Joe Biden became the early favorite in the Democratic primaries, in part because of his proximity to President Barack Obama, but also because he was widely considered a centrist compared to most of his competitors.
He has been running from that centrist label ever since. In picking Kamala Harris as his vice presidential nominee, he has ripped the “centrist” label off and torn it up.
As Biden began rolling out his policy agenda, it became increasingly clear that his policy moderation was a ruse, a vehicle to get him through the primary. Biden has adopted radical positions on energy, positions approximate to the Green New Deal, which hopes to disorganize energy infrastructure and spend trillions of dollars rebuilding it. His agenda for the Catholic community lacks any positive commitment on the single most important policy issue for Catholics: abortion.
Where Biden shows wariness on the most progressive causes, Harris can surely help him along. Biden showed initial resistance to “defund the police” language. He has since embraced the dangerous idea of redirecting police funding into other programs, something Harris has supported vocally, despite her own past as a prosecutor.
Harris praised Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s decision to cut millions from the city’s police department. In contrast, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the move would result in four investigative units being eliminated, including one that investigates crimes against women and children, including sexual abuse and rape.
“It’s unconscionable,” said Villanueva. “I cannot see how we move forward without these four units.”
Harris also shares her support for the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate with Biden, who announced that his administration would impose the mandate as it was before Hobby Lobby and the recent ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania. That mandate required a religious order of nuns, and scores of other organizations, to pay for contraception coverage, a violation of their religious beliefs.
Biden has been hacking away at his centrist reputation for months, reducing the number of reasons for a centrist to vote for him basically to one: a decent running mate choice. With Harris, a centrist has no reason to vote for Biden.
