Kamala Harris opening her presidential bid with a fairly Clintonite platform. I think it\u2019s clear by now she\u2019s not going to take the nom by outflanking to the left, but she\u2019s got a chance at claiming black support as a bloc, and that + female-tinged middle-class centrism is an entirely viable D path these days.
I was gonna say that several years ago she started aiming herself at where politics \u201cwas gonna be\u201d by extrapolating from early Obama, a Dem equivalent to how Kasich \u201816 was clearly a man who started plotting under Dubya for a world where Christian Democratic \u201ccompassionate conservatism\u201d had established itself as the GOP ethos.
But thinking more I think it\u2019s more like she started planning around \u201805 off the conventional wisdom of where a D candidate would have to be to beat Bushism.
Contrast with Gillibrand who opened a bit leftier, her internalized Clintonianism seems to be in opportunistically adapting to new constituencies though; I reliably trust that General Gillibrand would be further right than Primary Gillibrand and President Gillibrand more so still.
One thing I haven\u2019t seen much appreciated about Harris and Gillibrand \u2013 as sitting Senators from the D-donor-rich states of New York/California, who will either become President or return to the chamber and become senior Senators when Schumer & DiFi retire, they have a big fundraising advantage \u2013 people will chip in to buy favor even before its clear they\u2019re top-tier viable, and if they go the distance they\u2019re tied into deep networks. That\u2019s gonna be big in a crowded primary.
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