Melting down as the climate candidate
The most significant pivot for Vice President Kamala Harris between her first and second presidential runs has been going cold on running as a climate warrior. As a long-shot candidate in 2019, Harris hitched her campaign wagon to the Left’s biggest climate policy ideas imaginable. Now that she’s unopposed after President Joe Biden bowed out of the contest and anointed her as his successor, she has made it clear climate matters are still on her agenda, though there are more important aspects of governing.
Running to the left or right in a primary and tacking to the center is not new. And it’s not surprising Harris would choose to distance herself from the Green New Deal menu of programs that strayed away from climate policy and into economic reform, frustrating voters to the right of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
