Only One Question Matters, Can She Win?

Only One Question Matters, Can She Win?

By

Leonard Zwelling

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/opinion/kamala-harris-democrats.html

Bret Stephens does a great job of outlining the short comings of the newly anointed Democratic nominee for President, Kamala Harris.

In essence, she may well be a light weight candidate who got her position from Biden for strictly political reasons (she was the Black woman Biden promised he would choose) and who did not have to compete in any way for the distinction of being a major party nominee for President. When she did compete for the position, in 2020, she did poorly and won nothing. Has she really changed all that much in four years? As Stephens notes: she’s still not popular, she’s not really a good campaigner, her reputation is that of a bad manager, she can be really banal, she’s a Californian who needs to win swing states, and she appears to have used influence and favoritism to get where she has.

As I have recently written, she barely makes it as the winner in the 13 Keys categories of Lichtman, and this very strange election season may well be like none other at least since 1968 when LBJ chose not to run. At least then there was a primary before Bobby Kennedy was killed and the convention settled on Hubert Humphrey, also the sitting vice president. Are we there again? That did not turn out well for the Democrats.

My guess is that the election has been reset, but the Trump supporters have not budged and whether or not Harris can galvanize the swing voters to vote for her or even to not stay home remains to be seen.

The Vice President has a bubbly personality and, as a woman, should be able to mobilize the pro-choice forces even more than could Biden. Because she’s not in her 80’s, she should also potentially mobilize the young voters who were turned off by both Trump and Biden. So many of these younger Americans have never had the chance to vote for anyone under 70 yet.

Here’s my concern.

Vice President Harris was a DEI pick for her current job. I know this is not a politically-correct statement, but that doesn’t make it wrong. There is no debating this given all the possible people Mr. Biden could have chosen in 2020, many of whom had far better records in the primaries than Ms. Harris. She really has made no impact on policy over these four years, surely doing nothing on her assigned job of border control. Why should she float into the privileged spot of the top of the Democratic ticket without so much as a challenge of any kind?

The Democrats are betting that getting rid of Biden will be enough to beat Trump. “Not Biden” cannot beat Trump.

Ms. Harris is going to have to articulate what she will do as President and surely make a great choice for her running mate. As this blog has said, go with the astronaut, Mark Kelly.

Ms. Harris is a top-down appointee to the highest office in the land. She has garnered no popular support and had no challenge, but this may be changing in her favor. So, the question remains. Can she do it and if you believe she can, why?