International Courant
Kamala Harris has a protracted digital historical past — what we used to name a paper path — that paints her as an excessive liberal.
That is not stunning, as a result of for many of her profession — from district legal professional to legal professional basic to senator — she’s solely needed to attraction to her left-wing base in royal-blue California.
However because the Democratic candidate, Harris will in some unspecified time in the future have to elucidate, or rationalize away, a few of her previous positions, which will not fare nicely in a detailed nationwide election during which a sequence of polls present her statistically tied with Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — and with a 6-point lead in Minnesota.
The Trump camp, the place the previous president referred to as Harris a “bum,” amongst different epithets, and bragged about mispronouncing her identify, is regurgitating a few of its liberal biggest hits. However the mainstream press has some influential bloggers Andrew Sullivan calls “amnesia,” writing that whereas she would possibly win, “Harris is likely one of the weakest and wokest Democratic candidates out there. She can’t make a reputable attraction to the middle after such a far-left stance.”
HARRIS SAYS BIDEN IS FIT TO REMAIN HIS OFFICIAL DESPITE MORE THAN 80 DOCUMENTED ENCOUNTERS IN THE PAST YEAR
Donald Trump’s operating mate JD Vance and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Getty Pictures)
So if and when the Harris Honeymoon is over, that’s the problem for the vp. She has to inform voters why she’s not serving in these roles, if that’s the case. Perhaps it’s as a result of she’s “developed.” Perhaps it’s as a result of she represented San Francisco for essentially the most half. Perhaps her time as VP has modified her perspective. However she will be able to’t simply let it go.
Even the sympathetic press will finally recover from its reminiscence loss.
Some examples: Throughout the BLM riots in the summertime of 2020, following the killing of George Floyd, Harris helped promote a bail fund to get criminals out of jail.
She stated in an interview: “They are not going to surrender and so they should not. And we should not both.”
Harris stated in one other interview: “It is outdated and it is truly mistaken and backward to suppose that extra law enforcement officials will make for extra security.”
And through her 2020 marketing campaign, she stated, “Personal prisons earn money off of the incarceration and struggling of individuals. Considered one of my first acts as president might be to start phasing out detention facilities and personal prisons.”
Throughout the identical marketing campaign, Harris supported Medicare for All – a Bernie favourite – whereas acknowledging that it might remove non-public medical insurance. Joe Biden refused to maneuver that far to the left.
Harris additionally promised to ban fracking, however has walked that again in feedback from an adviser.
HISTORIAN WHO PREDICTED ALMOST EVERY ELECTION SINCE 1984 GIVES HIS VIEW ON THE TRUMP-HARRIS RACE
When the media instantly switched their allegiance from Biden (after all he can keep for 4 extra years!) to Harris (she’s a younger, recent voice!), they shortly fashioned a defensive workforce.
A number of high information organizations tried to debunk the concept she was ever named border czar. Probably the most embarrassing case was Axios, which stated that “the Trump marketing campaign and Republicans have repeatedly referred to Harris as ‘border czar’ — which in reality she has by no means had.”
Besides that in 2021, Axios stated: “Harris, Biden’s Border Czar Appointed…”
(Axios has up to date its story.)
It’s true that it was simply journalistic shorthand, and that Harris was assigned to work on the basis causes of unlawful immigration, and labored diplomatically with Mexico and Guatemala. However why deny that she had that unofficial title?
These calling the vp a DEI decide justify this by arguing that Biden had in reality promised to select a Black lady.
A visitor on FOX Enterprise went even decrease by evaluating Harris to the Hawk-Tuah woman. (It is a intercourse act. Google it if you’d like.)
Trump, in the meantime, has accused Harris of orchestrating a “coup.” (Nobody stood as much as her.) He’s additionally stated that Jews ought to have their heads examined in the event that they vote Democratic (Kamala, after all, is married to a Jewish man).
President Biden addresses the nation from the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, concerning his resolution to desert his Democratic bid for reelection. (Evan Vucci, Pool by way of AP)
The previous president could have tempered expectations by calling Harris “dumb as a rock” given the almost flawless efficiency of her first week.
I sense Trump continues to be making an attempt to determine find out how to tackle the 59-year-old Harris. (The Washington Put up has a enjoyable TikTok about how Donna Brazile and different allies spent weeks planning a Kamala candidacy in case Biden withdrew.)
Examine that to the way in which the media treats JD Vance: no outdated remark is taken into account too small to resurrect.
The Harris workforce is making an attempt to color each Trump and Vance as bizarre, with an announcement referencing his “bizarre and excessive views.” The Trump camp is making an attempt to color Harris as bizarre. The entire thing is, uh, very bizarre.
KAMALA RIDES ON TSUNAMI OF POSITIVE PRESS, BUT SKEPTICS SEE RISKY CHOICE
Vance’s greatest controversy has been his 2021 Fox interview during which he stated {that a} “childless cat girl,” naming Harris amongst others, has no “direct curiosity” in society and is sad in his personal life. He has prolonged that to childless media folks.
The feedback landed him in a battle with Jennifer Aniston, which isn’t precisely a state of affairs you need to be in. He additionally bought a dressing down from the Wall Avenue Journal’s opinion web page.
At first, the Ohio senator advised Megyn Kelly he was being sarcastic and that he favored cats.
On Sunday, Fox host Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman, advised Vance that George Washington and James Madison have been among the many individuals who didn’t have organic kids.
“In the event you have a look at what the left has finished,” Vance stated. “They’ve taken this radically out of context and even aggressively lied about what I stated. What I do suppose is true, Trey, and this goes to the guts of what I stated in these feedback three years in the past, nevertheless it’s one thing I hold speaking about, is that the left has turn into more and more explicitly anti-child and anti-family.
Former President Trump shakes fingers with Senator J.D. Vance in the course of the first day of the 2024 Republican Nationwide Conference on the Fiserv Discussion board in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
“They’ve inspired younger households to not have kids in any respect due to issues about local weather change. They’ve instructed that individuals who do have kids are someway egocentric, once I suppose parenthood is definitely essentially the most selfless factor you are able to do, and once more, it actually modifications your perspective.
“So this isn’t a criticism. It was by no means a criticism, Trey, of anybody with out kids.”
Harris has additionally been intently concerned in elevating her husband Doug Emhoff’s kids, in accordance with an announcement from Doug’s ex-wife.
That is no doubt essentially the most weird marketing campaign in American historical past—and could be about perceptions of strangeness. However it definitely looks as if a double normal, given the media consensus that Trump is a hazard to democracy.
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Footnote: With Trump opting out of a debate or debates with Harris for now (he says he is nonetheless undecided who the nominee might be), it is essential to recollect one factor.
Trump negotiated these phrases with Joe Biden and accepted Biden’s phrases. Now he has each proper to renegotiate with Harris, as a result of she immediately turned the brand new nominee. Fox Information pitched a debate in September after Trump dismissed ABC as biased. I don’t know if there might be debates, however the former president has each proper to work out a brand new deal.
By the way in which, it was Biden who pushed for an early debate with Trump so he may shake up the marketing campaign. It was the start of the tip. How may his workforce, realizing what we all know now, ship him there?
Howard Kurtz is the host of FOX Information Channel’s MediaBuzz (Sundays 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET). He lives in Washington, D.C., joined the community in July 2013 and seems commonly on Particular Report with Bret Baier and different packages.
The ‘Bizarre’ Marketing campaign: The Beautiful Distinction Between Harris and Vance Protection
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