Kamala Harris may be unstoppable as a Democratic candidate — no one has emerged to challenge her — but the ugly battle over who defines her may not be so easily won.
The vice president has been a national celebrity for nearly four years, but he has never operated under the intense scrutiny of a presidential candidate, and with just a month until the convention, even with Joe Biden’s endorsement he will face an uphill battle against Donald Trump, who just had a spectacular convention success and miraculously survived an assassination attempt.
Trump’s rhetoricKamala is a strange character, with a funny laugh, an awkward way of speaking and a foreign-sounding name (which some Republicans try to mispronounce like a Democrat).
She’s a radical leftist from San Francisco who makes Biden look like an infuriated moderate.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an event with NCAA college athletes on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, July 22, 2024. This is her first public appearance since President Joe Biden endorsed her as the Democratic presidential nominee. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Ms. Harris bears responsibility for the Biden administration’s failures, especially on the border issue that Mr. Biden nominally entrusted to her. She also shares the blame for rising inflation.
She was complicit in covering up the president’s frailty and declining mental capacity, helping to hide it from the public.
Harris’ dismal performance in the 2020 election, failing to even reach Iowa, clearly illustrates her political incompetence.
Harris’ StoryShe’s a former prosecutor who takes on the bad guys.
With campaign leaks ruling out Biden, will Democrats back Kamala Harris?
(Here’s a real example: I got an email from the Harris campaign, who apparently hijacked Biden’s mailing list, that said, “Kamala Harris will stand up to crooks and criminals. Donald Trump is a convicted felon.”)
The real problem is Trump, a danger to democracy, obsessed with personal grievances and who would return the White House to an era of constant chaos.
Ms Harris would bring an energy and dynamism to the presidency, and some Democrats have said, perhaps jokingly, that Mr Trump, 78, would make him the oldest person ever elected to the White House.
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancia)
President Trump’s solution to our porous border problem has been to brutally separate children from their families.
The former president has threatened to withdraw from NATO and abandon Ukraine, bragged about his ties to President Vladimir Putin and made praiseworthy remarks about autocrats such as Kim Jong Un and Viktor Orban.
Harris has risen to the top of California politics but has always been underestimated.
My take: Kamala Harris is a bit unusual, but that’s what makes her interesting.
Revelations that VP Harris never met with key border officials as crisis escalates
She supported Medicare for All during the last election campaign, clearly siding to the left of Biden.
Harris ran a terrible campaign last time.
The economy (remember Biden economics?) is hurting her because inflation is slowing but people don’t perceive it that way.
The broadcast will likely be filled with Harris’s loopy “clique of words” answers, many of which are from her first two years in office and have become sharper, especially since she became the administration’s abortion rights chief. But that first impression may stick.
The question of whether she hid Biden’s weaknesses from the public is of course a legitimate one, and no doubt true, but let’s just say she was loyal.
Trump probably won’t withdraw from NATO, but he will push for a quick solution that would allow Russia to keep parts of Ukraine. He has rarely criticized Putin.
He was convicted in the baseless Stormy Daniels case, but he successfully portrayed all four indictments as the administration’s weaponization of law enforcement, which only boosted his approval ratings.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speak at a press conference at the NATO Summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Ms Harris went to Wilmington yesterday to thank campaign staff, but Mr Biden was incoherent on the phone, which I think was a mistake.
When the vice president decided to go after Trump, she linked it to her background as a prosecutor.
“Donald Trump is a convicted sexual abuser,” Harris said, confronting a criminal who abuses women.
“I took on the big banks,” while Trump was convicted on “34 counts of fraud.”
She also made a point of clarifying her policy agenda: “Building the middle class will be a clear goal of my presidency,” while Trump “gave big corporations huge tax cuts…. We’re not going back.” She spoke about the freedom to vote and the freedom to live safe from gun violence.
But Harris also made some exaggerated and untrue statements.
She said Trump was “on the brink of cutting” Social Security and Medicare, even though he had told me and others in interviews in 2015 that he would protect those programs.
Speaking about reproductive rights, she said Trump would “sign a nationwide abortion ban,” something Trump has explicitly rejected, saying that under the Dobbs decision, that should be left to the states.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, who is more responsible than anyone for the leak campaign that led to Biden’s resignation, endorsed Harris yesterday, but the president remains furious at the former speaker.
Ted Cruz warns against underestimating Kamala Harris
Joe Manchin also said yesterday that he won’t be running, and Gretchen Whitmer, who was seen as a leading candidate for Michigan, said yesterday that she would serve as co-chair of the Harris campaign.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the second Jewish candidate on a major party ticket, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear also endorsed the vice president.
So who could challenge her? Given the racist and sexist repercussions of not electing the first Black woman and the first Asian American, what Democrats want to risk their careers for a possible defeat? One of the oldest sayings in politics is that you can’t beat somebody without somebody.
That has now shifted attention to the search for a running mate for the latest vice presidential candidate, Kamala, whose fellow state Sen. Gavin Newsom is unavailable. Choosing Whitmer would mean voters would be accepting an all-female field, even though she has said she does not want to be vice president.
And as Trump has told me and others, people vote for the top candidate, and while having a No. 2 candidate out of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin is fine (Harris is in Milwaukee today), it hardly guarantees victory in those swing states.
Axios offers just a glimpse into the future media landscape.
“Vice President Harris’ term has been rocky at times, with significant turnover in her staff…Of the 47 staff members listed for 2021, only five were still working for her as of this spring…
“Former Harris the aide told Axios. The high turnover is due in part to the way the vice president treats his staff.”
Harris is likely trying to garner more support among black voters who have abandoned Biden and independent women wary of Trump, and her campaign said she raised $81 million online in the 24 hours since announcing her candidacy.
But facing off against Trump, who still must be seen as a huge favorite, Harris would perform roughly the same as Biden.
Oddly, some on the right, including the editor of National Review, have said that if Biden is ineligible to run for reelection, he shouldn’t be nuclear weapons chief and should resign — which, of course, would give Harris a four-month head start on her presidency.
Trump has said he wants to move his September debate with Biden on ABC to a debate with Kamala on Fox News, which I don’t think will happen, but maybe the VP doesn’t see any benefit in debating Trump.
Yesterday, Harris’ first event since being announced was an odd one, as she stood in for the COVID-19 infected president at the annual ceremony honoring college sports champions. Harris was at the official event and praised Biden and his record.
Her team quickly realized it wouldn’t be much of a reintroduction to America, and quickly scheduled a visit to Wilmington.
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Unsolicited adviceKamala should not appear with Biden outside of the convention because Biden is so unpopular. She has to build her own identity in the next 105 days and get out of Biden’s shadow. No matter how much she loves Biden, she is now at the top of the list and needs to stop following him.
Kicker: USA Today reports that Donald Trump donated $6,000 to Harris when she was her state’s attorney general between 2011 and 2013. In 2016, Trump said, “I donated to Democrats. I donated to Hillary. I donated to everybody! Because that’s what I did.” This is true.
