The Democratic powerhouses have made their choice loud and clear: Kamala Harris, they say, is their next flag-bearer for Presidency. The entirety of the California Party machinery has thrown its weight behind the current Vice President with similar backing echoed on a national level. However, as I’ve opined before, if Harris is the solution, the Democratic Party is clearly posing the wrong problem.
The circumstances leading to this decision are understandable. President Joe Biden has confirmed he won’t be running again for office. This has sent the Democratic leaders scrambling to prevent a costly and unsightly feud at the upcoming convention, while keeping their fundraising mechanisms active and launching upon a new campaign.
Timing, however, is not in their favor. Switching candidates at this late stage is far from ideal, and this makes their decision to thrust Harris onto the playing field puzzling, to say the least. It is one thing to have a plan but another to see it working. In this case, Harris seems to have secured the nomination pool and made impressive strides in fundraising. It appears so far, the plan hold solid.
Yet upon deeper analysis, a sensible argument for this decision is harder to fathom. The idea of imposing an unpopular candidate such as Harris on a pool of dissatisfied voters is a strategy that reeks not of victory, but impending doom.
Where does my assurance about Harris’s dismal suitability come from, you may ask? Look no further than the 2020 Democratic primary results for stark evidence. True, with such a vast set of contenders, one could excuse Harris for not securing the top spot. But she was more of a bystander than an active participant, despite launching her campaign to fanfare and high expectations.
Extrapolating from history, the current campaign is set to be almost an echo of the past. Harris is starting strong with impressive fundraising numbers, but it’s equally worth noting that this likely represents the surge of pent-up Democratic donors who had been holding back until Biden’s status was clear. Moreover, there aren’t any other candidates left in this last-minute switcheroo.
Harris’s media sympathizers, meanwhile, are all too ready to spin this development in her favor. Yet significant challenges lie ahead for her. As she is forced to step into the harsh limelight on the campaign trail, everyone will soon be reminded of why she faltered in the past.
Reflecting on Harris’s tenure as Vice President, it is peppered with awkward moments of ineptitude reminiscent of Dan Quayle’s infamous ‘P-O-T-A-T-O-E’ blunder. Consider, for instance, her bizarre congratulation of NCAA women’s basketball teams for being ‘allowed’ their tournament brackets since 2022, conveniently ignoring their long-standing existence and even her husband’s own bracket prior to 2022.
Or her notorious spat with NBC’s Lester Holt over the Administration’s negligence towards the southern border. While Harris vehemently denied the criticism, Holt retorted with ‘You haven’t been to the border.’ Her baffling response, implying a non-existent connection between the Southern Border and Europe, raised more questions than her capacity to handle media scrutiny.
Fast forward to the near future when she’ll be the sole facing-off candidate, dealing with ceaseless media demands and attacks from the GOP, it becomes increasingly evident that she may not be up to the task. My intention here is not to doubt her chances of possibly bagging the presidential seat. After all, someone has to win in a two-party contest.
But choosing Harris sets the stage for an uphill battle for the Democrats. It’s hard to overlook the self-destruction of Harris’s previous campaign, significantly exacerbated by then-Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s relentless deconstruction of Harris’s rampant prosecution of marijuana cases in her tenure as California’s Attorney General.
Gabbard’s criticism distanced Harris from the Democratic base, her campaign never truly regaining its stride. This incident accentuates the most glaring flaw in Harris’s candidacy: the inability to consolidate her image. As AG, she feigned a tough-on-crime attitude while as Senator, she displayed progressive tendencies. Being stuck between these contradictory stances, she might as well be in a constant state of escape from her own shadow.
The situation reads like a recipe for disaster for the Democratic Party. Late candidate switches are far from ideal, to say the very least. In a scenario already fraught with challenges, it is difficult to imagine how Harris, with all her baggage and inconsistencies, will bring anything beneficial to the table.
Democratic Disaster: Party Unduly Banks on Kamala Harris for Presidency appeared first on Real News Now.
About Author
