Supporters and aides of Vice President Kamala Harris are worried President Joe Biden and his team are ruining her political future. The reality is she doesn’t really have one anyway.
CNN published an exhaustive report about Harris and her team’s complaints after interviewing “nearly three dozen former and current Harris aides, administration officials, Democratic operatives, donors and outside advisers.” They blame several things, from Biden handing her unpopular issues to the administration leaving her out to dry to, of course, racism and sexism and unfair expectations.
But racism and sexism are the only reason Harris is where she is now. Biden limited himself first to pick a woman as his running mate and then to pick a black woman after the death of George Floyd. Were it not for those self-imposed quotas, we would not be talking about Harris as a future presidential candidate at all.
Harris was supposed to be a powerhouse in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. She was a black woman (which only Democrats care about) from the progressive bastion of California. She was a former prosecutor and attorney general, which was thought to be something that could blunt GOP attacks on crime. She looked impressive in scripted attacks on conservative judicial nominees. The announcement of her candidacy raised $1.5 million in just 24 hours. On paper, Harris was the perfect candidate.
But politics isn’t played on paper. Harris was terrible in debates (aside from a scripted attack on Biden). Her poll numbers flatlined. She peaked at roughly 15% among Democrats in national polls in July 2019. By September, she was jockeying for fourth place with several other mediocrities. By December, she was out of the race before a single vote had even been cast.
Harris is lucky to be where she is at all. After implying Biden was a racist on the debate stage, no one would blame him for picking someone else as a running mate. And the fact of the matter is it doesn’t matter Harris has been given difficult assignments, such as immigration. She can hardly make it through friendly media interviews without saying something ridiculous.
Harris does not have a presidential future, and that isn’t Biden’s fault. Harris doesn’t scare Democratic challengers because they have seen she is an inept politician who can’t make it through unscripted interactions without embarrassing herself. Harris couldn’t win a Democratic primary when everything lined up in her favor. Now, her flaws have been exposed, and she is more unpopular than Biden. She will be a toxic commodity in a general election campaign, especially at the top of the ticket. Her presidential future doesn’t exist.
