It's Kamala!

[Dill]

(08-13-2020, 11:25 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, one might say with Palin they showed they do not take their base seriously... but sure, I see your point.

I mean the racism thing is nonsense for sure, but I have to say that imho the overall point sounds like a fair one to make. By committing to a black female early on, Biden excluded many people preemptively, hence artificially limiting his choices based on factors like gender and race, that, yeah, just are not qualifications based on merit. I'm not trying to be foxier than FOX here, that just seems to be true.

The other way round, if someone asked me why Biden picked Harris, the first thing to respond imho is not "because she was the best choice", but to say "because she was a black female and possibly the best choice amongst this group". Which, in a sense, could be seen as bad for Harris as well. She'll always have this label now.

That was not quite what I tried to be getting at.... it's also that hispanics behave way more like a "swing demographic", if you will. Most blacks are in the Dem camp, the same is not true for most hispanics.
And often folk choose a VP to win a certain swing state or a certain undecided group, why not apply this logic here. It might just as well turn out more hispanics than a black VP turns out additional black votes.
My hint that there are more hispanics overall was rather tongue in cheek and directed at the argument of diversity. I just feel a case can be made for a hispanic female VP with the same logic applied. Aren't hispanic women also marginalized?

I get the strategy (also from your first sentences I just skipped), I also get that's a valid counterargument, but wouldn't he be right to presume he already has the black vote? I feel he has. The black states secured him the nomination in the first place, and I don't think it was because of his black female VP promise. They will still strongly prefer him over Trump no matter who is VP. Maybe.

1. LOL, sounds like YOU don't take the Republican base seriously, at least the Evangelical wing. 

2. When Fox commentators affirm merit over race, gender etc., it's not because they are suddenly all about principle, affirming THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB and anti-identity politics; it's because they are for Trump. 

3. I think it will be up to Harris whatever label she finally has. If she becomes president and manages a crisis well, no will say "She managed it well for a black female." Saying that she was picked because she was the best qualified only among black Dem females is no different that saying Pence was the best qualified among all the Evangelicals who might deliver votes. But Fox slant trots out the "merit" argument only when it comes to women and minorities.

4. Your counter argument about the Hispanic "swing" vote is a good one. Hispanic women certainly are marginalized, although historically not to the degree black women have been. The X factor which I introduced is that Black women have done so much groundwork for Dems, especially in the South. Ever since the great turn in 1964. 

5. It is right to presume Biden will get more of the black vote than Trump. But he needs an Obama-level turn out. Remember how many women were offended when Obama won the nomination over Hillary, and many refused to vote. Then when it was Hillary's turn, she lost millions of Bernie supporters by not treating the Left-without-quotation-marks seriously. She got much more of the Black vote than Trump, but needed that extra 8-10% that stayed home. Biden was responding to an organized demand from within the party, most of it coming from people who would be doing the ground work of campaigning--or maybe not so much if they feel publicly dissed.  Now he can figure out what to promise to keep the Bernie/Warren supporters without scaring off the moderates.