Kamala, 2024.0 – Press Still Trying to Make Harris Credible

Kamala Harris has been the vice president now for 1,189 days.

To date, there have been 1,187 stories in the press  about how she’s re-inventing herself as an effective vice president and leader, not just some whiny, cackling, jumbletron who is only vice president because Joe Biden promised to pick a black woman as his running mate and his pickings were rather slim (the person he should have picked, Val Demings from Florida, was reportedly ruled out because she used to be – heaven forfend! – a cop.)

And now CNN has made it 1,188 stories about how Harris is finding her footing, getting engaged with things, helping on the campaign trail, and, of course, whipping up the crowds.

And CNN does not mince words:

“The vice president is clearly feeling energized these days. She is more engaged. She is looser. Aides say she was the one who pushed to explicitly call out former President Donald Trump as responsible for every rollback in abortion rights, and she is clearly feeding on the old prosecutorial rush of tearing apart the opposition’s argument.”

CNN repeated words that have been typed time and time again, but they did not mince words: she’s back, she never really left, and she’s great at everything.

After blaming Covid (Zoom calls and such) for hiding her light under a bushel for a year and a half, Harris told CNN that her current campaigning has been “liberating.”

Oh, and as CNN gratuitously points out, her most recent west coast swing allowed her time to cook Sunday dinner at home and attend a fund raiser hosted by “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane.

In her recent speeches, Harris has focused on abortion, trying her hardest to blame Donald Trump for an Arizona law that was passed in 1864.  Defying the laws of time and space, she may actually believe it; but at the very least she is working hard to makes sure everyone else believes it by repeating it ad nauseum.

CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere writes about the “stories she tells” on the stump, like going to civil rights protests in her stroller as a child and chanting along with just regular folks in San Francisco to get the “gun show loophole” banned when it came to the sale of firearms.  Those stories connect her to her audiences, it seems.

What did not come up in the article was the state of California, save the fundraiser and dinner mentions. It seems CNN does not think that the current shambles that is California, in part shambolized by Harris herself when she labeled the disastrous Proposition 47 the “Free Wicker Baskets Full of Yawning Golden Retriever Puppies” (or something like that) to help ensure its passage, is newsworthy.

Also not mentioned is the state’s homelessness debacle, the stagnant – at best – population, or any of the other problems that started on her watch when she was Attorney General and Senator.

Still, it appears abortion is going to be Harris’ go-to topic; not surprising since it is one of the few issues in which Democrats out poll Republicans and is unquestionably the most emotionally evocative issue for single issue candidates.  In other words, Harris and Democrats have a good feeling that a big room of people may think they are generally incompetent but cannot bring themselves to pull the other level because of the abortion debate, despite the fact that even an overwhelming number of Democratic voters endorse at least some minimal restrictions on the procedure.

Harris, and our own Gavin Newsom, both know that fear works. And works to the point that they think ads like this “resonate” with the general public:

And works to the point of whipping crowds into frenzies:

“Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: More bans, more suffering and less freedom,” she told those gathered in Tucson, warning a national abortion ban and restrictions on abortion medications loom. 

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” the crowd started chanting. 

This vibrant focus brings praise not only from campaign handlers, but from the even further to the left than her wing of her party:

“There’s a certain level of authority that comes with having a uterus and being a woman,” said New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, praising how Harris has been leading the charge for the administration on reproductive rights.

It is unclear how that statement jibes with AOC’s unflinching support of all things trans. 

While the article plays down the idea of any rivalry between the Biden and Harris teams, it does take a what can only be described as a sideswipe at Biden, saying his personality “fit the unstructured ambiguity of the modern vice presidency.”

In other words, no need to actually schedule nap time.

Harris, Dovere tells us, likes a plan, a goal, something tangible to do and if she can’t focus on something she tends to go into a spiral of negative self-involvement, bringing to mind a very antsy dog, who, when left home alone for a time, will eat the couch cushions.

But, given a task like campaigning, she’s getting better every day at her job, Dovere says, despite her poll numbers still being a bit wobbly.

Focus groups she held showed that “she rubs them the wrong way, in all the ways that are familiar from criticism of her” and that her laugh (cackle) is also unpopular.  CNN noted that, as to her laugh, Harris’ defenders say that’s all about sexism, really.

But the story quickly pivots to the positive, noting younger people like her and that many potential voters “would much rather hear from Harris than Biden on abortion, guns, student loans and Gaza.”

According to the article, Harris can memorize lines and even tell jokes. At the MacFarlane fundraiser, her host asked her who her favorite Trump impersonator is:

“Alec Baldwin,” she shot back.

Very poor choice of words, CNN, very poor choice of words.