CBPolitics Profile picture
Sep 21 6 tweets 1 min read Read on X
One of the most encouraging developments of this election is that Kamala Harris has clearly learned something that Democrats have traditionally refused to accept:

For purposes of winning an election, policy doesn’t matter. (1/)
Policy matters very much AFTER YOU GET ELECTED. But governing and campaigning are two different things. The voters who are interested in policy are 1) in the minority and 2) already know who they’re voting for. The people you have to convince won’t be convinced by policy. (2/)
Those of us who know and care about policy already know what either candidate is going to do. It doesn’t need to be said. We’ve already decided.

The undecideds are low-information voters who have to be won at a gut level. (3/)
Republicans have always understood this, which has been a necessity for them, because their policies have been unpopular for almost a century. They’ve learned to make elections about anything but policy, and as a result, they have won a lot more often than they should have. (4/)
Democrats too often have treated elections like a document dump, just throwing out position papers and trusting the voters to give a damn.

Spoiler alert—undecided voters don’t give a damn. If they cared about policy, THEY WOULDN’T BE UNDECIDED. (5/)
All Democrats do by focusing on policy during elections is allow themselves to be bled to death by a thousand cuts. Harris barely stepped into the policy box one time, and the entire media pounced. Why go there? It’s bad politics.

She seems to get it now. That’s good. (6/6)

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More from @ClistonBrown

Aug 16
So let me tell you why I’m really encouraged about Harris right now:

She understands—in a way Democrats have largely resisted understanding for the last three years—that voters judge the economy based on prices. And she is offering proposals that go right at that problem.
Republicans clearly understand how effective Harris’s proposals are likely to be and they are currently screaming their heads off about “price controls,” hoping to either get her to back off of a winning strategy, or to convince people that action on prices is somehow a bad idea.
Remember this: if, as Democrats, we ever see that Republicans are screaming their fool heads off about something, we should double down on it and keep doubling down on it. When Republicans are screaming, that means we’re winning.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 2
There has been an uptick the last 24 hours in Democrats suggesting Biden tell the Supreme Court to go pound sand. That’s a position I share.

But it is important to understand that there are some practical limitations to that, and it depends upon the ruling. (1/)
To wit—there’s nothing Biden can do about a decision like Dobbs, which gives states the power to decide. Unless he’s ready to send the Army into Mississippi to protect abortion clinics, he can’t just snap his fingers and make that ruling go away. (2/)
However, if the Supreme Court issues a ruling that forbids Biden from taking an action, yeah, he can ignore that and do whatever he wants. Because what are they going to do about it? Does the Supreme Court have a police force? LOL. (3/)
Read 5 tweets
May 17
If you ever find yourself wondering “Why do old people have such outsized power while nobody listens to young people?”—consider this:

1) In every single election since such data have been tracked, under 25s have had the lowest turnout of any age demographic. No exceptions. (1/)
2) In every single election since such data have been tracked, over 65s have had the highest turnout of any age group.

3) Politicians’ first priority is getting elected or reelected. When they ask “Who’s going to vote?” they inevitably come to this conclusion: “Fuck those kids.”
They don’t care if you protest. “Have fun, kids. Protest all you like. You won’t vote, and I’ll still be here after the novelty of protesting wears off. When you buy a house and have some kids, you’ll start voting, and then you’ll vote for me because you know my name.”
Read 4 tweets
May 14
Folks, there are a couple things going on right now that you just need to ignore and stop worrying about:

1) Polling is completely, 100% fucked. If you believe Trump is winning by 13% in Nevada and leading in New Jersey, step away from Twitter and get help.

(1/)
2) Six months out from an election, people have a tendency to spout off. They’re pissed off about one thing or another, and they’re just talking out of their asses right now. “Screw Biden, I’m gonna vote for RFK!” In a few months, when things get serious, they’ll get real.

(2/)
Every election, polls show that voters start to “come home” in the last few weeks of a campaign. That’s because at some point, people stop blowing off steam and start thinking about what they’re doing. It isn’t that anything has really changed. It’s just “shit-or-get” time.

(3/)
Read 9 tweets
Dec 15, 2023
The reason leftists annoy me is because they cause Democrats to lose and have no recognition whatsoever that they are a liability. They want what they want, but they aren’t willing to do the hard work necessary to get it. They don’t get that progress happens piecemeal. (1/)
Every time Democrats have gone too far left too fast, the voters have punished us. People fear rapid change. You have to warm them up to it a little bit at a time. The left’s impatience always results in a backlash that ultimately pushes their goals further away. (2/)
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to some of the things they want to do. For example, I believe health care should be available to everyone, even though I think M4A is unworkable. But when you try to get big change all at once, people get scared. They need digestible bites. (3/)
Read 8 tweets
Oct 25, 2023
What we all have to understand is that Republicans fundamentally believe the 1960s destroyed their country. They believe that the Civil Rights movement, gay rights, the Sexual Revolution and the antiwar movement wrecked America. It is vital to understand this, because … (1/)
When you understand what they believe, it is easy to understand what they’re trying to do, and all of these things that keep shocking us actually make sense and become predictable. They’re trying to repeal the 1960s and everything that’s happened societally since then.
If you don’t understand why they want to ban abortion AND curtail birth control, it’s because they think sexual freedom has destroyed the family and the nation’s entire way of life. They want to take away that freedom by making it so risky that unmarried people will abstain.
Read 4 tweets

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