California Governor Race: It's time for Porter-If Dems can support a woman

[Sympthsical]

4. This is unhelpful right out of the gate

With Swalwell's ostensible exit, a lot of people will start focusing on the race and looking at it with fresh eyes. You want to be as appealing to them as possible.

Instead, here's an adversarial framing from the word go. "Porter is great - if you can handle a woman!"

This stuff only really appeals to white suburban women and the social media spaces that cater to them. Which, if anyone has noticed, is not California's biggest demographic. Rather than appeal, it reinforces an image of Porter that's currently floating around that she's somewhat prickly and unnecessarily confrontational.

So this framing is a choice. Very "with friends like these" coded.

I voted for Porter in the Senate race and am generally positive on her, but yes, her disposition and how that fits into an executive role gives me some pause. I'm Steyer-leaning at the moment, but that is extremely subject to change. But verbiage like this does nothing to nudge me closer to her camp. It gets an eye-roll at best, but it's really just cloying an irritating. We're going to start this shit now, are we?

Porter has a lot of plusses going for her. Let's emphasize that if we're aiming for a re-introduction of the race.