Kamala Harris the Prosecutor Has the Edge
In 2019, Ms. Harris was competing on progressive bona fides with the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She was running at a time when progressive voters were uniquely focused on criminal-justice reform and suspicious of law enforcement, which was a problem for Ms. Harris, who had built her political career as a prosecutor. Hemmed in by these dynamics, Ms. Harris struggled to define her brand.
She faces a different moment today. Less than four months from the general election, she would be competing not for progressive points but to keep the felon Donald Trump out of office. She would be doing so at a time when many voters are concerned about crime and public safety, and when prosecutors have assumed heroic status in the fight to prosecute Mr. Trump and his cronies.
Based on personal conversations, there are (at least) three prevailing sentiments on the Left:
The first is the “Never Cop” Left, which is adamant that they do not want a former cop in the White House. This is largely the “Defund the Police” crowd, a stance I personally think is deranged to the point of unreason. Policing is a necessary component to our (or any) culture, though reforms to the criminal justice system are absolutely necessary.
The second is a feminist angle. They argue that at this point, any vote against Kamala is simply because she’s a woman, and thus this “entrenched misogyny” will get Trump re-elected. This is a little confounding, though it largely comes from the same folks that argued that the only reason people voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016 was because they hated Hillary…because she was a woman. This crowd seems unwilling to confront Hillary’s many flaws — flaws that had nothing to do with her being a woman, but rather her being an establishment figure that represented continued corporate control of the Democratic Party and politics in general. In other words, Clinton was a status quo that many people found intolerable.
The third group is uneasy with the process by which she was anointed as the presumptive nominee. Remember, she won no primaries. There has not been an open contest. And while she’s won enough delegates to secure the nomination (though it won’t be official until the convention), the voters did not have a say. Though I am no longer a member of the Democratic Party, I count myself in this camp.
For the last three-plus years, Kamala has been kept on the sidelines by Biden’s team, never having been given a chance to shine. Quite the opposite: she was tasked with dealing with immigration, and that has largely been a disaster during Biden’s term. She hasn’t been given the opportunity to show off her personality, to show that she’s a competent, intelligent, capable person. When I go back and listen to many of her speeches, she has clearly been told to play to the far Left, and as such her speeches come off sounding, um, let’s say…detached. (A close friend called them “word salad.”) Is this fair? No. Is this messaging and media distorting reality? Sure. But let’s be honest: a candidate is only as electable as people think she/he is. That’s the whole damn game.
As such, Kamala has been hamstrung by the Biden Administration for much of Biden’s term as president. And now, that has come back to bite the Democrats.
Which is why I think this article articulates exactly the right tack. Highlight her record as prosecutor. Highlight her tough-against-crime elements. Yes, I’m aware that crime has fallen across much of the country in the last three years (with some very notable exceptions, often in Democrat-controlled cities). But that’s just not how people feel.
Believe me, no one gets as heated by the differences between perception and reality, but if they are going to defeat Trump, the Democrats have to quit telling voters their feelings are wrong and instead meet them where they are.
That’s politics, baby.