Former President Donald Trump continued his obsession with crowd size on Sunday, claiming photos that showed a large crowd outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ Detroit rally last week were AI-generated. But one photographer who was in attendance confirmed to the Daily Beast that the images his camera captured were very real.
Those independent votes are as important this election as they were in 2016, though.
That’s absolutely true, of course. But that doesn’t mean showing unity between old-guard, establishment Democrats and more progressive factions will be a bad thing. For one, Clinton’s image has improved substantially compared to the orange turd. For another, this will definitely be seen as a positive, passing-of-the-torch kind of deal.
In fact, I’m leaning towards the opinion that denying the Clintons opportunities to speak in support of Harris would have been seen as divisive at a time when optimism and unity are driving her campaign. And independents definitely like to see optimism and unity.
Not trying to be combative here but do you have any sources? It’s been hard finding recent data, but in 2018 her favorability was still very low. [1] The best I can find is 19% (compared to Harris 29%) backing Hillary as nominee should Biden drop out back in February. [2]
I can see your arguments, but I’m also wary of halting the momentum of the campaign, which has somehow managed to position itself as new and fresh and unburdened by what has been (establishment democrats).
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No worries, I’ll never be upset by requests for citations. Those are always legitimate to ask for.
According to YouGov, her current popularity is 42%, her “Disliked By” rating is 38%, and 18% feel neutral about her. I’d assume those numbers shift when looking only at Democrats and independents, but regardless, it’s quite a distance from her 2018 favorability ratings. Source: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Hillary_Clinton
It’s impressive I guess that she’s clawed back to barely favourable, I’ll give her that. However, I don’t think you can think about only her appeal to other democrats. The DNC doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The republicans have a vast array of old Hillary attack angles ready to go, and footage of Harris and Hillary together puts all of those back in play. Trump and his cronies can and will use them all in hopes of swaying independents and undecideds who still dislike Clinton. It’s a vulnerability I don’t think the campaign needs in exchange for dubious gains.
It’s important to remember this is just a speech, not an invitation for the Clintons back into the White House. I trust the Harris team to have thought this through.
And it occurs to me they have an obvious response: “Why are you campaigning against Hillary Clinton? That’s a weird thing to do, she’s not running.”
Politics has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with optics - if it wasn’t already known since before, then the Trump win in 2016 definitively proved it. Maybe I’m overly cautious though, I just am wary of opening actual angles of attack. Right now Trump’s side has nothing.