Harris Campaign: Biden Garbage Comment No Big Deal

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

This is deplorable. The Harris people are bitterly clinging to their Nazi and garbage lines of attack, insisting that nobody cares that President Joe Biden called half the country "garbage."

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The Harris campaign is scrambling to contain the damage, but the problem is that Joe Biden just said the not-so-quiet part out loud. Democrats have been calling Republicans Nazis so often that the accusation has lost its sting. It is almost background noise, as you can see in the polls. Democrats spent a week trying to drive home the point using General Mattis' comments, and Trump's numbers are up. Not because people think he is a Nazi, but because the accusation has lost its oomph. 

The residual, though, is that Republicans got the message loud and clear: Democrats and the elite HATE HATE HATE us, and now the "garbage" comment resonates because it is a new way of saying an old thing, and reminds swing voters about just who really is divisive. 

As expected, Josh Shapiro gave a straightforward and much better answer than Walz. But he is a Jew, and hence left off the ticket.

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If this were a singular example, the "grammar" argument might fly; the problem is that we had "bitter clingers," "deplorables," "fascists" and grandma killers, and now "garbage."

It doesn't fit with the whole BS "unity" thing. 

Kamala Harris has answered questions about this twice, and given rather wishy-washy answers. Instead of just saying NO!, Trump voters are not garbage, she minces words about not attacking people for who they vote for. That is hardly the same thing. She could have said that Trump voters are patriotic Americans who want what is best for the country, but we just happen to disagree. Instead she left the door open: don't hate Trump voters because of how they filled out an oval; hate them for being deplorable Nazis. 

Bad answer in my book. She could have strongly denounced the sentiment while making a rather halfhearted defense of Joe Biden's heart being the right place or something. 

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Kamala's mistake in not STOMPING on this story by embracing Trump voters--not Trump, but Trump voters--is huge. Saying she wants their vote is a statement of the obvious. Saying that she doesn't want them hating her and the Democrats is similarly obvious. But everybody knows she is a radical at heart, even if they don't want to think about it because, well, but...Trump! The Biden comment and her waffling make her look evasive. 

Frank Luntz is almost certainly correct: this will hit Kamala where it hurts. Instead of the Nazi accusations being in the background, they will take on new significance. 

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"Hey, they really mean that! My uncle or father is voting for Trump, and he isn't garbage." Democrats get in people's faces all the time, and this will remind moderates that much of the division is Democrats attacking Republicans. 

No once incident seals the deal. We all thought that Trump's "grab 'em by the..." comment would destroy his chance to be president. 

It didn't. But it did hurt him and continues to do so today. Many women have a visceral dislike of Trump rooted in that one incident. He survived it, but it hurt. 

(Notice how they called Biden the "ex-president.)

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This, too, will hurt Kamala, and she doesn't have a lot of time to recover. I doubt she will, but I have been wrong before. 

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