If you can forget the Kamala Harris who existed before she became vice president, she might turn out to be a passable candidate.
Regretfully, from her point of view, it's hard to forget her spectacular failure as a presidential candidate in 2020 and the terrible policies she pursued as attorney general of California.
Her time as a senator could best be described as "nondescript." She had no major accomplishments. No legislation to speak of. Her biggest claim to fame prior to being named Biden's vice presidential running mate was her announcement that she was running for president in 2020. In a few short months, the excitement that the far left generated had dissipated after voters realized she had nothing to offer.
The first thing you'll see is Harris' shambolic 2020 campaign for president. She wouldn't commit to policy positions. She couldn't defend her past actions. There were ongoing stories about her poor treatment of her staff. She entered the race as a top-tier candidate, with glowing press and some big-time backers, and dropped out two months before the Iowa caucuses, polling at just 3 percent nationally. She wasn't even polling as a top-tier candidate in her home state of California.
Like Obama in 2008, Harris was a blank slate that voters could choose what the candidate stood for and fill in the blanks of what they desired in a president. Obama succeeded thanks to some brilliant speechwriters who were able to couch his radicalism in soothing terms.
Harris had no such good fortune. She sank into the single digits in the polls in a matter of two months.
And if the Republicans can show that Harris has never stood for anything and floats with the tide from issue to issue, trying to gain support by being all things to all people, Harris will be eminently beatable.
This image of Harris as a slippery politician — "all ambition, no ideology" as Reason points out — is the major cause of her unpopularity with voters. Democratic image makers are going to have an enormous challenge in trying to make her "likable" to the voters.
Harris was a law and order prosecutor which got her in big trouble with the radical left after the George Floyd riots. So she did what she often does; she flip-flopped and became a born-again criminal justice reformer. Few on the left batted an eye.
That means Harris' turnabouts on justice issues—not her actual record—may wind up harming her most. It leaves her vulnerable to attacks from both the left and the right on this front—to allegations that she's been both too aggressive and too lenient on crime, even if only one of these (the aggressiveness) has been borne out beyond just words.
The left is going to swallow its objections. Harris is "right" in their eyes on many issues, and they fear Trump so hysterically that they will overlook her putting innocent black men in jail and calling for tougher prison terms.
I won't pretend to know whether Harris would be a better or worse choice for Democrats than some other potential candidates. I don't know whether she could beat Trump, though I have my doubts.
What I do know is that if Harris becomes the party's nominee, the rush to anoint her a saint—in the press, on social media, among celebrities—is going to kick into overdrive quickly, both because of her identity and out of desperation to avoid Trump getting elected again.
There will be no mention of "word salads." Unflattering clips of Harris will disappear, and they will only use heroic images of the vice president.
It's going to be the "Great Kamala Harris Whitewash," and it begins now.
