Now that the dust has settled a bit—Biden is out—the Democrats have chosen Kamala Harris has their presidential nominee. At least at this writing she seems to have the delegates lined up. But is she really their best choice? To date she hasn’t shown much ability. As Border Czar she didn’t get close to viewing the real problems of that crisis. As a rhetorician, her ridiculous word salads have been notable insomuch as they were unnoteworthy. Just words. Lots of them. Disconnected.
Unlike her words, however, her support for the Biden agenda is quite connected. Biden and his circumambient spoke handlers constantly referred to the “Biden-Harris Administration” in just about every setting. Never mind that throughout most of his time in the White House, Biden’s people kept Kamala at arm’s length. She was not a trusted agent to handle the important things on Biden’s agenda. The proof of that is how he tossed illegal immigration in her lap. He surely had no interest in embracing that problem. Give it to Kamala. How did she do? She flunked the course.
After that, she went into an odd period of popping up on late night TV jumbling words together in a fashion that made her a parody of herself. In foreign policy, her credibility was no better. Then of course there was a flood of stories related to her staff walking off the job. They had had enough and decided to seek exile.
Then the White House decided to “rehabilitate” her. (Truth is, if anyone needed rehabilitation, it was Biden.) That involved allowing her to stand behind Biden and not talk, not much anyway. In time her popularity numbers would sink below Biden’s. That’s hard to do. Like trying to be lower than the wreck of the Titanic.
But now all of that is forgiven. The Democrats and their sycophantic media acolytes are all on board the Harris train in an effort to roll over Donald Trump. It isn’t likely. Why?
Months ago, the beltway pundits said of the 2024 race that if the election turns out to be a referendum on personalities, Biden would win. Contrarywise, if it were on the issues that Biden has botched up, Trump would win. Prior to Biden’s sudden departure from the race, it appeared that they had misjudged the personality vs. issues dichotomy. It actually seemed to be both. Indeed, in recent months, Biden’s unsteadiness made this both a personality AND an issues race, with Trump winning both decidedly. Not a surprise. Biden’s approval numbers were in the toilet before he quit the race, 38.7 percent, but in the ballpark with Harris’s 38.6 percent, whom the media has now elevated to stardom. Now that Kamala Harris has arrived on the scene to slay the evil Trump dragon, will the race revert to a personality-driven one?
I’m not sure. But on that score, it seems to me that no matter what Harris does to try to demonize Trump—as if the media needs help with that task—she has been welded to Joe Biden’s failed administration. Besides, you don’t stand admiringly behind the likes of Uncle Joe and survive the criticism as he announces funding car manufacturers to produce electric vehicles that few people want or doling out our tax dollars to pay illegals for not working. Indeed, she has been handed a stinking garbage bag of Biden’s horrible progressive policies (energy, inflation, border, wokeism, wars, etc.) that she helped fill. It will be impossible for her to pretend she was not fully supportive of the policies of an incompetent administration that will be difficult for her and the voters to ignore. Think about it. Can she identify one single Biden policy she disagreed with? The short answer is “no.”
- Did she disagree with the failed Afghanistan debacle? No.
- Did she separate herself from the incredible wasteful COVID-19 bailouts? Nope.
- Did she reject “Bidenomics,” a label now roundly mocked? No.
- Can she object to exorbitant spending that caused inflation that is crushing family budgets? Not likely.
- Can she win back Arab voters in Detroit angry about Biden’s tepid support of Israel? Maybe some. But not enough.
In truth, all she has to run on are January 6th, abortion, and whatever far-left fancy that makes progressives swoon. Mainstream voters won’t be persuaded by any of that. So, I think that we’re headed to an issue-driven election and, if so, Trump will crush Harris with independents if he keeps his focus squarely on the issues and refrains from personal insults that offend even his supporters.
In the coming election, Kamala’s handlers will have a hard time jettisoning “Biden-Harris,” given her obeisant support of his progressive and failed policies. Maybe a new bumper sticker will work that reads “Hide’n-Harris.” Unfortunately for her, she can run, but she can’t hide.
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