One other thought ...

By timing his bow out for after the GOP convention, he deprived them of a three-day pile on against Harris on national TV.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
One other thought ...

By timing his bow out for after the GOP convention, he deprived them of a three-day pile on against Harris on national TV.

It also comes after Trump picked Vance, whose wife is also of South Asian descent. That's going to force them to hold their tongues a bit... if they have any will power, which I suspect they don't, and they'll get called out for their hypocrisy.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
great. a coronation. just the thing to whip up enthusiasm. not.

Fighting a man who is out to destroy democracy and become a dictator should be enough to whip up enthusiasm. Truly.

I suppose I need to say this: from my viewpoint, the only way Harris isn't the nominee is if she chooses to step aside, and I don't see why she would or should, given the coalescing of support behind her.

One of the weaknesses that I remember is that, the last time around, she had a quaver in her voice. I know that's silly and stupid, but it doesn't make her look as strong as she should (or as strong as I believe she is). I hope she's had some coaching on buffing up her public presentation.

I know you don’t mean anything by it, and for the record, I don’t think you’re sexist.

But I don’t see anything wrong with the way she speaks or sounds.

There are plenty of men in politics, and they don’t have their voices criticized to the same extent or have people suggest they get coaching to change their natural speaking voice.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
I know you don’t mean anything by it, and for the record, I don’t think you’re sexist.

But I don’t see anything wrong with the way she speaks or sounds.

There are plenty of men in politics, and they don’t have their voices criticized to the same extent or have people suggest they get coaching to change their natural speaking voice.

I've heard male politicians criticized if their voice is too thin or reedy.

From my point of view, I don't think the voice in the stump speech matters. What matters is the brain behind the voice, and the voice matters in smaller conversations ... as the play Hamilton says, in the room where it happens. I have no reason to think she isn't just fine in those contexts.

But, if she's the candidate, and I believe she will be, I want her to win, dammit. And I know that there was angst over the quaver in her voice when she last ran for President.

She's so smart and adaptive that I have to believe she'd improve that with good coaching.

We have big time selection bias going on here. The reason we don't have too many people (male or female) with strange voices, affects, or accents is that most of them are weeded out of the process long before they get to the national stage.

Can you imagine someone like Cordell Hull on the national stage today? Nope. Instead, our "hillbillies" sound like Yale-educated J.D. Vance. Nationalization of politics has tended to homogenize political speech toward mostly the standard "American accent," or possibly the aristocratic southern accent, and without the kinds of tics that grate on people.

Biden is one of the few stutterers to make it to the top. Why? Because he worked assiduously to iron it out.

I have never thought Kamala had a voice "issue." A mountain out of the proverbial molehill. If you want an example of cringy voice (yes, female) that got a backlash, all we have to do is go back to the last Republican response to the State of the Union. That's when I learned the term "Fundie Baby Voice."

Fundie Baby Voice

quote:

possibly the aristocratic southern accent

isn't that a contradiction in terms?

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:

quote:

possibly the aristocratic southern accent

isn't that a contradiction in terms?

Have heard many of a sort that considers themselves aristocrats. They have lofty opinions of themselves, no class, and they don't tip. Meanwhile they are telling you how important they are. All this is done with a manner of speech that lets you know how royal they are.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
The four logical choices (to me) are ...

Kelly -- because Arizona.
Whitmer -- because Michigan.
Shapiro -- because Pennsylvania.

Beshear -- wild card. Could negate the fake-hillbilly Vance and possibly make some southern states interesting.


Edit:

Let me add Roy Cooper -- North Carolina. Could be a twofer. Make North Carolina viable AND smack the fake hillbilly Vance.

Kelly -- How does the campaign deal with his labor record?
Shapiro -- Will lose all those unhappy with Biden's handling of the war in Gaza.
Cooper -- Bad look for the campaign. He is not only older than Kamala, he looks older. Could be read as patronizing.

By process of elimination, I end up with Beshear. But my question with him is he doesn't support an assault weapons ban. How does the campaign reconcile that?

I used have the strange notion that Catholics couldn't be aristocrat. This when I was five or something. I was dead wrong. I don't use this term often but it must certainly have been unconscious bias.

Southerners can definitely be aristocrats. Many people with aristocratic ancestry moved to New Orleans from all over Europe. You can see many of the treasures they brought with them for sale at Rau Antiques on Royal Street.

Think of Katherine Hepburn in-- "Suddenly, Last Summer" (1959).

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by piqué:

quote:
possibly the aristocratic southern accent



isn't that a contradiction in terms?



Have heard many of a sort that considers themselves aristocrats. They have lofty opinions of themselves, no class, and they don't tip. Meanwhile they are telling you how important they are. All this is done with a manner of speech that lets you know how royal they are.

I meant the accent. Nothing aristocratic sounding about a Southern accent, to my ears.

I'm having a good look at Tim Walz. He doesn't appear to have much baggage to hinder him down.

Nice chat with Jen Psaki...
https://youtu.be/CLqvjlR_hmY?feature=shared

I’m thinking Mark Kelly. You don’t want to pick anyone who could be tarred as liberal. And how does one attack a combat pilot and astronaut?

Love Walz though. Second choice.

I think Shapiro would be a mistake. Gaza protesters would follow him around and disrupt the happy, forward looking vibe she has going.

Besides, she is basically tied in battleground states. She doesn’t need a Shapiro boost. AZ is the state where she is further behind, and Kelly would help.