The Kamala Harris brand
Kamala Harris must define herself soon.
Meanwhile, Republicans are busy trying to define her.
Is she is a New Deal Democrat, in the mold of FDR and the Biden who ran for president in 2020?
Or, is she a "New Democrat" in the Clinton-Obama mold, which is how Biden governed once in office?
Kamala Harris is female and of mixed race. For better or worse, her identity is part of her brand. Republicans are already at work making those a negative, defining Harris as a mediocre, unqualified, whore. They say she is not merely unqualified to be president; she is ineligible to be president. JD Vance reprised the "birther" attack, saying that even though she was born in an Oakland hospital, she isn't really a natural born citizen because her mother and father were both immigrants studying for the Ph.D. degrees at Berkeley, and not U.S. citizens. Republican officeholders and media call her a "DEI hire" -- code for unqualified and unfairly promoted -- chosen because of her sex and race. The "whore" attack references her long and well-known former relationship with California politician Willie Brown. Trump merchandise calls Harris a "HO."
Solid performances by Harris can blunt those attacks. Vance understands that they sound misogynist and racist and have the potential to backfire among voters Republicans want to attract. Former Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy called that line of attack "totally stupid and dumb." Vance is attempting to parry the racism charge by saying that Democrats think everything is racist, even harmless comments, so he will drink some Mountain Dew to prove the charge of racism doesn't bother him.
In 2020 Biden projected a "retro" Democrat in the New Deal style of Democrat. He was the alternative to the dozen-plus Democratic candidates who were either Bernie Sanders or candidates crowding each other leftward to be nearly-Sanders or Sanders-lite. Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary because there was a split between Democratic voters and Democratic thought leaders and policy leaders. Voters prefer the New Deal Democratic style. Democratic policy and branding is shaped by the activist minority of "New Democrats," primarily people in the advocacy groups in the Democratic coalition of environmentalists, reproductive rights advocates, racial justice advocates, gay and trans rights advocates, and similar groups. The Clinton-Obama-Sanders-Elizabeth Warren style of Democrats represent the economic and cultural leadership of socially liberal college graduates. They usually live in coastal cities or in college towns. Their work integrates them into the national and global economy by moving around data and ideas. They work in offices. They are succeeding in this economy.
Biden's 2020 campaign spoke repeatedly to a different group of people, often sharing his memory of his father, a working man who lost his job. A job gives a working man respect, Biden says. It lets a man provide for his family. It isn't about self-actualization. It is about making a living to pay bills. Many of those jobs take place outdoors. People get hot, dusty, wet, and dirty. The best of those jobs are "union jobs," Many of these jobs are highly skilled, but the knowledge is gained on the job, not in college. These are the jobs of old-style New Deal Democrats.
The Democratic brand is shaped by the writers and spokespeople of the liberal advocacy groups, but a majority of Democratic voters rejected them in 2020. Some of the policy goals of the advocacy groups are irrelevant to the lives of working people. Some are too "out there," too forward to be popular, at least now, and they are off-putting. These include banning natural gas heating and cookstoves in new construction; cities not allowing new gasoline stations; unenforced borders with hundreds of thousands of amnesty claimants gaming the system; trans athletes demolishing records in women and girls' athletics; late stage abortions; tampons in elementary school boys' bathrooms; DEI as a central mission of universities, and hard and soft quotas on diversity hiring. They become wedge issues that peel working class Americans out of the Democratic Party.
Harris has a tightrope to walk. The presence of Jill Stein, Cornell West and RFK mean that she cannot openly oppose virtuous-but-still-unpopular liberal causes, but she endorses them at her peril. Biden walked the tightrope by emphasizing jobs -- American jobs for working people in heartland areas. Urban liberals don't insist that those chip factories be built in their already-crowded cities.
The other great unifier for Kamala Harris is Trump. Trump has openly and proudly made enemies. Somewhere between 55% and 60% of Americans loath Trump. Kamala Harris wasn't well-known. A unknown, unspecified generic Democrat decisively beats Trump in polls. Harris cannot remain generic. She is a real person who will draw opposition based on some element of her looks, her manner, her laugh, or her policies.
But if she appears both reasonable and competent she will match up very well against Trump. There is widespread public sentiment favoring a reasonable and competent alternative to Trump. It seems like a small thing to ask.
I am puzzled by your description of the alignments in the Democratic Party and how Joe Biden fit into them. I think it incontestable that after the 1960s the Democratic Party moved away from the FDR-Harry Truman-LBJ commitment to the New Deal and its emphasis on economic equity. Beginning with Cater and accelerating with the Clintons and Obama, the party became committed to neo-liberalism and de-regulation. They didn't reverse the flattening out of the progressive income tax that began with Reagan. They didn't push hard to raise the minimum wage, and their commitment to universal affordable health care, which can only be realized by Medicare for Everyone, was absent.
But then you say, "The Clinton-Obama-Sanders-Elizabeth Warren style of Democrats represent the economic and cultural leadership of socially liberal college graduates." I can't understand that grouping, It was Sanders and Warren and others who pushed hard to return the Democrats to the New Deal commitment to economic equity, proper taxation, and corporate and financial regulation, which the Clintons and Obama had rejected.
Biden did not present himself during the 2020 campaign as nearly committed to the New Deal legacy as his main challengers, Sanders and Warren. He presented himself as the "centrist" candidate. And you were keen for him exactly for that reason, since you have a knee=jerk antipathy to the progressive wing of the party. People were rather surprised that, once in office, Biden was so progressive in his domestic policies. We attributed it largely to the progressives in Congress. There's no doubt that Biden had a longstanding commitment to organized labor, but neither in the Senate nor as VP did he indicate that he was as close to Sanders on economic policy as he proved to be. That is why Sanders was one of his die-hard supporters when he was being pressured yo step aside.
You have to be more careful in your description of alignments within the Democratic Party over time.
I've been very impressed by our VP in the last year or two. Early on, she seemed tentative and amorphous, and often defensive during her public interactions. Now, it seems to me, she has a consistently solid, organized, and genuinely happy presence; in short, charisma.
I think that what will win the election is persona more than policy. That's a real shame, I believe: as a general matter, policy ought to win the day. But now we have two personae, and my bet is on Harris; only the MAGA base is going to accept the horrid name-calling that is Trump's trademark.