A Harris Ally Says Biden Broke a Promise

[Celerity]

An interview with Senator Laphonza Butler, Democrat of California, during her final week in the Senate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/us/politics/laphonza-butler-biden-harris.html

https://archive.ph/qiZXW


Senator Laphonza Butler, Democrat of California, at her party’s national convention in Chicago last summer.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

Laphonza Butler will have served as a senator from California for only about 15 months. But she has been a close ally of Vice President Kamala Harris for 15 years. This week, I spoke with Butler, whose long partnership with Harris — they first met when Butler was a Los Angeles-based union leader — gives her an intriguing perspective on why her party lost the presidential election and how it might rebuild. Harris hasn’t said much publicly about why she lost. In Butler’s view, some of the fault starts with President Biden, who she believes broke what was a clear campaign promise by running for re-election. But just blaming Biden isn’t enough: Democrats, she says, must stop talking and start listening. Really listening. Butler was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the U.S. Senate seat left open by the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein in September 2023. Because she decided not to run for re-election, this week is her last in the body: On Monday, Representative Adam Schiff will be sworn in as the state’s newest senator.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

LL: Why do you think Harris lost?

LB: The American people wanted a change. They wanted a candidate who they thought represented change. And I think that might simply be it.

Should Biden not have run?

President Biden said initially that he was going to be a transitional leader. I think that is the expectation that people had. So in that sense, I think that he probably would have been better to remain in that posture. We can’t deny the success of his presidency. When history looks back, his presidency will be one of the most impactful in my lifetime, for sure. But I think once you sort of create an expectation with people, there is the need to hold to that.

You were briefly president of EMILYs List, the organization that promotes Democratic female candidates. Do you still think a woman can win the presidency?

I do. The vice president came within 1.5 percent — and that was with a 100-day campaign. If anything, this election proves that a Democratic woman can win.

snip

[marble falls]

1. I think she's right about one thing: the independent voters came to equate Democrats and Republicans as ...

... as "both sides are the same", especially when the few mainstream GOP started to come out against The beast who shall not be named. They went for the "outsider" in their minds - the beast.

Her business regarding Biden/Harris is scab picking and not helpful a bit when the midterms should be number one on our minds, and developing a slate of candidates, not too young and not too old.

[dem4decades]

5. The press is to blame, and MSNBC and CNN are seeing the chickens come home to roost.

[Scrivener7]

2. Ugh. As trump appointees in piss-stained khakis are taking sobriety traffic tests,

and others are having to defend their proven pedophilia, the NYT is trying to gin up its old "Democrats in disarraaaaayyyy!!!!1!" schtick.

[JHB]

3. This is another person who refuses to account for the all-pervassive RW spin apparatus...

...and how that shapes perceptions across the board.

[comradebillyboy]

11. Democrats might try to emulate the very successsful

republican propaganda network.

A big problem for the Dems is that the current crop of left podcasters prefer to attack Democrats and excuse the pukes.

We need our own propaganda machine that actually supports the Democratic Party, not grifters like Hasan Piker and The Young Turds who do little but sow division.

[JHB]

12. The problem is that media and podcasts on our side have no funding.

If you want podcasters and media that don't attack Democrats and don't excuse the pukes, they need to be able to make a living at it, and they need promotion to get them in front of ears and eyeballs and aren't left for people to discover through word of mouth or similar haphazard ways.

You get what you pay for, the Right understands that, our side, not so much.

[BeyondGeography]

4. Biden will go down as the most unpopular effective President in history

Mostly because he was too stubborn to take the W and open things up for 2024 after the midterms. That would have been unprecedented but so was re-electing someone who was already showing signs of decline and who would be 86 by the end of his second term. Why he couldn’t get his head around that when every poll of Democrats was telling him to get off the stage is something for his biographers to ponder.

[Celerity]

6. agree

[akbacchus_BC]

7. I disagree with your assumption. President Biden ran for the Presidency because if he didn't, the orange menace

would have won a second term. Thank goodness President Biden won and he did a great job. In my estimation, he is the best President in dealing with a pandemic, restoring the economy, passing the best ever infrastructure bill in modern history. Too bad his own people are finger pointing. What have rethugs done, except to make their rich friends richer on the backs of the middle and working classes, I cannot wait to see how the union workers will benefit from an orange menace (treasonous pos) presidency.

[Kaleva]

13. Biden did run and Trump won a 2nd term

[akbacchus_BC]

15. Wow! Denigrating VP Harris. No wonder she lost! nt

[Iris]

20. Agreed. Did anyone truly believe Trump would come back?

And he will always have the love of people who got student loans forgiven.

[EdmondDantes_]

8. I don't say this to be mean or disparage Biden

But everyone who seriously runs for president has a significant sense of self- confidence, bordering on ego (or in Trump's case outright narcissism). Especially for a guy who ran twice before and lost, I imagine being president really felt like something he had gotten after so long (and so much personal loss along the way) and giving that up sucks, especially since former presidents fade from the spotlight. And then there's the fact that he was still able to get some pretty significant things done in spite of split government (and general Republican dysfunction).

But it's also hard for everyone to acknowledge when they aren't operating at the same level. My grandfather was parking by touch and still didn't want to accept he shouldn't be driving. I've spent a lot of time in recent years muttering about how I never had to do so much recovery work after working out because my brain still thinks I'm in my early 30s and not mid 40s. Aging is hard on everyone.

[akbacchus_BC]

16. President Biden's only mess up was at the debate with the clown. It was hard to watch. He was his normal self

the next day. Democrats have a tendency to eat their own, remember Al Franken! His party should have rallied around him and supported him rather than publicly calling for him to step down. The media didn't help either, that is one of the main reason I cannot stand Ms. Ruhle, she and other so called Dem media supporters beat that horse to death. The clown is not that much younger and he was incoherent lots of times at his rallies, even in mid-sentence, etc., difference is, rethugs don't eat their own. Dems should take that page as their mantra.

[Polybius]

19. The next day wasn't live questions though

He was also very, very good at the State of the Union.

[EdmondDantes_]

21. That's not true. It's the most prominent example

But the reports from private fundraisers, the Hurr report, and other reports from people in the government and foreign governments said the same thing.

I agree with you that Trump has shown signs of decline but for a variety of factors that didn't apply as much. The biggest reason I think is that he was never sharp. His decline was from a much lower initial point. His selling point wasn't his intelligence or skills as a politician.

The second is he has a somewhat unique hold on his most devoted base. I absolutely don't think that the proper response is to become more blind to flaws. It's not a road to being better.

And Trump benefited from the Biden administration as a whole trying to deny reality about the economy and inflation. Not to say that Trump will do better, but he acknowledged the issue and at least claimed he would address it.

And Al Franken had a number of different women accuse him. Women from different parts of his life with several of those having told others at the time. And he apologized for giving women reason to doubt him. It's hard for me to believe he was innocent considering all of the facts.

[DeepWinter]

9. Agree

By midterm, it weas clear he was in decline. The debates made that abundantly clear, Democrats made it clear they were losing confidence, but rather than move forward with a succession plan a decision was made to attempt to just power forward. That was a tipping point from a possible win, to playing defense. It'll be very interesting to see how 2028 comes together.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

10. Totally agree

[Kaleva]

14. Agree

[Self Esteem]

17. Biden denied multiple times that he would only serve one term.

Whether you think he should have run is not relevant. Her suggestion that he broke a promise is a lie and she should be embarrassed for perpetrating it.

In 2019, Biden said any claim he would seek a one-term pledge was not true.

Mere months into his presidency, Biden said he planned on running in 2024.

Again, whether you think Biden should have run is not the issue here. This woman is lying.

[Lars39]

18. The rules of the game changed.

People not paying attention somehow think Trump and his circus are honorable?

[Iris]

22. Right??