A Woman President?
Billionaire money may make it impossible for a Democratic Party woman president
The New York Times ran a December 26, 2024, story titled “Will the U.S. Ever Be Ready for a Female President?” It starts by quoting Lindsay Graham, who said, “If you have a Republican female nominee, they would have a good shot of being the first woman president.” Bill Clinton agreed, saying that the people least likely to vote for a woman are conservative. Thus, a woman has a better chance of getting elected by running as a conservative because most conservatives would not vote for a woman Democratic candidate but would for a Republican.
But given that many of the same conservatives will likely have difficulty voting for a Black, I’d like Graham and Clinton to explain Democratic President Barack Obama to me. Obama won the popular vote by 9,522,083 votes.
The Times article also quoted AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, who said she believes Kamala Harris made no missteps in the race. She said, “She totally over-performed and yet fell short. So it does feel like that sucker punch of, like, ‘Wow, even when you do everything right, that glass ceiling is still elusive.’”
No missteps?
No missteps!
There were several significant missteps.
She made Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney an important part of her campaign. This was a WTF? Moment for most left-leaning voters. Harris, running an anti-Trump campaign, clearly failed to recognize the concerns of most voters.
She told interviewers she could not think of a major Biden policy she did not agree with. This made voting for Harris especially difficult for those opposed to the Biden-supported Israel genocide.
Teamsters president Sean O’Brien gave a rousing speech at the Republican National Convention that was hugely pro-labor, confusing some of the RNC crowd. O’Brien was willing to give a pro-labor speech at the Democratic National Convention one month later, but the DNC refused.
Harris began her campaign with a populist message, resulting in impressive poll numbers. She then switched that messaging to be billionaire-friendly. Her polling slipped.
Harris’s billionaire-friendly attitude prevented her from defending Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who is very popular with left-leaning Democratic voters. The billionaires hate Khan.
The Harris campaign sent Bill Clinton to Michigan. Clinton tried to justify Israel’s killing of over 40,000 Palestinians. Michigan has the largest concentration of Muslim-American voters. The mayor of Dearborn tweeted, “Do us a favor - stop sending surrogates who have no respect or regard for this community. You’re only inflicting more damage.”
Muslim Women for Harris pulled their support for Harris after the DNC refused to allow a Palestinian American speaker at the convention. They said the family of the Israeli Hostage who spoke at the convention had shown more empathy towards Palestinian Americans and Palestinians than Harris or the DNC has.
Harris has been criticized for not appearing on conservative Joe Rogan’s podcast. When Rogan interviewed Bernie Sanders in 2020, Sanders did well, and Rogan endorsed him. But when Bret Baier of Fox News interviewed Harris in October, she did poorly. A more lengthy Rogan interview would have been a disaster.
I don’t think the failed campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris (against Donald Trump) should preclude other women from running. However, this future candidate needs to run on a populist message and not be controlled by billionaires. This may not be possible in the Democratic Party.
Sources
YouTube: Joe Rogan and Bernie Sanders
YouTube: Bret Baier and Kamala Harris
NY Times: Will the U.S. Ever Be Ready for a Female President?
YouTube: Sean O'Brien speaks at the Republican National Convention
YouTube: Bill Clinton addresses Israel–Hamas war at Michigan Rally