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The debt isn't a bad thing: it's common for campaigns to end up with debt. 20M/1000M is 2%. When you're spending those kind of sums over a very short time period in a high stakes situation, with uncertain, variable income streams, it's almost inevitable. It will end up being paid off, and IIRC donation limits are reset after the election (though, if someone was a Kamala donor, I do not envy how much begging they're going to endure for the next couple weeks). Maybe Trump will magnanimously bail her out.
And, although she lost, I'm not sure you can say it was badly spent. As stupid as it is that paying Beyonce to fart in your direction can make voters want to vote for you, if you're flush with cash and you think it'll help, why not? What else would the campaign spend it on? Yet more clueless college grads to run social media accounts and spam Reddit with Kamala memes?
Final point: Kamala did much better in the swing states where the money was being spent than the country at large. A ~2% shift across every state would have resulted in Kamala holding the blue "wall" and winning the electoral college, while still losing the popular vote. Going into the campaign, the expectation was that Kamala would need to be running 2-3 points ahead of Trump nationally to have a shot at those states, but the campaign managed to eliminate this gap. This wasn't done through offering thoughtful policy proposals that addressed their specific regional concerns, or through her personal charismatic connection with white rust belt voters.
Money is good, and it's an edge Democrats will have for the foreseeable future, even if there are diminishing marginal returns to it. They just need a better product to market.
She will do fine. i can see a remunerative career in the cards in the private sector. these people always fail forward
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"The debt isn't a bad thing." Okay, what would you call being personally 20 million dollars in debt if not a bad thing? Because apparently you're unaware they changed the rules so that candidate personally assumes the debt of the campaign
The debt won't exist 6 months from now. The campaign will continue collecting contributions, pay off the debts, and Kamala will walk away with none, rested and ready for her sinecure.
Where do you think she'll land? Unlike Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama she doesn't have her own political machine. So there's not really much to be gained for anyone to ingratiate themselves to her.
And speaking engagements will be thin. No one wants to hear from a loser, especially a midwit who is by all accounts a deeply unpleasant individual.
Clearly, she'll land somewhere. But the fall is going to be steep.
Somehow in my career, I ended up being in a position to be in the room for many private conferences. One of the things that was particularly obvious to me is how human (in the worst sense) the elite "speaker" circuit is.
People imagine those kind of conferences as a meeting of powerful people exchanging important insights, but few of them were more interesting than what you'd hear on a very average TV fluff interview. Maybe one of them was at a level of discussion that would be comparable to what we have going here. In a couple of cases I even realized that I, the IT guy babysitting the tech setup, knew more about the topic than the speaker did, nevermind the attendees. Pretty much always the attendees' questions were shallow. It seemed obvious that the attendees, rich but unknown business leaders, were starstuck and enjoyed being in the same room as someone "famous". It certainly sound glamorous to drop into a conversation an aside about that time you were at a private conference of former prime ministers, VP, etc... I know I enjoy it.
In that context, Harris definitely can do that circuit if she wants. If she was just a failed presidential candidate, maybe the interest would fade fairly quickly. But I guarantee you there are lots of rich people who want to be able to say they were at a private conference of a former US Vice President, even if the presentation is just word salad about unburdening what has been. Having been Vice President, she can probably milk forever if wants.
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If the audience is composed of midwits does it matter, and also, many people really do unironically like her--just not enough to win an election. No one is expecting her to lecture about physics.
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Howard is a solid guess. Throw in a book deal, lucrative speaking engagements with audiences who don't really care what she has to say, maybe some corporate board. She'll be well taken care of. Not for any particular affection anyone has toward her, but to signify to others that they'll be well taken care of.
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Howard University.
They may not like it, but she's probably now like a Top 5 or 3 alumni. Also, Black Women voted for Harris something like 90-10%. Howard University is 70% female. So this lines up well for her to bring in donations.
Probably also some sort of leadership role with The Links. She's literally listed in the opening paragraph of the Wiki page.
TollBooth's Top 5 All Time Howard Univ Alum (in no particular order)
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Chesa Boudin didn't have a machine of his own and they gave him an entire department at UC Berkeley after his disastrous recall loss. A department specifically made for creating propaganda for his policies that the voters rejected.
There's a larger machine at work, much greater than the petty personal ones individual politicians can build. There's a chance she gets nothing, but I expect they'll at least give her a nonprofit doing $10000/plate "rich women's issues" dinners. That was her key demo, and they need to send the signal that they take care of their own.
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This is glossing over the miserable optics of paying (out of touch) celebrities to be your friends. Of course this wasn't known prior to the election results but it's another count amongst many in which the democratic are currently a laughingstock.
That indicates that Democrats are weak when it comes to earned media. That's a massive issue, but it's a separate one from "I have a giant bag of money and need to spend it." The latter is a good problem to have, even if you're chasing after increasingly marginal edges with each additional dollar.
Only if it's not also in direct conflict with your "get billionaire funding out of politics!" messaging.
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If the rumors are true, it was very badly spent indeed. People are saying that she paid Beyonce $10 million, Lizzo $2.5 million, Cardi B $3 million, and Lady Gaga $5 million.
The value of these endorsements is close to zero. In fact, Lizzo and Cardi B may have negative endorsement value given what they represent. Lizzo: "Just imagine, if Kamala wins, the whole country could be like Detroit".
The payments seem so high as to be scarcely believable so I'd hold off on judgment for now. But if true, it seems like she ran her campaign like the Biden administration has run the country, with no regard for frugality and wasting money on useless vanity projects.
lol lizzo . even the marketplace agrees she is overrated
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