Kamala Harris, Secret Weapon (II)

I ran this piece early last August. To say the feedback I got was skeptical is an understatement. But the Biden campaign seems, finally, to have embraced the idea that not only does the vice-president not have to be a liability, but that she might be just what Biden needs to blunt the age issue. This past week, the news has been rife with front-and-center Harris stories, be they about Ukraine, the Navalny assassination, or her wheelhouse issue, reproductive rights. Nikki Haley is even taking shots at her. Let’s hope that this exposure is being coordinated by the Biden campaign heads—there are also stories that she has been frozen out—because confidence among the electorate that Harris is fit to serve is vital to Biden’s chances of re-election. Even better, Harris, as I speculated below, seems to have learned how to be effective, both as a powerful number two, and potentially as a candidate on her own. If this continues, and Harris is shown as a far better alternative to Biden than Tim Scott, or whichever other bootlicker is chosen, is to Donald Trump, it could help avoid a disaster for both the party and the country, in November.

On August 8, Ohio joined Kansas as one of the most unlikely venues in which voters would embrace one of the cornerstones of the Democratic agenda.  In 2020, Donald Trump carried the state by 480,000 votes, indicative that, once a classic swing state, Ohio was one no longer.   Nonetheless, a hard-right attempt to alter the rules for amending the state constitution to block a ballot referendum that would protect the right to have an abortion failed by 425,000 votes, a swing of almost one million votes.

The Kansas vote, one year earlier, saw a similar reversal.  An attempt to jiggle that state’s constitution to effectively outlaw abortion failed by 160,000 votes in a state Trump won by 200,000. 

In each case, the turnout for a special election was huge, despite the fact that Republican sponsors, feeling themselves slicker than slick, scheduled the balloting in the dead of summer, when college students were not present and only the most committed would forego pools and barbecues to go to the polls with only one issue on the ballot.

As it turned out, not so slick after all.

Exit interviews made it clear that one of the most important groups in each election was “right-leaning college educated women,” many over forty, a scant few of whom will ever need an abortion and who most likely don’t think their daughters ever will either.

Two factors seem to have played into their opposition to the initiatives.  The first is fundamental fairness.  Many of those interviewed, conservatives themselves, resented the contemptuous attempt to stack the deck with the measures’ obscure wording and the finger-on-the-scale timing of the referenda.  Although such sentiments are gratifying, it must be borne in mind that many of these voters have uttered not a peep about either egregious gerrymandering, especially in Ohio, or transparent attempts to suppress Democratic turnout, especially among Black voters.

Far more significant is the second reason.  It appears that even on the Republican side there is widespread anger at what is fast becoming considered a war on women.  White supremacy might not raise their hackles but male supremacy clearly does.

The question is whether that anger can be harnessed politically and if it is sufficient to defeat misogynistic Republicans and cause the party to back away from their women-in-the-kitchen-and-bedroom platform.

Kamala Harris might be just the person to lead the charge.

One of the most important skills in any contest is the ability to negate a weakness, or, even better, turn it into a strength.  And there is little question that, for Democrats, Kamala Harris, one octogenarian heartbeat away from the presidency, is currently perceived as a weakness, especially in what promises to be a brutal campaign for Biden’s re-election.

She has been accused, both fairly and unfairly, of being imperious and ineffective, incapable of competently managing a staff, and unable to play the “last person in the room” role that Biden played for Obama.  Intangibles haven’t favored her either, with many both in the party and among the electorate finding her “unlikable.”

Harris has often not helped to improve her image.  Her nascent campaign for president collapsed, largely because she could not pull together an effective team, a flaw that continued into her vice-presidency.  And there have been gaffes and missteps, although those are hardly unique in national politics that operates on a 24-hour, vulture-driven news cycle.

But the record is far from one-sided.  Harris has been forceful as a spokesperson for reproductive rights, and she scored a coup in traveling to Florida to attack Ron DeSantis’s “slavery can be good for you” approach to American history.

Still, she is perceived by many as a drag on the ticket, a vulnerability on Biden’s flank, so Republicans are certain to attack her ferociously, trying to convince voters that when Biden inevitably drops dead or descends into helpless senility two days after the 2024 election, the country will be in the hands of the worst president since…Joe Biden.

Democrats are doubtless preparing for these attacks, but they should do more.

They should welcome them. 

With every jibe, riposte, snide remark, and tale of impending doom issued by Republicans and right-wing media, a Kamala Harris hit squad should come right back and shout from the rooftops the reason the attacks are so vicious.

She is a woman.  She is a woman. 

Hit hard and do not let up. 

The Biden team seems to have begun to feature Harris more, to create more opportunities for her to be seen as a key player in the administration, and that is a step in the right direction.  The more she is on the point, the more Republicans will attack and the more Democrats can turn those attacks into gender-based bullying.  Wearing the bullseye is a thankless task, but it also the best way for Harris to regain the national stature she enjoyed before entering the race for president in 2020.

To make this work, of course, Harris must counterpunch effectively.  She can be neither shrill nor obvious, but she can be pointed, witty, and even venomous, all the while demonstrating an encyclopedic knowledge of issues.  The vice-president is both sufficiently smart and sufficiently ambitious to have learned from her previous missteps, and if she has, she can become the person that pushes Biden over the top instead of the one who drags him back.

It is, in fact, the Republicans, not Harris, who are the more vulnerable.  They have dug themselves into yet another hole, and, as the state legislators in Ohio and Kansas who set up those disastrous referenda have amply demonstrated, they are responding by, in Bill Clinton’s words, asking for a bigger shovel.

Kamala Harris should lead them to the hardware store and point out the aisle in which they can get one.