Sen. Kamala Harris should take a note from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s 2020 playbook and put her primary campaign out of its misery.
It is over for the California lawmaker. This is not her moment. Voters are not interested. It is only a matter of time before reality forces Harris to end her candidacy, so she may as well do it while she can still bow out with some dignity.
The senator’s 2020 campaign, which has imploded in the polls, is making major changes to its senior staff, according to reports. That alone is a bad sign for the senator. What is worse is that the changes have also reportedly taken her senior aides by surprise, creating an additional layer of anxiety within an already struggling campaign.
In other words, it is a mess for Harris.
Her 2020 campaign is adding her Senate Chief of Staff Rohini Kosoglu and senior adviser Laphonza Butler to the mix. The two Senate staffers will assist in Harris’ 2020 bid on a permanent basis. The senator’s current campaign manager, Juan Rodriguez, will stay right where he is, focusing on budgeting and long-term strategies while Kosoglu and Butler will take over whatever campaign duties remain.
The staff changes come amid Harris’ pitiful attempts to ingratiate herself to the Democratic base. In recent weeks, she has embraced ludicrous gimmicks, including calling on Twitter to suspend President Trump’s account and calling also for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh based on a heavily amended and deeply flawed New York Times op-ed.
“We need to get to the truth about Kavanaugh. And I believe the best path to truth and accountability is through a formal impeachment process,” she said in an op-ed published last week by Elle. “That’s why I called on the House Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment inquiry and take a serious look at whether Kavanaugh lied under oath during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
Calling for an impeachment inquiry over a since-corrected and widely criticized op-ed is definitely a thing a serious candidate does. Yep. Yessir.
On a more serious note: Sudden staff changes and absurd fantasy fulfillment are not the things of winning primary campaigns. In fact, this is all extremely reminiscent of the Gillibrand 2020 candidacy, and you know how that ended. But you try telling that to Harris’ team.
For his own part, campaign manager Rodriguez assured reporters that the changes in campaign staff had been in the works for some time. Harris, for her part, downplayed concerns that her candidacy is running on fumes.
“I’m very proud of our team,” the senator said this week in an interview with CNN. “We have accomplished a great amount of work thus far, which makes me a top-tier candidate, and by many accounts within the top four, maybe five, in a field of over 20 people. So something’s been going right and we’re going to continue moving ahead.”
Harris’ polling average has plummeted from its high of 15.2% in early July, according to a RealClearPolitics, to 4.6%, just behind the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Good luck in Iowa, senator.
