Thursday, August 15, 2024

Kamala’s Conundrum


posted by Heartland Institute at RedState 

With less than three months before Election Day, the Kamala Harris presidential campaign is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Never mind the endless mainstream media hype that Kamala is the second coming of Barack Obama; nobody actually believes that. Also, don’t pay much attention to some of the recent polls that show Harris and former President Trump locked in a tight race; the Harris honeymoon period won’t last much longer.

The truth is, to win the presidency, Harris must maintain her far-left credentials to appease the staunch hardliners that constitute the current Democrat base. However, she also needs to simultaneously convince independent voters that she is not a far-left radical by embracing policies that cater to a wider audience.

Make no mistake, this is a difficult position for Kamala to be in and could lead to her campaign’s implosion sooner than you might expect.

Despite the legacy media’s efforts to rebrand Kamala as a moderate Democrat, the American people know better.

They know that Harris was a soft-on-crime attorney general of California who misrepresented the nature of Prop 47, the notorious ballot referendum passed in 2014 that downgraded thefts of $950 or less from a felony to a misdemeanor. They also know that Prop 47, after 10 years in effect, is partly responsible for the rapid uptick in California crime that has ruined once beautiful and safe neighborhoods throughout the Golden State.

The vast majority of Americans are also well aware that Harris’ tenure as a senator from California cemented any doubts that she is anything close to a moderate. While serving as the junior senator from California from 2017 to 2021, Harris consistently voted in favor of far-left bills that most Americans do not support. From her co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal to her advocacy for Medicare for All, Harris’ senatorial voting record proves she is on the left-wing fringe of the political spectrum.

Moreover, her time as vice president, in which she has cast several tie-breaking votes on controversial legislation, further proves that her political compass almost always points far left.

The proof is in the pudding: Kamala Harris is a radical leftist to her core. Yet, despite her long record of supporting far-left policies, the mainstream media are determined to convince the American people that Kamala is actually just a middle-of-the-road Democrat.

Although Kamala has given the press the stiff-arm since she was coronated as the Democrat presidential nominee more than three weeks ago, the mainstream media continue to do everything in their power to make her appear as moderate as possible.

As someone who watches cable news on a daily basis, even I am stunned as to how far the corporate media are willing to go to make Kamala palatable to independent voters.

Regardless of these attempts to remake Kamala into a reasonable Democrat, I think they will inevitably fail. I do not think it is tenable for the Harris campaign to walk this fine line for the next three months.

Eventually, Harris is going to have to release her policy platform. To date, Harris’ campaign website remains devoid of anything resembling a policy agenda. Of course, with the Democrat National Convention less than a week away, that will likely change.

Voters are wondering where Kamala stands on the border. While her base supports open borders, the overwhelming majority of independent voters do not. How will she thread that needle?

Of course, voters are also wondering how Kamala would fight inflation. Once again, her base is demanding more government spending and more green energy mandates, whereas voters on the fence generally want the opposite. This is especially true in Pennsylvania, a must-win state for Harris.

How can Harris please both her base and independents when they have such conflicting desires on these and so many other issues? The short answer is she cannot pull this off. At some point in the near future, Kamala will finally have to come clean with voters and make it clear where she stands on these pressing issues.

When this day finally comes, and Kamala outlines where she currently stands on everything from the economy to the border, a reckoning will occur. At this point, I believe Kamala and her campaign team are desperately trying to prolong the honeymoon. However, all honeymoons must end at some point.