's praise the strategic genius.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
25:49
SPEAKER_02: it's difficult because like I keep saying,
25:51
SPEAKER_02: like,
25:51
SPEAKER_02: I just want to wait and see what the polls level out.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go on vacation.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to come back on the day of the debate.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: And then I think on the other side of the debate,
26:03
SPEAKER_02: like I will have to at some point make a commitment about all this stuff because
26:07
SPEAKER_02: there won't be another thing to wait for,
26:10
SPEAKER_02: right?
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Except for the actual election, right?
26:12
SPEAKER_02: And so if she's ahead still only by four in mid-September,
26:18
SPEAKER_02: I think it'll be pretty clear that like that's where she leveled out.
26:23
SPEAKER_02: That was like what her combination of political skill and the exigencies of the moment,
26:29
SPEAKER_02: that's where it landed her.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: like the things she did well,
26:32
SPEAKER_02: the things she did poorly,
26:33
SPEAKER_02: they summed to a four point lead and we're going to have to white knuckle it.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: And if it's a,
26:38
SPEAKER_02: if it's a,
26:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:39
SPEAKER_02: five,
26:39
SPEAKER_02: six,
26:39
SPEAKER_02: seven point margin,
26:41
SPEAKER_02: I think it's going to like,
26:44
SPEAKER_02: well,
26:44
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
26:44
SPEAKER_02: but then also like,
26:45
SPEAKER_02: it's going to tee up a conversation about like,
26:50
SPEAKER_02: not just how people got their impressions of Harris backwards over the course of years,
26:56
SPEAKER_02: but like,
26:58
SPEAKER_02: What should Democrats be selecting for as they look for candidates for president, candidates for Senate?
27:06
SPEAKER_02: What can you learn from Harris that you can replicate so that you ideally just keep
27:14
SPEAKER_02: having more political success along these lines?
27:17
SPEAKER_02: We'll see where we are in mid-September, but-
27:20
SPEAKER_02: Policy ambiguity seems to be a part of it.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: Just being telegenic, basically.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: You can speak well, got a good smile.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: You interact well with people in a way that
27:42
SPEAKER_02: other people observe and they say, that's, that's a cool person.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: Like, I wish I had some of that social grace.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that those things matter a lot more than like the median voter theory or whatever.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: And, um,
27:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, part of me wants to see her do well in order to feel vindicated about that.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: But like, I know you were taken with Amy Klobuchar, right?
28:08
SPEAKER_02: And she's the Minnesota senator who has basically no razzmatazz, but she overperforms basically everyone.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: in democratic politics.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: And I think your view on this is that most politics is boring stuff.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: And so if Klobuchar became a presidential nominee,
28:27
SPEAKER_02: she'd be overperforming nationally in a similar way because it turns out that the
28:32
SPEAKER_02: boring stuff has inherent appeal.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: This is how I would put it, right?
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: The way to win elections, I think, is for leftists to stop doing sabotage and wrecking
28:48
SPEAKER_00: The best way to achieve that,
28:50
SPEAKER_00: like the most optimal way,
28:51
SPEAKER_00: would be for leftists to just like grow the fuck up and stop acting like shitheads constantly.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: But in the real world, they are unlikely to do that.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And when you present the party with charismatic figures,
29:06
SPEAKER_00: they do a better job of silencing the troublesome elements inside their own coalition.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't actually think that Amy Klobuchar would necessarily do that well as a presidential candidate.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good, good, because I don't either.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, the reason she wouldn't do well is that progressives would sink her.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: I think.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think we're saying the same thing about this, like policy ambiguity.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: But I don't think it would be a thing where Cedrus Paribus,
29:41
SPEAKER_02: she and Harris could run the same campaign and it would be only the progressives
29:45
SPEAKER_02: that would turn on Amy Klobuchar.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: I think lots of people who are warming to Harris or have had their head turned by
29:52
SPEAKER_02: her or have decided to set aside their misgivings,
29:55
SPEAKER_02: however you want to define it,
29:56
SPEAKER_02: like they would –
29:58
SPEAKER_02: look at Amy Klobuchar and think, eh, you know, I don't actually really care that much.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: Like,
30:04
SPEAKER_02: this is not a good enough improvement over Biden for me to change my decision to
30:11
SPEAKER_02: vote third party or whatever.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: And like, I think that it's because...
30:16
SPEAKER_02: the way people make decisions about who they want to support for Senate is just
30:21
SPEAKER_02: completely different from how they make decisions about who they intend to support
30:25
SPEAKER_02: for president.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: What I think is that how people make decisions about who they want to nominate for
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Senate is completely different.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think you see across both parties, right?
30:35
SPEAKER_00: You think about like Scott Walker in,
30:37
SPEAKER_00: what was that,
30:38
SPEAKER_00: the 2020 cycle,
30:40
SPEAKER_00: where it's like solid conservative governor in a critical swing state
30:45
SPEAKER_02: 2016.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: 2020 Trumpers unopposed for all the right.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Um,
30:51
SPEAKER_00: The exact logic that leads to Gretchen Whitmer also leads Republicans to Scott Walker.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: But Scott Walker can't get a Republican Party nomination because he has no riz, right?
31:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: In a crowded field, the base of the party wants somebody who is amped up.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's just life, right?
31:15
SPEAKER_00: I just still think it's true that
31:17
SPEAKER_00: One thing that I'm always struck by,
31:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:19
SPEAKER_00: so there's two Democratic Party senators who kind of still hold the torch for
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Obama-style education reform and charter schools.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's Michael Bennett,
31:32
SPEAKER_00: like my personal favorite,
31:33
SPEAKER_00: and Cory Booker,
31:35
SPEAKER_00: who is a much more dynamic and charismatic public speaker.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: The teachers' unions don't like Bennett because they disagree with him on the policy issue.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: But they really fear him.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Booker because Booker is a more dynamic, charismatic public speaker.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: And they know that he, like Obama could just like steal their base from them.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And it gives you more flexibility.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: So, okay.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to suggest that we put the paywall in here and we talk about Harris's speech.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: I think, I think that exemplifies, um,
32:16
SPEAKER_00: a lot of what we're talking about here.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's do that.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: But I also,
32:19
SPEAKER_02: if we can,
32:20
SPEAKER_02: we didn't prep this,
32:20
SPEAKER_02: but I want to sneak in like a discussion about the likelihood that the polling
32:25
SPEAKER_02: errors from 2016 and 2020 have been fixed.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: And like,
32:31
SPEAKER_02: how we interpret like the way the campaigns are shadowboxing,
32:34
SPEAKER_02: like what that implies to us about what their internal polling says.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to hear those things, go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.