Oh, somewhere in Democrat-land the sun is shining bright; candidates are flush with victory won on election night; Somewhere campaign scars are fading after a long and brutal bout; but not in Biden-town or Harris-ville after Kamala has struck out.
One thread of criticism the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris levels at President Joe Biden, who after a June debate disaster dropped his bid for re-election in July, is his late exit from the race.
“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, a Harris supporter who sought the 2020 Democratic nomination, according to the Associated Press. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”
Others said Harris owns the moves that led to her destruction, as noted by Newsweek.
Philadelphia Democratic Chair and former congressman Bob Brady said Harris’s staffers were “ just elitist and went out there, did their own thing and didn’t include Democratic city committee or (ward leaders) or committee people. They just didn’t do it.”
Some within the campaign think those leading it have no clue what went wrong, according to Axios, citing a memo to staff that said the race was very close.
“People are depressed and frustrated about the overconfident leadership of the campaign,” said a staffer, who was not named by Axios.
Another staff member said there was dissonance in a Thursday night all-staff call during which Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon was reportedly in tears and Harris said, “Yeah, this sucks … There’s also so much good that has come of this” campaign.
Should Kamala Harris retire from politics?
“It was detached from the reality of what happened,” a staffer Axios did not name said. “We are told the fate of democracy is at stake, and then the message was, ‘We’ll get them next time.’”
But others pointed at Biden and the timing of his exit. Harris aide David Plouffe posted on X that Harris had “dug out of a deep hole” but later deleted his account.
But from the Biden side, a staffer Axios did not name commented, “How did you spend $1 billion and not win?”
Resentment and recriminations include the role some think Biden should have played.
“The Harris team benched [Biden], and then they lost, so now the people who represent Biden are saying, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have benched him,’” a Biden backer Axios did not name said.
“Everyone who destroyed Biden and pushed him out got the race they demanded,” a Democratic state committee member in Pennsylvania said, according to Time. “There was a choice: The only person that ever beat Trump or a gigantic unknown.”
Others said Harris simply ran a bad campaign.
“She let the GOP define her,” a senior Democratic operative said.
“She could have left the convention and tried to reach out to voters from across the political spectrum, but she and [running mate Tim] Walz went inexplicably into hiding and didn’t do interviews for weeks,” the source said.
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