This is the one area where I’m optimistic. Of all her failings, she seems to present well.

I think she has more charisma than Hillary. I went to a Hillary speech once - smaller audience at a university, Obama-era - and while she’s a good and compelling speaker when speaking to her base, I think she’s prone to phrasing that’s too easily taken out of context out simply easily misinterpreted even in context. The famous example being, of course, when she told middle-America that she wanted to destroy their way of life and put them out of jobs. What she said was that she was going to shut down the coal industry, but that means different things to different people. Kamala is less prone to that, I think. And Hillary was hard to warm to, and I’m kind of a fan of hers.

But we haven’t really seen a lot from Kamala yet.

What I think she has in her favor:

1. 4 years in the White House. That’s tremendously valuable experience, even if she was only a proxy and exigency case.
2. She might draw support from law enforcement, who’ve been solidly in Camp Trump. She’s going to have to play that carefully, because she could also easily alienate another entire sector. If all she accomplishes is to drive a little wedge in there, that’d be a big win. If you look at polling, Trump leads in “tough on crime.” Kamala could shorten that lead.
3. She’s a woman. Yeah, this is one of those big questions of whether it’ll hurt more than help, but there’s an ocean of women (and men) who are still furious about Hilary’s loss, and the fact that the USA is one of (maybe the only?) developed country which has never elected a woman leader. And she’s pro-women’s rights. If she can rally the feminist community, carefully, without alarming the misogynists (is that possible?) such that it becomes a club the One-Eared use against her… I think it’s a potential positive.
4. She’s a woman of color. Hell, she has not only a black heritage, but Asian as well. I don’t really know how the mixed race thing plays; I’ve heard that it can hurt more than help. Again, it’s a card that, if she plays it carefully, could bring in a lot of votes. Shit, 5% of New Jersey residents are of south Asian heritage.
5. So far, she’s a Middle-East wild card. You publicly support your boss, and her boss was Israel Über Alles. But we don’t know what position she’ll take when she’s making decisions. This gives her wiggle room. Frankly, I think openly supporting Palestine is political suicide - Israel has invested far too much in lobbying, and Palestine hasn’t; she’d lose more votes than she’d gain, despite the outrage on Lemmy about the genocide. But she at least has an opportunity to pick her own position that could offer hope to the victims in the West Bank, without giving Israel the finger and sending their vast financial resources in the US to Trump.
6. The debate will be huge. She’ll need to learn from the mistakes in the format, and try to arrange something more debate-ish. But she’s hella sharper than Trump, and that’ll show if she gets good coaching. Look, everyone knows how Trump is going to present; it should be easy for some smart people to use that to maximize making him look more like an idiot. Maybe a little baiting, to get his ego talking more than his incoherent ranting full of dog-whistles. I don’t know, I’m not an expert. But Kamala can hire experts.
7. Biden’s staff are incompetent boobs. They’ve mishandled this entire election cycle, giving him bad advice, and bad support. They’ve been so bad, it’s hard to believe they don’t have saboteurs in his cabinet. His performance at the debate? It’s like someone gave him Nyquil, when they should have given him amphetamines. Fuck, if there’s any time to risk a stimulant and pay the price tomorrow, it was at that fucking debate. Anyway, Kamala has an opportunity to hire her own West Wing team, and frankly, that alone can make or break her campaign. She needs a smart, savvy, experienced, and maybe a little devious and ruthless team, and she has a chance to hire them without it looking like she’s chaotically shuffling the deck like Trump’s term.

Look people shouldn’t vote based on heritage, or skin color, or gender - but they do, and you work with what you’ve got when the stakes are this high, and you’ve only got a few months to capture votes.

I think she has a lot going for her. We don’t even know if she’ll be the nominee; maybe someone stronger will win. I think Booker wouldn’t be a bad choice; he’s white, male, and young - that’s removes a lot of variables and is safer. But it it’s Kamala, I think she’s got a lot to work with. If she, or her team, can play her cards well.