Vice President Kamala Harris delivers welcoming remarks at a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, June 13, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)
An Empty Policial Vessel of the Dem Party
Kamala Harris has a problem: being Kamala Harris. Not only has she not distanced herself from President Joe Biden’s unpopular record, VP Harris also has been unable to show voters that she is her own person. At the WSJ, the editorial board writes that this election is as much about policy as it is about character. VP Harris can’t distance her vague feel-good promises from President Joe Biden’s same-old policies.
Kamala Harris’s campaign of “vibes” and safe appearances suggests she will be like Mr. Biden has been, a captive of her party and its unpopular policies.
A Campaign in Panic Mode
Evidently, Tim Walz has a masculinity problem, and to assuage doubts about his masculinity, he invited reporters/photographers to attend a pheasant hunt with Walz. In an attempt to appeal to males and rural voters, there were dogs, Carhart gear, and orange vests. You wouldn’t expect less. This, however, was a “hunt.” What? You expect to see a few shotguns? Well, Tim had a gun (a Beretta A400), but what followed made it painfully clear that he didn’t know how to use it.
Kamala Promises to Ban Guns
In 2023 Joe Biden appointed Kamala Harris to head the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Kamala Harris at a speech in West Allis, WI:
“We, who believe that every person should have the freedom to live safe from the terror of gun violence, will finally pass red flag laws, universal background checks, and an assault weapons ban.”
For sure, Trump is not everyone’s cup of tea, but voters cannot say Donald Trump hasn’t put his stamp on his party and the issues. Not true of Mr. Biden, though, who has always followed the rest of his party. Joe Biden is reaping the results of bowing to progressives on everything from immigration to spending to cultural coercionist: Biden is ending his term with a 41% (that high, really?) approval rating, reports the WSJ.
Kamala Harris was fortunate enough not to have to compete in a presidential primary. With luck like that, she could have followed a different path. Instead, she surrounded herself with “David Plouffe and other Barack Obama advisers who stuffed her with vague, feel-good generalities.”
“New way forward” and “opportunity economy” and “I grew up a middle-class kid.” The slogans worked for a time as they rallied Democrats demoralized by Mr. Biden.
Ms. Harris has pledged to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet. “Meaningless,” argues the WSJ, unless she picks a notable conservative to a serious post: Her only deviation on policy is pledging to raise the capital gains tax by 40%, rather than the nearly doubling Joe Biden would have liked to implement.
Even that move was done for the expediency of pleasing Democratic donors like Reid Hoffman.
The Unknown
The Democrat Party seems to be relying on a majority of undecided voters refusing to vote for Donald Trump. The Harris/Walz campaign looks to have had an embarrassing week of flailing, starting, but not ending with calls for an unedited transcript of the whole interview of the Kamal Harris interview on “60 Minutes.” As Mollie Hemmingway points out at the Federalist, this is “a huge scandal” suggesting that “much of the entire finished product was manipulative and deceitful,” and not just the “one horrible example that was discovered.”
Botching Her Commander-in-Chief Skills
VP Harris was given a chance on “60 Minutes” to make clear her principles about Israel/Gaza.
From Kamala Harris, “. . . an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end . . .”
The world allowed Vice President Harris to reveal her commander-in-chief skills, and she defaulted.
“Audience for Hire” at the Town Hall
At American Greatness, Roger Kimball notes, “50% of the attendees were handpicked from across the country and flown to a town hall to ask questions. The other 50% of the attendees were hired by an ‘audience-for-hire’ company and weren’t allowed to ask questions. The event was completely stage-directed and fake.”
The Cringiest Political Ad Ever
Roger Kimball also writes of VP Kamala Harris’s attempt to address the campaign’s masculinity deficit. Her campaign just released the “truly horrible” “I’m-a-man-and-I’m-voting-for-Harris” ad.
… it turns out that the half dozen men in the ad were not random XY creatures who just happened to support Harris for president. No, they were B-list actors, recruited and paid to deliver their lines. (And what lines they were. One actor who pretended to know something about cars, said “You think I’m afraid to rebuild a carburetor? I eat carburetors for breakfast.”
Mr. Kimball is considering rewarding any person who can explain to him what the line about eating carburetors means.
Not surprisingly, Barrack Obama is out campaigning for Kamala. Campaigning is one way of putting it. Lecturing and sounding angry would be more appropriate. What is surprising is Obama’s “shamelessly unintellectual argument.” An irate-sounding Obama directed his anger at voters, instead of at Kamala’s campaign. Obama admonished black men: vote for Kamala Harris because she is black and is a woman.
If the remaining undecided voters conclude that Ms. Harris is merely a political cipher whose agenda is whatever Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren command, former president Donald Trump could win anyway.
The last week has been a panicked, ridiculous campaign struggling to recapture its momentum. Roger Kimball thinks Harris/Walz campaign will not recover from this embarrassment.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.
