Sen. Kamala Harris. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Senate Historical Office.
Many commentators seem to be struggling on how to define Senator Harris, Joe Biden’s veep pick. But as Kimberley Strassel points out in the WSJ, Harris “offers little that is truly defining.”
The party establishment quickly closed ranks around her 2016 Senate race, allowing her to run a standard liberal campaign that the Los Angeles Times described as “carefully orchestrated” and “overly cautious and scripted.”
Showboating vs. Legislating
In her 3½ Senate years, she’s done little by way of legislation, preferring to showboat at hearings. The lack of an animating agenda helps a explain a presidential campaign in which she bounced from left to far-left position, whatever she thought most helpful at the moment.
She twice called to eliminate private health insurance—and twice reversed herself the next day after backlash. As Vox noted, the “combination of policy reversals and botched rollout . . . undermined faith in her ability to govern on the issue Democrats rate as most important.”
Harris No Super-Pol
It was preordained the media would gush over any Biden pick, and it is a given the press will continue to provide cover to the ticket. But Democrats do themselves no favors in pretending Ms. Harris is a super-pol.
Mr. Biden reduced his presidential choice to box-checking: woman, minority, progressive. Ms. Harris checks the boxes but not much else. That could matter if this race keeps tightening.
