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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21713 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Not sure if anyone is seriously floating Michelle Obama, but I think Kamala Harris would be an absolute disaster.

Serious in the 'haha just kidding unless' since. No one is 'serious' since no one would 'seriously' try to directly unseat the sitting President, but if Biden were to fall for completely unrelated reasons, Michelle Obama would be one of the most serious contenders in a convention-negotiated candidate.

Among her positives, she has the name-recognition, is broadly associated with positive things/better times, is directly connected with the Obama-wing of the party which remains the dominant institutional actor of the party, and due to her 'inexperience' would be expected to/can credibly offer significant policy influence to the wings of the party in terms of appointments, more so than a more factionally-locked candidate might. She's also- significantly- not in a current position of importance/would not derail political careers/induce risk of election loss by stepping down as an incumbant and possibly open up a meaningful billet for an election loss.

This is all very, very positive in a convention-negotiation scenario, which would be an absolute disaster in general. No one from a back-room convention will be able to claim the mantle of legitimacy from all the state party selections, and in lieu of that it's critically important to have few in-party enemies (Michelle basically has none in the public awareness, unlike Hillary whose factionalism was legendary), have connections with other symbols of legitimacy (her marriage to Obama), have connections across a broad part of the Party (again, her marriage to Obama, who remains a key Democratic influencer), avoid sharing the issues the brought down the previous person and forced the choice (Michelle is young(er) and fit), and finally be able to take the dive gracefully in a way that sets up the next iterative round.

A Michelle election strategy would very likely run on a 'she's above the nastiness' while letting proxies attack, serving as best as possible as a foil rather than a mirror for Trump (where, whatever else one thinks of Biden, he also is easily cast as 'other old white corrupt liar'). It wouldn't necessarily be a bad strategy either- possibly the best from a bad hand- even as it (theoretically) could play to a lot of the Democrat's party interests and must-have coalition members, including the African-American vote, and the general professional female cohort. It's something more likely to help hold the party together in a way that appeals to its current core interests (urbanized professionals and progressive activists) than some of the other possibilities who could drive off the activists or deter the ongoing realignment progress of the national-security never-trump republicans, which has been party target since Hillary.

I think it’s widely acknowledged that Oprah (1st) and Michelle (2nd) would be the ‘ideal’ candidate. George Clooney is probably up there too. But none of them want to do it.

Oprah has way too many skeletons in the closet or she'd have run for something eons ago.

Hanging around shady Hollywood types like Weinstein wouldn’t sink her with the base, it’s not like Trump’s past affiliations sunk him. She’s also a woman (a black woman especially) which is Teflon against those accusations especially in front of a base that’s predominantly older women and POC. Any shady men she hung around can be excused as the kind of thing you have to do as a black woman to succeed in America. I think she just doesn’t want to do it.

I think Oprah is smart enough to realize that being a politician is a really bad deal, and michelle has enough first/second hand experience to know that. Besides, Oprah is an influential, household name already- it’s not like she needs to become a politician to get influence.

This all hinges on her wanting the job. And I’m not certain that she does.

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