This is an election about vibes—God forbid we should have any understanding of where, say, Kamala Harris stands on anything; we just want to see her laugh to Beyoncé tunes. So the beer question—meaning, which candidate would you rather grab a beer with—is sort of the only one that seems to matter. In short, would you like to grab a glass of Chianti with Kamala? We asked Peter Savodnik and Francesca Block to face off on this all-important issue:
Peter Savodnik would like to have a strong drink. Just not with Harris.
I wouldn’t waste a precious vodka martini on the presumptive Democratic nominee. I’d enjoy interviewing Kamala Harris, and then dissecting all her tortuous cackling platitudes and non sequiturs. But no, I don’t want to have a drink with her.
That’s because she’s the least authentic pol on the American scene today; which is to say, there’s nothing interesting about her. No depth, no vulnerability, nothing to explore. She seems—to me, at least, and I’d be happy to be disproved—a perfect distillation of whatever she believes her audience wants to hear.
I have no idea what Harris believes about anything that extends beyond herself—cops, crime, Joe Biden, TikTok, Gaza. Has she articulated a coherent position on any of these things? She strikes me as an empty vessel, and isn’t the point of having a drink with someone to unwind, loosen up, push past the uptightness of the daily rigamarole, and establish a modicum of intimacy? To grow a little closer? To learn something about each other?
I have my doubts there’s anything to learn.
To be clear: this is not, exactly, an indictment of Harris’s character or even her political efficacy. It’s that she seems mind-numbingly boring. Potential interviewees I would find much less boring: anyone else who has recently been elected to any office anywhere, the recently inaugurated president of Iran, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and actually, maybe more than anyone else, the sleek South Korean sharpshooter Kim Yeji, because she is undeniably amazing and mysterious. Now there’s someone who I’d like to have a drink with.
Frannie Block, on the other hand, would happily throw back a cold one with the veep.
Kamala Harris cackles. She loves Venn diagrams. She knows how to make a lemony roast chicken. Plus, she dances like a mom in her fifties when Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” comes on the loudspeakers at a bar mitzvah—dorky, yes, but also carefree. Like someone I’d definitely want to get drunk off a bottle of wine with.
Kamala Harris gives funny, cool-mom vibes. And not in a cringey way, like Regina George’s mom, played by Amy Poehler in Mean Girls. She’s cool in the “Even though you’re my friend’s mom I’d still like to go to a Hamilton–themed SoulCycle class with you” kind of way. Kamala just seems fun. And young people like fun—especially when the fun can be slightly ironic, like when she busted a move to a hip-hop song at a party while surrounded by a bunch of stiff-looking D.C. elites, wearing the brightest top the South Lawn has ever seen.
Like Peter, I’m not sure what her stances are on major political issues of our time—like the unfolding war in the Middle East or whether we should defund the police. But who wants to talk politics over a nice glass of wine? I grab a drink with someone to relax, not to relive the workday.
Kamala Harris may have her strange one-liners that seem to come right out of the Veep writers’ room, but she has an odd charisma too. She marches to the beat of her own drum. She can laugh things off and not take herself too seriously. I have no idea whether those qualities make her a good president, but it’s clear that she and I would have a blast hanging out together, sipping a nice rosé on a patio somewhere, belly laughing about who knows what.
Readers, what do you think? Could you cackle along with Kamala over a cocktail or do you prefer to stay at home and cuddle your cats? Give us your thoughts in the comments.
Peter Savodnik is a writer for The Free Press. Follow him on X @petersavodnik, and read his piece “The Veep’s Veepstakes.” Francesca Block is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow her on X @FrancescaABlock and read her piece “Is the Squad About to Shrink?”
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