Former Barack Obama fundraiser Don Peebles says Harris lacks charisma, 'it' factor
If elected president next week, Kamala Harris will break ground as the first woman of color to reach the highest office in the land, but that is not to say that everyone believes that she shares many characteristics with the first man to achieve a similar milestone status.
According to real estate mogul Don Peebles, a former major fundraiser for Barack Obama, Harris lacks the charisma of the man who ascended to the White House in 2008, and the weaknesses he sees may lead to her defeat at the hands of former President Donald Trump, as Fox News reports.
Harris' charisma deficit
Peebles made his position clear during a Saturday appearance on Fox News' Neil Cavuto Live, and he held little back in terms of contrasting key characteristics of Harris and Obama.
The successful real estate investor recalled Obama as “an inspiring figure” who displayed a “big personality,” adding that he was “very charismatic, super smart, and very disciplined. And he represented a dramatic change.”
When it comes to the vice president and current Democratic Presidential nominee, Peebles said, “Harris represents more of the status quo. She is not charismatic, she is not overly engaging, and she can't stay on message.”
That makes her, according to Peebles, a “complete contrast” to the 44th president, whose popularity remains strong among many to this very day.
The end result, Peebles warned, could well be a Trump victory, in that “if this is a race about policy, he's going to win hands down...I see him winning. I look at all these numbers and I see him winning.”
Obama's lament
Seeming to agree with Peebles assessment of the enthusiasm gap between Obama and Harris, the former president acknowledged as much during a recent – and ultimately controversial – campaign stop in Philadelphia.
As The Hill noted at the time, Obama traveled to the Keystone State and addressed a group of young Black males, a demographic cohort he said was not showing the type of enthusiasm for Harris as they did during his campaigns for the White House.
Obama told the men, “You're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses; I've got a problem with that,” and he suggested that perhaps they “just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president....”
Imploring the men he referred to as “the brothers” to put such notions aside and support Harris, Obama ultimately spurred significant backlash for what some viewed as a condescending approach to a particular group of voters based solely on their racial identity.
Perhaps it simply did not occur to Obama that the men to whom he directed his ire have, just like Peebles, have noticed that Harris lacks the charisma and magnetism they are seeking in a presidential candidate and that she has offered no new solutions the problems to the real-world problems they face.
