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That's naive and you know it. A massive drive for him was electing the first black president. A less, but still not-insignificant drive was for Hillary as the first female president.


Thats your opinion, Obama could have been white, and he still would have been voted for by 99.9% of those who voted for him. Young Kennedy-like candidates are rare (eg Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) but are incredibly electable when they show up.

Towards the end of his presidency, most of us forgot he was even black. Just those white southerners and a certain old guy in New York who were fixated on his race from the beginning still thought he was a DEI elect.


There were hit songs about what a big moment it is that he was black. At least among minorities that was a massive deal. If you didn't see that, I think you're probably closer to those white southerners than you might think you are.

Can you imagine if mainstream entertainers made songs celebrating having a white president?


Given that all of them but one are white, what the point that would be? Songs are not because Obama is black, but because he was the first black on the role.


So you are opposed to fixating on people's race and yet there you are singling out white southerners. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.


It's important not to start wars first. Good arguments would also help.


They self-selected. Loudly.


Most people forgot Obama was black except them, they are also the ones constantly accusing Obama of being racially divisive, they should just own what they say. This is kind of like Trump calling people names but then being greatly offended when someone calls him a name, right?


I’d be shocked if Hilary had a net benefit being a female candidate. We’ve had 2 chances to elect a female president and they both lost the general election with not that great turnout.

John McCain’s VP was female during 08 and he lost by a huge margin.


Hillary and Kamala got boosts from being a woman. They just had a massive drop because of, especially in Hillary's case, being deeply unlikeable.

Kamala probably wins in 2016.


> Hillary and Clinton got boosts

It’s Hillary and Kamala Harris.

I’m not saying they don’t get some voters from being women, the point is they also lost votes from being women.

I think a rotting corps might have won in 2016, but 4 years later vs a women and suddenly he’s doing great.


Kamala lost because of Biden, who somehow was even less likeable than Hillary by the end.


In a way yes. Kamala lost because she was the ultimate DEI candidate (in how own words that the only reason he picked her to be VP). Regardless of her personal skills or qualities it’s very hard to move past that..

Had she had a chance to prove that she could win a primary things might have been different


In a way yes. Kamala lost because she was the ultimate DEI candidate (in how own words that the only reason he picked her to be VP). Regardless of her personal skills or qualities it’s very hard to move past that..


Biden fucked up in many ways, but he also got a lot of flack from bad timing and poor messaging. It’s easy to say COVID hurt Trump in 20 and Kamala in 24, but I think the details mattered.

The inflation rate fell significantly under his presidency, but during periods of high inflation prices soared. Coming back from that after generations of extremely low inflation would have been tough for someone without failing facilities. I think a great politician could have weathered that storm, Biden wasn’t up to the task and Kamala’s messaging didn’t help.

Republicans getting out ahead on that inflation messaging similarly did wonders for Trump and other Republicans. Planting the idea that America somehow didn’t do well when we did far better than the rest of the world was brilliantly executed IMO.


> coming back from that after generations of extremely low inflation would have been tough for someone without failing facilities

But facing off against someone who was never particularly sharp or articulate. I think it evened the playing field.


Yes... Biden's presidency objectively wasn't bad, but the way it was messaged and the optics he gave off were just impossible to recover from.


Kamala probably wins in 2016? I mean this in a very nice way but I think you may want research the politics and candidates in the US a little more before bold statements such as that. Kamala was unable to even register on a scale in the primary and what noise she did make was to play a false game on which she essentially accused Biden of being racist filth. I think it is not just that she had no qualifications for office, we could argue about what constitutes a qualification for a long time, but she had no reasoning or theory of why she would even be someone yo run for office. She tablet in such incomprehensible ways that one could not even discern a point from her utterances. You may say the current president rambles but she think the point is always present. Kamala on her best days just spoke in long winded tautologies: “we are always doing each day the things we do every day” or whenever nonsense she chose to present to the public. Further, he main qualification to place herself as one of the poor people was to constantly talk about being a “middle class kid.” The problem is in her generation, the middle class did quite well for themselves so it was such a false premise. Let’s not discuss the accents.


It did help her to get on the ballot quite a bit. Of course it had the opposite effect in the general election.


That was not at all the main reason Obama got elected. He was charismatic, likable and promised hope and change. Why is it that the people who don't want identity politics to be a focus make it a focus?




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