Kamala Harris opening her presidential bid with a fairly Clintonite platform. I think it’s clear by now she’s not going to take the nom by outflanking to the left, but she’s 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 “was gonna be” by extrapolating from early Obama, a Dem equivalent to how Kasich ‘16 was clearly a man who started plotting under Dubya for a world where Christian Democratic “compassionate conservatism” had established itself as the GOP ethos.

But thinking more I think it’s more like she started planning around ‘05 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’t seen much appreciated about Harris and Gillibrand – 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 – people will chip in to buy favor even before its clear they’re top-tier viable, and if they go the distance they’re tied into deep networks. That’s gonna be big in a crowded primary.