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How long until Trump tells a joke about Kamala and Willie Brown? I bet he already has some prepared.
it would go down as one of his most original jokes
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To be frank it’s just too deep a cut for anyone to care about. Only very online rightoids have any idea who that is.
I think that's why it will resonate. It might be "old news" to very online rightoids and old-time san francisco politicians, but most voters will be hearing about it for the very first time. Especially the low-news, marginal, swing voters who can actually change their mind. I think a lot of them will be learning about Harris in detail for the first time now and thinking:
"Hmm, she doesn't sound very smart or very presidential. How did she get picked to be vice pres?"
"Oh, Biden felt he needed a black woman. Not very fair, but I guess it makes sense. She had a long career in politics before being vice pres, right?"
"...oh. She only got elected in the first place by trading sexual favors to an old corrupt dude? That's pathetic and gross."
Trumps scandals, on the other hand, already "priced in." Everybody knows about them, at least the general sense of them. And they might be morally gross, they don't make him look incompetant.
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And native Californians. But we don't matter in presidential elections.
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Yeah, this is great because Trump is likely in the right-tail of Republican politicians willing to make jokes or allusions about any alleged sucking or casting couching her way to the top, as opposed to most Republicans who would prefer to take the high road of losing gracefully. I wish Election Betting Odds had a prop bets section for stuff like this, e.g., "Probability that the phrase 'casting couch' is mentioned in a debate."
The only way doing that helps Trump is if the media seizes on it to point out how horrible Trump is for suggesting such a thing, resulting in more voters finding out about it. Which is... not improbable.
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Probably more effective for Republicans to call out the corruption around her appointment to various California agencies at the behest of Brown than explicit casting couch references. The former can gain traction, the latter is written off by the Vox set as sexism. And when voters ask "Why would Brown work to get some appointed with no real qualifications to well-paying part time gigs she barely performed anyway?" they naturally quickly find out "oh he was 30 years her senior while they were dating."
ETA: Hmm, or maybe not. I guess no one has really tested the latter line against her. Media will of course denounce it, but maybe that doesn't matter (or is even a pro).
Focusing on the age-gap instead of the casting couch part of that relationship risks leaving a reverse uno card on the table, a sitting high ball for the Media/Democrats to smash in the form of framing Harris as a brave survivor of vicious and predatory grooming.
The usual Schrodinger's Feminism of women simultaneously being strong independent #GirlBosses and vulnerable children: That sick fuck! She was only 30 and but a lowly deputy district attorney; her brain had only finished developing for five years. Unlike the recently discussed Djokovic in the athlete list thread, the Media/Democrats tend not to dump such overheads into the net.
Although this would involve throwing a black man under the bus, sometimes opportunistic under-bus-throwing of heterosexual black men is narrowly permitted in their capacity as straight men, for straight black men are the straight men of black people.
After all, Harris was a poor defenseless 30-year-old minor who couldn't be expected to stand up for herself.
More seriously though, the problem with this strategy is that the “groomer” in this case is a Black man and a Democrat. I'm sure the Democrats would have no problem accusing a white Republican of grooming Harris, but are they willing to throw a Black Democrat under the bus like that? Is Barack Obama going to declare “It could have been me soliciting sexual favors from women half my age in exchange for political favors?”
Another issue is that Willie Brown is still alive, cogent (more so than Biden), self-interested, and most of all has a really big mouth. He's not the type to let himself get thrown under the bus without a fight.
He also really likes Kamala, even now.
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