Democrats, despite their hypersensitive and rare reputation, can be severe. Merciless, even.
When it comes to choosing their presidential candidate, it is often one and done. Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry were kissed, then, after leaving their party to a disappointing defeat, rejected as so many bundles of wet tissue.
Compare this with the Republicans, who not only believe in the second chances, but, more often than not, seem to prefer their recycled presidential candidates. During the last half century, all the nominees for the GOP, except a few, had at least one failed offer from the White House on their CV.
The list of echoes includes the current occupant of the oval office, which is only the second president of the history of the United States to find the perch after having lost four years before.
Why the difference? It would take a psychologist or a geneticist to determine if there is something in the mind or the molecular composition of the faithful of the party, which could explain their varied treatment of those humiliated and defeated.
Anyway, it suggests that the Flame return to Kamala Harris and the campaign newspaper she published last week takes place on the point.
And that does not take well for another test at the White House in 2028, if the former vice-president and American senator from California continued this path.
Criticism came to matching flavors.
The Loyalists of Joe Biden – many of whom have never been great Harris fans – have bristled his relatively light criticisms towards the manifestly aged president and physically in decline. (She leaves her husband, the former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, to evacuate the “impossible jobs, S -” Harris was given and, despite this, the failure of the president and the first lady to defend Harris during her low points.)
The notable lack of self-accusation has stored other democrats. Aside from some could and should be largely, Harris largely attributes his defeat to insufficient time to assert his arguments to voters – only 107 days, the title of his book – which does not go well with those who feel that Harris wasted the time she had.
More generally, some Democrats criticize the old vice-president to resurface, period, rather than slide and disappear forever in a deep and dark hole. It is a familiar reproach whenever the party has trouble going beyond a presidential defeat; Hillary Clinton faced a similar reaction when she published her interior account after losing against Donald Trump in 2016.
This criticism assumes that large masses of voters devour campaign memories with the same voracious appetite as those who abandon their Sundays to discussion programs on Beltway, or new main policies as a continuous IV drop.
They don’t.
Let the record show that the Democrats won the White House in 2020 even if Clinton fell in 2017 and, for a short time, thwarted the party’s fervent desire to “turn the page”.
But there are these consumers passionate about campaigns and elections, and for political demons among us, Harris offers a lot of petile, a large part involving his party peers and his future competitors in 2028.
Pete Buttigieg, the 2020 campaign star, was her sincere choice for the vice-president, but Harris said that she feared that the combination of a black woman and a gay running mate exceeds the carrier of the electorate. (News for me, Buttigieg said that after Harris revealed his thought and an underestimation of the American people.)
The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the finalist of the choice of ultimate vice-president of Harris, the Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, appears to be a salivation and a lust invented and greedily coveting the post. (He retaliated by suggesting that Harris had a certain Spainein to do for what she knew Biden infirmities and when she knew it.)
Harris involves governments. JB Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer of Illinois and Michigan, respectively, were insufficiently Gung-Ho after Biden has dismissed and she became the waiting Democratic candidate.
But for the readers of California, the most tender song, implies the longtime Frenemy of Harris, Governor Gavin Newsom.
The two, who reached political power in the early 2000s on tracks parallel to San Francisco, had a complicated relationship for a long time, mixing mutual help with jealousy and stampede.
In her book, Harris tells the hours that followed the sudden withdrawal from Biden when she started calling the best democrats in the country to enclose their support. Contrary to the enthusiasm that many have displayed, Newsom replied with an SMS: “Hiking. Will recall. “
He never did, noted Harris, although Newsom issued a full-fledged approval in a few hours, which the former vice-president did not mention.
These are small things. But the fact that Harris has chosen to include this anecdote talks about the bake-under and vagueness that the two most eminent Democrats in California have put to the public.
Will the two be faced in 2028?
On the promotional circuit, Harris has repeatedly upset the inevitable questions on another possible presidential offer.
“This is not my goal right now,” she told Rachel Maddow, in a non-denial denial of the Standard show. For his part, Newsom is obviously underway, although he does not say it.
There would be something opera, or at least soap, or soap operator, on the two long -standing competitors in the running openly for the country’s ultimate political price – although it is difficult to see the Democrats, with their persistent hunger of novelty, turning to Harris or its political doppelgannt of the left fence like their Savior.
In the meantime, the two are back on parallel tracks, although apparently directed in opposite directions.
While Newsom seeks to build democratic bridges, Harris burns his.
