The Los Angeles Times won’t endorse her. The Washington Post won’t endorse her. The firefighters union won’t endorse her. The Teamsters won’t endorse her.
Now, the Harris-Walz trainwreck campaign has taken another body blow: influential billionaire investor Warren Buffett has also refused to get on board, saying he needs to protect his employees. Translation, he’s a legendary prognosticator—or he wouldn’t be a billionaire financier—and he sees the writing on the wall.
Although the Berkshire Hathaway CEO has been a Democrat supporter in the past, he is sitting on the sidelines for this one:
Warren Buffett has not endorsed Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, and made it clear this week he will not publicly back either presidential candidate.
“Mr. Buffett does not currently and will not prospectively endorse investment products or endorse and support political candidates,” reads a statement posted on Berkshire Hathaway’s website this week in response to fraudulent claims on social media about the investor.
The Berkshire CEO’s reticence may seem surprising as he’s previously thrown his weight behind Democratic presidential candidates. He organized fundraisers for Barack Obama in 2011 and stumped for Hillary Clinton in 2016, even walking on stage at a rally to hammer Donald Trump over his bankrupt businesses, reluctance to publish his tax returns, and rude treatment of others.
Radio host Mark Simone says many former Dems just can’t bring themselves to hop on the stalled bandwagon:
BREAKING: Billionaire Warren Buffet revealed Wednesday that he will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election.
Even those that alway endorse the Democrat, like Buffett and the LA Times, can’t bring themselves to endorse…— MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) October 24, 2024
Even those that alway endorse the Democrat, like Buffett and the LA Times, can’t bring themselves to endorse Harris.
The question is, will anybody besides air-headed celebrities get behind this campaign?
Thanks but not thanks: Democrats Have Gotten This Big Endorsement for Nearly 40 Years; Kamala Just Lost It
Teamsters Members Overwhelmingly Voted to Endorse Trump, But Leadership Wimped Out
Requiem for a Rag: The LA Times Implodes Over the ‘Non-Endorsement’ of Harris
Why the Washington Post Won’t Endorse Kamala Harris, and Why the Left Is Big Mad About It
Buffett explained away his decision:
…the 94-year-old billionaire explained why he’s now keeping his mouth shut during Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting in 2022. Buffett said he’d learned that “you can make a whole lot more people sustainably mad than you can make temporarily happy by speaking out on any subject.”
Sharing his opinions on divisive subjects could anger people and cause them to boycott or protest against Berkshire’s companies, forcing them to lay workers off and causing harm to Berkshire’s shareholders. Buffett said his employees and investors shouldn’t have to pay the price for him voicing his views.
“So, I’ve decidedly backed off — I don’t want to say anything that’ll get attributed, basically, to Berkshire, and have somebody else bear the consequences of what I talk about,” he said.
That doesn’t explain why he found it just fine to get behind Democrat candidates in the past (although, to be fair, he did not formally endorse another hopelessly flawed candidate in 2020, Joe Biden).
The value of endorsements is often debated—do they make a difference? Maybe not that much, but it’s better than not getting the support:
His endorsement as a celebrity investor, leading philanthropist, and the CEO of a $1 trillion company with roughly 400,000 employees could be valuable to Harris — especially with an electoral vote up for grabs from his hometown of Omaha.
It would appear that Buffett wanted nothing to do with the sinking of the good ship SS Kamala Harris.
