Joe’s VP pick makes history, not much sense
Prediction: Joe Biden is about to learn that “making history” and “winning elections” aren’t the same thing. Or make that “re-learn.” The liberal press’s rapturous praise for California Sen. Kamala Harris is obsequious that it borders on fan fiction, like when Harry Potter fans write short stories putting themselves in the action. It’s easy to imagine MSNBC’s Joy Reid with a wand chanting “Kamalus Electo!”
As a result, their coverage is promoting an obvious fiction: That Sen Kamala Harris is good at running for high public office. She’s not. And we all know it. Because we watched her do it.
Maybe you don’t remember, but I was in New Hampshire in February of 2019 when she made her Granite State debut. I saw her speech at the Politics and Eggs breakfast. And every campaign pro and political reporter in the room agreed: Kamala Harris had all the makings of a successful presidential candidate: Bigstate money, identity politics, progressive messaging and a solid resume.
Then it turned out that she was, well, Kamala Harris.
Never has a candidate with so much started so well but appealed to so few.
Her entire campaign banged from controversy to controversy like a political pinball: Lots of noise and lights, but very little progress. She made political attacks that were nonsensical — like attacking Joe Biden for not supporting a national forced-busing mandate in the 1970s that everybody hates — that she couldn’t defend.
You think the COVID-season Red Sox defense is bad? Spend five minutes listening to Kamala Harris explain her flip-flop on Medicare For All.
“I watched her. I watched her poll numbers go boom, boom, boom. Down to almost nothing,” Trump said of Kamala on Wednesday. And when the facts are so obvious even Donald Trump can see them, you know the debate is over.
I talked to legendary Democratic strategist Bob Shrum about the Harris pick, and he thinks it’s a winner.
“She’ll do very well, she’s extremely charismatic. If I were (Vice President Mike) Pence, I’d be worried,” he told me.
My reaction: Worried about what? Sure, she might land a few blows, make some viral video — that’s her thing. The only time her “top-tier” campaign got off the ground was when she scored some points attacking Biden in the debate.
But then she goes back to being Kamala Harris, who spend months on the stump talking to voters and took her candidacy from “top tier” to “trailing Tulsi.”
Literally, as Joe Biden likes to say.
“People don’t vote for the running mate, they vote for the president,” Shrum said, and of course he’s right. But even there Kamala’s a problem. Biden wants this race to be a referendum, not a choice. He wants “Trump, yes or no?” not “Trump and Biden, either, or?”
That’s why he’s taken the “tortoise and the hare” campaign to a new level. He’s not even running, just hiding in his shell. And given his solid lead over Trump, “not playing” is a smart play.
But now he picks Kamala “Hollywood” Harris? How does she fit into the low-key campaign plan? Shrum says she’ll help with turnout among African American voters in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, but Black voters are already all in with Joe Biden. In fact, during the primary, Harris struggled to get double-digit support from voters of color.
In fact, Kamala Harris’s greatest contribution to racial unity is being a POTUS candidate who
Americans of all races, creeds and colors agreed they didn’t want to vote for.
Ironically, Kamala Harris’s best friend may be COVID19, which could keep her off the campaign trail and away from voters — not to mention pesky questions from what’s left of the professional media.
Anyone think it was a coincidence that Team Biden cranked up the music as soon as Harris finished her speech on Wednesday? They didn’t want her to face a question-shouting press.
What I can’t figure out, given her record as a candidate, is why they would want her at all?