What does Vice President Kamala Harris believe in? That shouldn’t be tough to answer, but it has stumped more people than the toughest Final Jeopardy questions.
Sooner or later, I have to assume she will articulate some kind of vision or original thought on policy. She will presumably propose something of substance, solutions to the issues facing the country. One cannot campaign on “vibes” alone…or can one?
I know it’s the buzzword of the Democrats this year about Republicans, but it is really “weird” to have run for and been elected to the Senate, to have run for president and run for and been elected to the vice presidency and not have any idea what you believe in.
Of course, Kamala Harris does believe in things — all the things she campaigned on in 2020 for the presidency. She just doesn’t want you to be reminded of what those things are, and she certainly doesn’t want voters to associate her with them.
It was only four years ago, but that’s forever and a long weekend ago in politics. Way back then, the policy positions and campaigning style of Kamala Harris were considered pretty extreme, and they remain unpopular today. Her presidential campaign was so unpopular that her candidacy could not even make it to the calendar year of a single Democratic Party primary vote. Harris raised a total of $40 million in that election cycle, more than much of the primary field that year, and dropped out in early December of 2019.
But she had a campaign website, and she did make policy proposals and promises. Why couldn’t she have used those to populate her campaign website before now?
The same goes for her 2016 Senate campaign website and the promises she made then. Has she really “changed” that much in the years since?
As a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris campaigned on open borders, socialized medicine for everyone, including illegal aliens, whom she also wants to grant citizenship and voting rights. She wants more money for everything except the police, which she advocated defunding. She supports abortion on demand for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy, the Green New Deal, and pretty much everything else the Democratic Socialists of America advocate for.
In short, she was Bernie Sanders with a cackle rather than a scowl.
It’s quite common for candidates to run to the extreme of their party during the nomination process, then tack to the center for the general election. Harris didn’t make it that far, though, and the 2020 campaign didn’t require traditional campaigning, thanks to COVID. All she had to do was exist and occasionally speak to donors and friendly media (Democrats don’t do media that might challenge them), so she never had to be specific.
Also, Joe Biden ran to the extreme left, like Harris and the rest of the field (with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard) to neuter Sanders, and then during the general election he never really had to go back. His team made the campaign all about Trump rather than issues, so neither end of the ticket had to worry about specifics.
Joe Biden governed as a “progressive,” which is code for extreme left, disavowing his history and previous claims to moderation. That agenda was pretty much what Harris had campaigned on, too. With the exception of when Harris heavily implied that Biden is a racist, they raised their hands together on the debate stage in support of radical left-wing policies across the board.
Now she doesn’t know what she thinks?
I get that it’s the job of a vice president to support the president, but are we to believe she has spent the last four years advocating, and even casting the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, for policies she does not support?
At some point, aside from putting up a focus-grouped, PR-team-written set of issue positions on her website, she’s going to have to explain why she no longer supports positions for which she actively campaigned just four years ago — issues she and Biden governed on.
Are Pennsylvania’s electoral votes the only reason she no longer supports a ban on fracking? What happened to change her mind from supporting single-payer health care to now opposing it? Was there something she learned in office, or is it just that it doesn’t poll well in swing states?
There are many questions about where Kamala Harris stands on issues, but just as important is why. All we know now is she doesn’t support what she used to. She owes the public a serious, in-depth discussion about why she changed these “principled positions,” if she’s capable of such a thing.
It can be very difficult to explain why you changed core positions if you’re an opportunist with no core positions. At some point, maybe some journalist will dare ask the question, “Will the Kamala Harris will please stand up?” If one actually exists.
Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).