Kamala's New Hampshire Rally: What Problem Was She Trying To Solve?

I guess they showed up. 😂😂

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— Faith In America (@NWIPatriots) September 4, 2024

Mark Halperin (for instance, here) has been among the few observers trying to figure out, as I have, why Kamala had a rally in New Hampshire yesterday. Some of the questions include whether New Hampshire is in play, as was thought possible before Joe left the race -- but if it is, the race is effecively over, so why go to all the trouble of holding a rally there? But if New Hampshire isn't in play, the same question applies: New Hampshire has 4 electoral votes. Wouldn't the time and money be better spent in Pennsylvania?

On top of that, the September 10 debate is coming up on Tuesday. The New Hampshire rally took one day away from debate prep, something Kamala badly needs. But beyond that, the rally, ostensibly in New Hampshire, imported people from Massachusetts in 27 buses, according to the count by one bystander, so that the operative purpose of the rally couldn't even have been to influence or encourage New Hampahire voters.

I spent my whole working career in dysfunctional organizations, including one where the CEO went to federal prison for securities fraud, so I know a thing or two about organizational dysfunction. I keep going back to the question my former colleague Phil used to ask in staff meetings, "What problem are we trying to solve?" He asked it because the perceived problems always seemed so trivial yet so intractable, and the proposed solutions always seemed so irrelevant. There had to be a better use of everyone's time.

So let's apply that question to Kamala's New Hampshire rally and see if we can come up with whatever the real problem was that it was meant to solve, because among other things, the actual purpose of the rally wasn't clear, especially to analytically oriented observers like Mark Halperin.

It had nothing to do with New Hampshire voters, because the audience was imported from Massachusetts. But if it was meant to influence Massachusetts voters, why not hold the rally there instead of bussing them to New Hampshire? And Massachusetts's 11 electoral votes aren't in play; they're safely Democrat anyhow.

But let's say some Democrat power player, like maybe Nancy Pelosi, got a bee in her bonnet and told campaign head Jen O'Malley Dillon that she was worried about New Hampshire and demanded that Kamala hold a rally there irrespective of the real situation on the ground. That still doesn't explain why the campaign had to charter 27 buses to bring in a phony crowd from Massachusetts -- the Kamala campaign could have just gone through the motions without spending all the extra money for the buses (and probably the people, too).

Here's where the subtext of my former colleague Phil's question offers some help. Whether Phil even understood this or not, the main problem any staff meeting is actually meant to solve is the need to reinforce the grandiosity of the bosses -- and that goes as well to any solution such a meeting comes up with. The problem makes the bosses seem important, and the solution makes them seem indispensable. But that's the way it often works with or without a staff meeting; the bosses create the problems the bosses pretend to solve, but if anyone actually solved those problems, they wouldn't need those bosses.

Thus I think we can surmise that the problem the Kamala campaign is trying to solve is that the bosses need to look important. But important to whom? I've already posted on the disorganization in the Harris-Biden-Walz campaign, with Biden holdovers in the Wilmington headquarters, Obama inserts like David Plouffe adventitious in the new org chart, and Kamala's own people like Doug Emhoff, her brother-in-law Tony West, and her sister, Maya. At this stage, I'm not sure who in the campaign benefits from a boodoggle like the New Hampahire rally -- actually, I'm not sure if it benefits anyone, except that whoever followed arbitrary orders and set it up gets to keep their jobs.

But it does solve one problem, which I postulate will always be related to reinforcing someone's grandiosity. In this case, the only real beneficiary I can see is Kamala herself, along with her inner circle. Kamala is able to look like she's solving a problem. Exactly what the problem is, smart guys like Mark Halperin are unable to figure out, but she's solving it, and the best I can tell is that so far, she's convincing people like Jen O'Malley Dillon and David Plouffe that she's solving it, or at least she looks like she's solving it. Apparently it has something to do with New Hampshire, anyhow.

But here's the payoff: her yes people assemble a fair-sized crowd that reassures Kamala and whomever else that she's still got momentum, and this feeds her grandiosity, which I think is the main point. There may be a subsidiary benefit in that it keeps Kamala away from debate prep for one more day, and it's understood that she disdains things like briefings or preparation for meetings and then blames her staff for not prepping her.

The only comment I would make is that this sounds like a really, really dysfunctional organization, and on the whole, these do not survive. I also wonder if people like Jen O'Malley Dillon, David Plouffe, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi are really being fooled. Frankly, I wouldn't bet on it.