The Root's 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings: Harris Throws Black Voters Under the Bus(ing?)

[Indygram]

This week’s Black Power Rankings focus on African-American women. Why? Because last weekend was the 25th anniversary of the Essence Festival in New Orleans, one of the biggest, most influential annual gatherings of black women in America (they even made a movie about it!). Essence Fest is basically a mandatory visit for Democratic candidates at this point (even Mother Jones knows it), right up there with eating fried Twinkies at the Iowa State Fair, shilling for cash, and invoking Stacey Abrams’ name like a magic chant.

Since black women are the most important voting bloc of the modern Democratic Party, we decided that any candidate who left Essence Fest on “read” and didn’t show up, send a video, DM or smoke signal couldn’t be in our top 3. Therefore, we had some big shifts this week. As usual, here is our methodology for rankings.

How do you rank a campaign’s Black Power? Well, we have our “FLEX” rating, aka:

-Finances: Are you paying black staff, advertisers, consultants?

-Legislation: What legislation are you pushing or have passed for black people?

-External Polling: No matter how good you are for black people, if your poll numbers are terrible we can’t rank you that high!

-X-Factor: What’s your rhetoric like? How do you handle a crisis or the kinds of events and scandals that directly impact black lives?

This week’s big riser? Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke storms up five spots to land in the top 5 for the first time. Biggest loser? Bernie Sanders drops three spots after not showing up at Essence Fest and not rolling out any new policy targeted at black voters. Sorry, you can’t take a week off from black folks Bernie; we’ll notice. We also have a first-time appearance on our Black Power Rankings by California Rep. Eric Swalwell, but it’s going to be a short stay. Without further ado, The Root 2020 Presidential Week 3 Power Rankings!

https://www.theroot.com/the-roots-2020-presidential-black-power-rankings-week-1836274230

[Princetonian]

1. Truth: "You hear that loud beep-beep sound? That's the sound of Sen. Kamala Harris backtracking..."

From the OP article:

"You hear that loud beep-beep sound? That’s the sound of Sen. Kamala Harris backtracking on her busing position after ethering Joe Biden on the issue during the first debate. Now Harris says busing should be a “local” issue, not necessarily a federal mandate, essentially parroting what the former vice president stumbled to explain in the debate. Not only is this a total cop-out, Harris’ vigorous attack on busing now looks more performative than principle. Her new housing plan for black families is a decent idea, and it might fix our credit scores. However, homes aren’t always the best wealth generator for low-income families, who are often burdened by upkeep and repairs.

Given the senator’s own actions during the housing crisis, who knows if a Harris administration would commit to the followup needed for all these new black homeowners anyway? Finally, Harris’ second-quarter fundraising was just abysmal. If you’re going to take all that Wall Street money, then you better get in their pockets. Harris only raised $12 million, $2 million of which was in the hours after the second debate. If it weren’t for her National Education Association speech and Essence Fest, Harris would’ve fallen even lower on our list."

[ucrdem]

2. They trash Biden for not showing up to the Essence festival

but was he invited? And is he supposed to show up without an invitation and try to crash it??

[Princetonian]

3. I think I read that he had a prescheduled ticketed event which was all set up and ready to go.

He sent his sincere regrets and said he wished he could attend. Essence threw this together. They understand Biden has his calendar booked solid way in advance.

[StarfishSaver]

5. Essence didn't "throw this together"

The Essence Festival takes place every year, the dates for this year's festival were set more than a year ago, they invite the primary candidates every election season, and the invitation to this event went out to all of the candidates months ago and the candidates who joined the race more recently received invitations as soon as they declared.

Biden may have had a good reason for declining it, but it wasn't the Essence Festival organizers' fault that his campaign made the choice that he not attend.

[Princetonian]

12. Symantics aside, I agree with you.

It is no one's fault. My point was many events on Biden's calendar are planned way more than a year in advance.

[StarfishSaver]

4. All of the candidates were invited

[ucrdem]

8. Okay thank you

I know he gave his apology speech that day but I wasn't sure if he'd been invited to the Essence event. Given what went down at the debate it would have awkward. But I think it would have been awkward in any event from what I could find on the website as it seemed geared toward women's fashion.

In any case, the Root piece seems to have a mainly playful intention and I agree that it's funny.

[StarfishSaver]

9. I was disappointed he didn't go

The only reason it would have been awkward is if someone thinks that all black women think alike and assumed that his clash with Kamala Harris would mean black women would be inhospitable to him.

Black women are an important voting bloc and the Essence Festival is a huge opportunity.

Essence Magazine is far more than a fashion magazine and the Essence Festival is far more than a fashion event. It's a huge African American female thought leadership event with panel discussions, plenary sessions, etc. It's a BFD for black women across the country and has been for years.

I've worked on lots of campaigns and have been involved with many tough scheduling decisions - and lost a lot of battles about where the candidate should go on a given day. But I really wish that the people on his campaign who lobbied for him to attend the Essence Festival - and I'm sure there were - had won that particular battle. I think he missed a great hit.

[ucrdem]

10. It seemed like it was Kamala's day. . .

But yeah I wish he'd found a way to be there peaceably though the speech he gave instead was important too. Thanks for the info.

[StarfishSaver]

11. Elizabeth Warren was fantastic, too. So was Mayor Pete.

[BlueWI]

13. My guess is that the former VP to Obama was invited.

Did you think they invited Sanders and not Biden???

Wow, hypersensitive much?

[ecstatic]

6. lol. They lost me at Marianne Williamson.

I admit, Marianne has made some good points on different shows and in the debate... But come on!

[Vegas Roller]

7. K&R n/t