Poor William Henry Harrison. As the ninth president and a product of the Whig Party, he earned a couple of disconcerting accolades — he was the last president to technically have been born as a British subject, and his inaugural address was the lengthiest on record, lasting a staggering two hours. Moreover, his time in office was the shortest, clocking in at just 31 days before his death.
Harrison has another peculiarity connected to his name. He was the last politician to lose his initial attempt at the presidency, only to come back and seize it in the next election. This was a feat previously accomplished by two heavyweights —Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Albeit, Richard Nixon managed the same, but not with consecutive elections.
This can be quite a dampener for Kamala Harris who, with the dismissal of a governorship bid in California, has fanned the flames of speculation about a potential re-run for the presidency. The instances of Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump, both of whom won, lost, and then managed to win the presidency again, are rare exceptions, not norms.
Hitherto, the track record doesn’t bode well for those entertaining ambitions of a comeback. Adlai Stevenson of the Democrats and Republican Thomas Dewey both had two presidential runs and tasted defeat each time. Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan were consistent in their misfortunes as well, losing three-in-a-row. Apparently, voters exhibit an overt distaste for those on a losing streak.
For Harris, the cards seem to be stacked heavily against her. Adding to her woes is the fact that the Democratic Party isn’t exactly in the good books of the nation. A stunning dip of 30 points in net favorability has left them at odds with public sentiment. The GOP, with its minus 11 points, seems almost amiable in comparison.
It appears that the Democrats are wrestling with internal disillusionment. Frustration over their defeat at the hands of Trump and their meek resistance against his policies, even when he was in office, remains a sore point. Harris’s misstep lies in her embodiment of this festering discontent within the party.
The disgruntlement with the Democratic Party is hardly a homogenous sentiment though. The progressives cast stones at the party members for their lack of vigor in the fight, while the centrist elements view the Democrats’ dedication to the wrong causes, such as cultural battles and identity politics, with disdain.
Despite these nuanced opinions on the party’s misdirection, a common thread stitching the factions together is their burning desire to secure victory. Unfortunately for Harris, her potential candidacy in 2024 hinges primarily on favoritism due to her being ‘diverse’, rather than solid competence or indispensable leadership.
Biden’s explicit preference for a female, later clarified as an African American running mate, cornered the opportunity for Harris. However, her problem isn’t tied to her gender or her race. Her handicap is her failure to resonate with voters and organically expand the Democratic coalition.
To triumph, Democrats require a candidate that can pull Trump supporters across the line. Harris’s downfall wasn’t due to insufficient Democratic turnout, but rather, her lack of allure to a transforming electorate. She seemed less of a charismatic leader and more of a conformist administrator of some nondescript liberal arts college.
Further compounding Harris’s inadequacies was her rhetoric, which came off as contrived and hackneyed, crafted by impersonal focus groups at a time when the electorate saw authenticity as a top quality. Worse still, she was apparently cowed into refraining from distancing herself from Biden, which suggests a certain lack of independent agency and leadership.
Her first interview following her departure from office, a grand reveal on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show”, was less a strategic maneuver to engage her potential voters and more a pander to an already ideologically convinced audience. The Democrats need to capture a broader audience and Harris’s strategy was flawed from the get-go.
Unfortunately, if the Democrats persist in nominating Harris once more, they risk enshrining her in historical trivia, but certainly not as a successful president. The scenario serves to illuminate the party’s precarious positions as they attempt to put forth a candidate who can unite and expand their base — an endeavor where Harris proved notably unsuccessful.
When Biden made the public declaration about picking a woman, and subsequently an African American as his running mate, he was clear that diversity was prioritized over competence. But diversity alone doesn’t guarantee victory in political battles; the candidate must appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, and unfortunately, Harris fell short in this aspect.
The dire state of the Democratic Party, with its lowest popularity in decades, combined with Harris’s failures as a viable candidate, serve to underscore how Biden’s term in office has strayed far from achieving its promises and meeting public expectations.
In the grand scheme of the narrative, Kamala Harris’s dilemma symbolizes a broader issue within the Democratic Party — one of misdirection. While the party itself features factions dissatisfied for varying reasons, the common agreement is a longing for victory — something that Harris, with her poorly-received rhetoric and lack of voter appeal, seems ill-equipped to deliver.
The post Harris in Strugglesville: President Re-run or Historical Trivia? appeared first on Real News Now.
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