More 20-20 Hindsight: Harris Campaign Fundraiser Dishes on What Went Wrong

Here comes more of that vaunted 20-20 hindsight. DNC National Finance Committee member and Harris campaign fundraiser Lindy Li has been pretty vocal already about the various inputs and decisions that led to the dramatic election loss suffered by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Tuesday, and while she makes some good points, I would caution her about the forest she's missing for all those trees. Lindy Li spoke to "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Saturday and had some rather pointed observations.

"The truth is, this is just an epic disaster – this is a $1 billion disaster," Li declared on Saturday morning, summing up the result of the Harris campaign.

The Democratic Party official began by suggesting that Harris becoming the nominee was a bad choice instigated by President Biden to tank the party’s chances against Trump in revenge for pushing him out of running.
She mentioned that if Trump was such "an existential threat" to America, like Democrats had been saying, they should have had a process of voting on Biden’s successor, "instead of just coronating somebody."
"I actually think President Biden, you know, the whole endorsing her thirty minutes after he dropped out, I think that was a big F you to the party," she said.

That would explain President Biden's rather broad grin when he addressed the nation after Donald Trump's sweeping victory.

But Lindy Li seems to place a lot of stock in the assertions of campaign surrogates, well before the election was held. And she handed them a lot of money based on those assertions. Does that seem right to you?

The DNC member noted she raised money for the campaign based on the understanding that the election was a "margin of error race."
"I raised millions of that. I have friends that I have to be accountable to and to explain what happened because I told them it was a margin of error race. I was promised – [Harris campaign chair] Jen O’Malley Dillon promised all of us that Harris would win. She even put videos out that Harris would win. I believed her, my donors believed her and so they wrote massive checks."

Promises, in politics, are as ephemeral as a spring breeze. We'd note that the Harris/Walz campaign not only spent an enormous pile of cash on their losing race, Harris outspent Trump by a considerable margin - and lost anyway. So much for all the bloviating on the issue of money in politics.

This isn't the first time Lindy Li has spoken up on this matter:

WATCH: Philly Dem Party Chair Lights Up Kamala HQ As the Democrat Civil War Gets Hotter

But the real problem with this campaign, the real reason that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz went down in flames, was not campaign spending, or the ad campaigns, or anything to do with campaign finance - and Lindy Li touches on that real reason only tangentially.

Here's the parting shot:

"I want to point out they waited three days – Michelle and Barack Obama waited three days to endorse Kamala Harris," Li replied. "It was the silence heard round the world."
She suggested this delay occurred because they Obamas were never planning to endorse Harris until Biden forced their hand. "And prior to Biden’s endorsement that no one really anticipated, they were vetting people like [Arizona Senator] Mark Kelly. Kamala Harris wasn’t at the top of the ticket."
Once again accusing Biden’s endorsement of being sabotage, she concluded, "I really think it was a big F you to everybody."

In other words: It was the candidate.

Like Her Imperial Majesty Hillary I, Dowager-Empress of Chappaqua, Kamala "Queen of Word Salads" Harris was just a bad candidate. She's a terrible speaker, only marginally understandable on the teleprompter, an incoherent, jangled mess without it. She is abrasive, unlikeable, and not very bright. I think Lindy Li is right on this much; Joe Biden deliberately sabotaged the Democrats' chances in the 2024 election by foisting Kamala Harris on the party as their standard-bearer. And, yes, it was a big "F you" to the party. Joe Biden has always had a mean, vindictive streak, and his wife, Frau Doktor Professor Jill, likewise. It's hard to see this as anything but deliberate.

But what Lindy Li misses completely is this: How will the Democrats prevent this from happening again?

In 2016, they picked a terrible candidate - unlikeable, abrasive, self-centered, whose primary campaign slogan was "It's my turn, peasants!" She lost to Donald Trump.

In 2020, they picked a terrible candidate - befuddled, hidden away in a basement, not terribly bright, corrupt, and dishonest. He won over Donald Trump by a few thousand votes in a few key cities, amongst allegations of election shenanigans.

In 2024, they picked the worst candidate of all - like Hillary Clinton but without the brains, ill-informed, dull, uninteresting, an unapologetic elitist - and she faced the best Trump of all, hardened by adversity, with a sterling running mate who has a compelling story of his own. She went down in flames.

So while the Democrats are engaged in backbiting and recriminations, they may want to start asking themselves one thing: "Why do we keep picking bad candidates?"

Let's hope they never figure it out.