Despite Her Big Start, Harris Faces an Uphill Battle
All of a sudden, Kamala Harris is a world-beater. It's true that she's raised $150 million in cash and pledges since Biden gave up and quit. And she has united the Democratic Party.
But that fundraising was due to pent-up demand after big donors and grassroots givers stopped donating to Joe Biden for almost two weeks. And the Democrats are united after confronting the abyss of an open convention. Sheer terror caused the Democrats to huddle together like penguins on an Antarctic glacier. It brings to mind Ben Franklin's famous dictum he said in front of the Continental Congress during the signing of the Declaration of Independence. "We must all hang together or assuredly, we will all hang separately."
Democrats may yet hang, separately or otherwise. After this first blush of enthusiasm for Harris wears off, it will be Trump vs. Harris, and how do you think Kamala Harris is going to go over in Pennsylvania? Or Michigan, Wisconsin, or any other swing state?
Portraying Harris as a radical liberal is going to be easy because Harris doesn't stand for anything. That and her constant flip-flops will doom her.
Harris must sustain the sudden new momentum in a party that until Sunday believed it was heading to defeat as lawmaker after lawmaker deserted the president following his disastrous debate performance.
Even if she succeeds in her plan to “earn and win” the Democratic nomination, Harris will come up against the most feral campaign machine in years. Trump is known for misogynistic and racially charged rhetoric that could turn the next few months into the most searing general election in modern memory.
The pressure on Harris from Democrats is also immense. The vice president has shown signs of improving her political skills recently, but that’s never been her forte. This year, party leaders are not just investing in her as the last barrier to a new era of unrestrained conservative rule that could obliterate the achievements of the Biden and Barack Obama presidencies. After replacing Biden as the figurehead of the campaign, Harris is now leading an effort that has as its foundation an attempt to save democracy from Trump.
She has just more than 100 days to pull this all off.
Democrats are casting about for positives in this situation. They're telling themselves, "Well, we've got 100 days to turn this thing around." Meanwhile, the reality sets in. They've only got 100 days to turn it around.
It's less than a month to a convention that has been under construction for more than a year. Pivoting to a Harris-(fill in the blank) ticket and selling it at the convention is a stupendous undertaking that no one is sure they can pull off.
And there are so many Harris deficiencies that the Democrats have to hide that it will make putting lipstick on a pig seem a breeze by comparison.
In racing to anoint Harris as the prohibitive potential nominee, Democrats are going all in on a candidate who is unpopular, has not yet demonstrated she can do better than Biden in key swing states and who sometimes showed a political tin ear during her 2020 primary campaign, which expired before the Iowa caucuses, and during her early vice presidency. If in the coming days or weeks, Harris stumbles, Democrats will risk being seen as a party that imposed on the country another 2024 candidate who is not up to the job.
Democrats now have what they wished for: someone besides Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. We'll see what they think about this wish in early October when the American people have a good look at just who Kamala Harris truly is.
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