Sure, this isn't the meanest stuff they can say, but this is just the opening.
Politico, which of course is just a mouthpiece for those Obama advisors, say that Harris (and her Obama Advisors) did nothing wrong, and that everything is Joe Biden's fault.
Okay, sure, most if it is Joe Biden's fault.
But the Obama Advisors and Harris were in charge of Harris's campaign, not Joe Biden.
But the momentum advisers insisted she'd built [during her convention] failed to materialize. She never sufficiently buried Biden's ghost, severely hamstringing her ability to sell voters on the idea that hers was the turn-the-page candidacy.
It happened, simply, because Harris refused to make a clean break from the last four years when voters indicated that's what they wanted. Worse, she hesitated to draw any daylight between herself and her boss on Biden's biggest vulnerability -- his stewardship over the economy -- nor identify any specific way her presidency would be different from his tenure beyond naming a Republican to her Cabinet.
Which was Harris's choice. But also, Harris couldn't "turn the page" on Biden's record. She was the tie-breaking vote on the fake "Inflation Reduction Act" that flooded the nation with fake dollars and spurred even greater inflation.
Was she going to take ownership of that and admit error?
Not hardly! Democrats never admit error! At most, they'll claim "our messaging failed to highlight how awesome we did."
Usually they just claim "the public is too dumb to realize how good they've got it."
And that is, indeed, an outdated Obama-era playbook.
Some close allies and even a few aides privately questioned why she continued to hold him so closely, particularly because her campaign didn't try to make extensive use of their record....
"We ran the best campaign we could, considering Joe Biden was president," grumbled one Harris aide granted anonymity to speak freely. "Joe Biden is the singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost tonight."
Another Harris aide said it was clear Biden should have made a graceful exit much sooner, allowing Democrats to hold a primary they believed Harris would have won.
...
Even the advantages Harris' team had long boasted about -- its professional ground game versus Trump's band of MAGA activists and billionaire rebels, along with Democrats' perceived strength across the suburbs, were blunted. And inside the campaign, some elected officials and strategists had been warning that not only was their operation lagging, but it was being poorly run.
Every office she's ever headed has been disorganized, poorly run, and marked by high turnover rates because she's a nasty drunk who doesn't do her homework and then blames the staff for her failures.
Kamala's staff never Positions Her For Success.
...
And on Wednesday, Democrats were also starting to point fingers at Harris' data team. A Pennsylvania Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak freely, said that the Harris campaign predicted higher turnout in key counties such as Chester and Montgomery in the Philadelphia suburbs.
"This is looking like Robby Mook 2.0," the person said.
Mook was Hillary Clinton's campaign manager in 2016.
The article notes that Harris's campaign took Trump's campaign to be "unstrategic" and improvised, because that's what they saw in Trump's speeches. But in fact Trump's campaign was a team of killers quietly sticking daggers into them.
While Democrats led by the Future Forward PAC launched unprecedented spending into the battlegrounds with a focus on Harris as a middle-class warrior, Trump and his allies spent tens of millions on spots that left a more visceral mark -- such as those featuring Harris' support for providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners. Others captured her unwillingness to separate herself from Biden.
...
Core to Harris' pitch, and from which her tactical decisions flowed, was the idea that she represented the safer option.
That's why she spent so much time campaigning with Republicans and never-Trumpers; why she rhetorically draped herself in the American flag and relentlessly advertised her own middle-class upbringing while bombarding the airwaves with messages about Trump's dangerous economic policies. It's why she wanted to appear as the law-and-order candidate who was out to stop the country from being taken over by a convicted felon. It's why she didn't lean in on talking about the historic nature of her candidacy and nomination.
After the initial elation among Democrats settled, Harris began to face questions from the media -- and criticism from Trump and his campaign -- over her not sitting for interviews with major news outlets. It took Harris more than a month before she sat down for her first extended interview, and then afterwards only went on a few select shows and friendly media outlets.
Harris chose not to provide extensive explanation, or sometimes any rationale at all, for the gaping chasm between many of her past policy positions on everything from hydraulic fracturing (a huge issue in Pennsylvania) and clean car mandates (a big deal in Michigan) to providing citizenship to unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. She led with a "my principles haven't changed" approach that would have to serve as a catch-all.
Most around her supported the strategic decision, seeing it as "less is more" and contending that giving lengthy explanations would subject her to new questions from the news media and provide fresh fodder for Trump and Republicans to launch unrelenting attacks. However, it missed an opportunity to give off even the slightest whiff that she understood people might still have questions about how she could drift so far on issue after issue.
Let me make clear what Politico is trying to obscure: Harris chose a campaign of lying about her past positions, and her current positions, hoped to reassure the hard left that she still supported all of her insane San Francisco Progressive positions by not repudiating them and saying "My values haven't changed" (wink), and this very stupid and obvious deception was seen through by the public easily because while the public may not follow politics closely, they're not so stupid that they can't see through obvious lies.
But apart from that, Harris did everything right!
And other calculations Harris made at least internally seemed even riskier -- notably the refusal to separate from Biden, even after the president publicly offered her his permission to do so. Harris' aides during the campaign stressed that this was a line she was unwilling to cross, offering that doing so would undermine a litany of public statements she'd made about the president and blow holes in her own record of accomplishments in the White House.
"Bidenworld" responded to Politico's attempt to absolve Harris and Obama of any responsibility for the Harris-Obama disaster:
Josh Kraushaar
@JoshKraushaar
From Bidenworld: "There is no singular reason why we lost, but a big reason is because the Obama advisers publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out, didnt even want Kamala Harris as the nominee, and then signed up as the saviors of the campaign only to run outdated Obama-era playbooks for a candidate that wasn't Obama"
Just about an hour ago, Biden gave a short speech promising to cooperate with Trump on the transition. He looked and sounded the most refreshed and lucid he's looked in ages. (Probably because he's had a three month long vacation.)
Remaining Time -0:02
By Steven Richards
Published: November 7, 2024 11:30am
Updated: November 7, 2024 11:32am
Article
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President Joe Biden briefly addressed the nation on Thursday following the stunning election victory of former President Donald Trump, promising to begin the transition process and urged American's to respect the choice of the people.
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"For over 200 years American has carried on the greatest experiment of self-government in the world," Biden said. "Yesterday I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory and I assured him that I will direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition."
"We accept the choice the country made. I have said many times, you can't love your country only when you win," Biden said. "You can't love your neighbor only when you agree. Something I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, is see each other, not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Bring down the temperature."
Biden also said he hopes the election results show that America's electoral system is sound and can be trusted.
He wasn't accepting his defeat gracefully. He was giddy about accepting Kamala's defeat.
I prefer Dank Brandon's statement from last night. (From the sidebar.)