Opinion - Kamala Harris should not run for president in 2028

Yahoo

3 days ago

The news that former Vice President Kamala Harris has decided to forgo running for governor of California next year is a clear sign that she is serious about a campaign for president in 2028.
Harris would certainly go into the primary season with advantages. But she has proven to be notably tone-deaf in relation to the Democratic Party base, depressing rather than inspiring the kind of turnout needed for victory.
As a national candidate, Harris has failed upward. In 2019, with polls in key states showing her in low single digits, her presidential campaign collapsed before a single primary vote had been cast. She made it onto the ticket not because of any appreciable support from voters but because Joe Biden chose her with an eye toward political balance.
When Biden finally bowed out of the 2024 race last July, Harris was able to quickly consolidate support for replacing him in the top spot — not due to voter enthusiasm but because of swift backing from party power brokers and Biden himself.
During the summer and fall, Harris was unable to sustain momentum, despite raising and spending $1.5 billion in less than four months. Deferring to conventional wisdom when it was least needed, by the time of the party's national convention in August she abandoned any hint of independence, sounding more like a timeworn politician than a fresh voice for change.
When the Democratic Party needed to appeal to voters fed up with defenders of the existing order, Harris opted to emphatically represent the status quo. She gained instant and lasting scorn in early October when, appearing on 'The View,' she was asked, 'Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?' Harris replied, 'There is not a thing that comes to mind.'
That response was much more than just a botched answer. It expressed a basic orientation that remains part of Harris's political persona. A Harris 2028 campaign would remind Democratic voters of her undue loyalty to Biden, whose brand is now badly tarnished in his own party at the grassroots.
In March of this year, when a CNN poll asked Democratic voters 'which one person best reflects the core values of the Democratic Party,' only 1 percent chose Biden. Harris came in at 9 percent — behind Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) at 10 percent and just ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 8 percent.
Most Democrats and independents are looking for authenticity and serious reforms. It is hard for them to say whether Harris lacks the courage of her convictions, since it is so unclear what her convictions actually are.
A little-noticed but significant sentence in the recent book 'Original Sin,' by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, spotlights how far Harris has been from a profile in courage. 'The issue that she truly and most strongly disagreed with the president on behind closed doors was Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza,' the book said. But, in public, Harris never expressed the slightest disagreement with the president, even as the death toll mounted among Palestinian civilians.
Harris's unwavering public support for Biden's weapons shipments to Israel was politically damaging to her presidential bid. As pollsters learned, her stance seemed indefensible to many. By the start of last summer, polling was clear that most Americans wanted to stop arming Israel.
A CBS News-YouGov poll in June 2024 found that Americans were against sending 'weapons and supplies to Israel,' 61 percent to 39 percent. Opposition to the arms shipments was even higher among young people. Yet Harris soldiered on, deploying standard talking points of the Biden administration and ignoring voter sentiment.
In August, YouGov pollsters released findings in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, three swing states on a razor's edge between Harris and Donald Trump. In all three states, by a ratio of at least five-to-one, a greater number of respondents said they'd be more likely to vote for Harris if she were to support an arms embargo against Israel compared to those who said it would make them less likely to support her.
But Harris kept doubling down, repeatedly insisting that there was no daylight between her and Biden on arming Israel. In the process, she put her loyalty to her patron in the Oval Office above what she reportedly believed. That is bound to come back to haunt Harris if she goes onto the presidential campaign trail again.
Among Democrats, the polling is now more lopsided than ever. A new Gallup poll foreshadows that if Harris runs in 2028, she will be on the defensive with Democratic primary voters about her record of steadfast support for supplying Israel with vast quantities of weaponry to use in Gaza.
Gallup found that only 8 percent of Democrats said they approved of Israel's military action in Gaza. The steady support that Harris has provided means she would be vulnerable to persistent challenges on the subject during a primary race.
Overall, a Harris '28 campaign would be a stark reminder of what most Democrats would very much like to put behind them — an era when Harris dedicated herself to serving a deceptive White House that hid the realities of Biden's cognitive decline while maintaining support for Israel's actions in Gaza.
Far more than any other prospective 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, Harris would drag attention back to a blameworthy past. She should not run.
Norman Solomon is cofounder of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His book 'War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine' was published in 2023.
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