Nothing quite puts the focus on the next election like getting thoroughly spanked in the previous election, but before changes can be made, the losing party must first endure the humiliating process of finger-pointing before mistakes can be admitted to and corrected.
The Kamala Harris campaign and the DNC are still in the finger-pointing stage, and the latest news is pop-some-corn-and-slather-it-in-butter-worthy — and it's stunning for both what it did say and left unsaid.
Before we get to that, just a few quick words on the successful post-mortem Donald Trump's team and the RNC performed after the 2020 debacle.
Trump spent the '20 campaign season warning us that the Dems were going to try to steal the election. Like you, I waited all summer and fall to see what his "Stop the Steal" plan was, but the answer turned out to be "Not much." Neither the White House nor the RNC seemed prepared for the scope and audacity of what the Democrat-Media Complex was willing to do.
The RNC needed a shakeup. It needed fighters at the helm. It did not need more Ronna McDaniel.
Getting rid of McDaniel might have been late in coming — and initially resisted by the Trump camp, for reasons I'll never comprehend — but she was replaced in time by Michael Whatley and Lara Trump. They established an effective "Stop the Steal" organization at the RNC. They got on top of things quickly and stayed there until the steal was indeed stopped. The result was a lopsided 312-226 win.
It wasn't an easy process, but it was necessary, and to his great credit, Trump did get it done.
That brings us back to the chaos still emanating from the ruins of the Harris-Walz campaign.
Rob Flaherty, Harris's former deputy campaign manager, did an interview with Semafor's Max Tani that was equal parts brutal honesty and obliviousness.
After complaining for a while that professional sports have become too right-wing (!!!), Flaherty took a more reflective look at the media landscape.
“It’s not as simple as, like, ‘Go to Joe Rogan and talk about how great democracy is and the importance of preserving the independence of the DOJ,’ or whatever. You’ve got to speak their language," Flaherty said. "But as long as we seem like the party of the system, the people who are anti-system and are looking for anti-systemic media — we’re gonna have a hard time connecting with them.”
Flaherty is this close to getting it.
In the sense that Flaherty means that, it almost didn't matter who the Democrat nominee was. None of them would have been able to put on a convincing performance for Rogan (least of all Harris) because the Democrat-Media Complex IS the system.
Here's the stunning admission:
Flaherty said the campaign skipped opportunities to talk to the major legacy news outlets because of Harris’ extremely limited time and its survey data, which showed that their audiences overwhelmingly supported Harris already.
“There’s just no value — with respect to my colleagues in the mainstream press — in a general election, to speaking to the New York Times or speaking to the Washington Post, because those [readers] are already with us,” Flaherty said.
I'm not sure I've ever heard a more blatant admission from a Democrat that the mainstream press serves as the Democrats' house organ.
The point is that maybe the Harris campaign was smart to skip WaPo and the NYT, but then look at the alternative media outlets Harris did go to. "Call Her Daddy" isn't exactly known for turning out the vote, and Harris had to pay cold, hard campaign cash just to appear with Oprah, a former TV host who gave up much of her public influence more than a decade ago. Mostly, Harris did her best to avoid all media, traditional or alternative.
Harris's limited abilities and the DNC's position in the Democrat-Media complex limited her media choices to the has-beens and the never-will-bes.
Much, one can hope, like the former candidate herself.
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