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Too fun to check: Does Kamala Harris even *want* to be president?
Hotair ^ | 07/11/2022 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 07/11/2022 9:43:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Well, she clearly did in 2019, even if Kamala Harris went about it incompetently. Having a ringside seat to the job for the past eighteen months may have changed her mind, Andrew Stiles argued in the Washington Free Beacon on Friday. As VP, Harris has tried to avoid holding any portfolio so far, and Stiles concludes that she’s seen the boss’ job and no longer wants it.

Before we address that question, we have to address the question that precedes it. Do Democrats want Harris in the first place? Even among the impressive string of Kamala Word Salads leading up to her response on Dobbs, this answer is jaw-dropping:

Holy cow what a bad answer. This is going to cause a Dem revolt. The GOP has been after this for decades. But the Dems thought it settled so did nothing?! https://t.co/QFzkAeSYuO

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 9, 2022

Harris thought it was “settled”? Is that why Democrats spent four-plus decades making Roe and then Casey litmus tests for judicial nominees, especially at the appellate level and Supreme Court? There hasn’t been an election cycle since 1980 where Democrats have not made protection and expansion of abortion a front-and-center issue, especially in its fundraising. In 2016 and 2020, Democrats campaigned not on the idea that Roe and Casey had “settled” abortion but to change those “settled” cases to eliminate viability as a legitimate line for restrictions in law. And in all of the 49-plus years of Roe, there have been few years in which states have not made clear through legislation and lawsuits that they considered abortion anything but a “settled” issue.

In fact, that was Justice Samuel Alito’s entire point about the failure of Roe:

The right to abortion does not fall within this category. Until the latter part of the 20th century, such a right was entirely unknown in American law. Indeed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the States made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy. The abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this Court has held to fall within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of “liberty.” Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called “fetal life” and what the law now before us describes as an “unborn human being.

Stare decisis, the doctrine on which Casey’s controlling opinion was based, does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority. Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.

Harris and the media might want to pretend that Dobbs divided the nation, but that’s what Roe did. It led to fifty years of division and warping of institutions, including the courts. The Left and the media only claim to see Dobbs that way now because the Left came out on the losing end.

Erick’s correct, however, about the impact that this “oops, our bad” answer will have on Democratic Party activists, especially after Joe Biden’s lame post-Dobbs response. Even if Biden and Harris saw this as “settled” in mid-2021, the fact that the Supreme Court took up this case at all should have alerted them to the unsettled nature of Roe. The oral arguments in December clearly indicated that the court was going to at least rewrite Roe and dump Casey, if not dump it all. The leak at the beginning of May made it very clear that the court would toss both precedents. And yet … Harris and Biden thought it was settled until two weeks ago?

Why would Democrats want to keep any member of this team in charge of anything after this sorry performance?

That brings us to whether they even have to worry about it. Stiles thinks Harris “doesn’t want to be in charge of anything” and is just along for the ride, and makes a pretty good argument. There is, however, an alternate interpretation of his evidence:

At one point, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns recount in the book, Harris corrected Biden during a meeting with leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus. When the president said she would do “a hell of job” handling immigration, Harris immediately chimed in to say that her role would be limited to U.S. relations with the so-called Northern Triangle countries in Central America. During a subsequent visit to Guatemala, the vice president fumbled a question from NBC anchor Lester Holt about why she hadn’t visited the U.S. southern border. “And I haven’t been to Europe,” she cackled.

Days later, Politico published a story headlined, “‘Not a healthy environment’: Kamala Harris’ office rife with dissent,” which detailed the dysfunction in the vice president’s office and was riddled with anonymous quotes from former Harris aides blasting her leadership style. That was around the same time Biden tasked Harris with leading the administration’s effort to promote so-called voting rights. A similar fiasco ensued.

Martin and Burns report that after holding a series of initial meetings with activists, Harris failed to marshal a significant push for voting rights on Capitol Hill. Months after taking the assignment, they note, she had not even spoken about the issue with Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), whose votes were crucial to passing legislation in the Senate. …

This attitude is echoed in her response to being asked to handle the response to the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade. She doesn’t want to be “pigeonholed on the issue because of her gender.” OK, then. What, exactly, does she want to be doing? According to Martin and Burns, the vice president’s staff did at one point propose that Harris could oversee “relation with the Nordic countries,” a suggestion that was “rejected” and “privately mocked” by White House aides.

Harris has been notably absent from public leadership throughout her first 17 months on the job. That may not be her choice, however; multiple and ongoing leaks have made it clear that Biden’s staff has kept her away from media, thanks to her series of awful performances, such as the one above. She’s given no indication that she can string a coherent thought together in public, instead routinely stringing dull clichés into repetitive outputs that form the core recipe of Kamala Word Salads.

But, in point of fact, Harris is not in charge of anything — not because of any demurral but simply out of function. Biden’s in charge and Biden sets the policies, not Harris. Nor has Biden really tasked her to take charge in any real sense. All Biden has done is shifted damaging issues and performance failures to Harris with limited portfolio, which consist entirely of fronting Biden’s ludicrous policies and taking the blame for their inevitable failures. Who would volunteer for that duty, especially now?

If Biden chooses not to run in 2024 — or even if the party makes that choice for him — expect to see Harris injecting herself into any primary discussion. And expect to see Democrats ejecting her quickly right back out of it, perhaps even as quickly as they did in 2019 when they realized what an awful candidate Harris was and still is.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: harris; kamala; kamalaharris; president
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1 posted on 07/11/2022 9:43:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I think Kamala Harris is almost too stupid to even know what she wants. Prove me wrong.


2 posted on 07/11/2022 9:47:41 PM PDT by WMarshal (Neocons and leftists are the same species of vicious rat.)
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To: WMarshal

Her only ‘out’ will be a SCOTUS nomination. Save face. Unfortunately it will have to be done before January. A GOP senate will make her feel like Liz Cheney.


3 posted on 07/11/2022 9:51:04 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: SeekAndFind

“...a question from NBC anchor Lester Holt...”

America needs less Holt.


4 posted on 07/11/2022 9:52:17 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: SeekAndFind

I’ve said before that I don’t think she really wants it (except the title), because it’s too much work for her. Aside from the occasional trip and brief speech, I don’t know what she does all day. She obviously doesn’t study or prepare for anything, because if she did, she wouldn’t look like such an idiot when someone asks her a question that she should have expected. And she never did anything about the border, even though Biden assigned that job to her. I think she does as little as possible.


5 posted on 07/11/2022 9:53:35 PM PDT by nuconvert ( Warning: Accused of being a radical militarist. Approach with caution.)
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To: nuconvert

Shiftless.


6 posted on 07/11/2022 9:55:32 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: SeekAndFind

Kamala Word Salads tossed with a handful of Dunning-Kruger croutons and a generous splash of Stupid dressing.


7 posted on 07/11/2022 9:56:20 PM PDT by Noumenon (You're not voting your way out of this. KTF)
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To: nuconvert

I’ll agree with you...she’s lazy and just wants the trappings of the office.

I’ll add: If the Biden presidency proceeds along current lines, the negative coattails of Biden and the visceral dislike for Harris will render her unelectable; which she generally was, anyway. I’ll say what I’ve said several times over the past 2-3 years, I don’t think women like her. Women see in her a hated boss, whose arrogance made their work lives hell, in some prior job. Who is she supposed to appeal to if not women?


8 posted on 07/11/2022 10:02:25 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them)
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To: SeekAndFind

Hmmmm! Is she still believing that when something is done we should believe that it was done with the belief that we should believe.


9 posted on 07/11/2022 10:05:35 PM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

I don’t think women like her. Women see in her a hated boss, whose arrogance made their work lives hell, in some prior job. Who is she supposed to appeal to if not women?
~~~~~~~~~~~

You are right - women see right through her in 5 minutes.

She ain’t called “Heels Up” for nuttin!


10 posted on 07/11/2022 10:10:46 PM PDT by bitt ( <img src=' 'width=50%> )
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

She apparently appeals to black women. I heard a black conservative commentator the other day, say that black women support and adore her. Obviously, that’s not enough to win an election.


11 posted on 07/11/2022 10:15:12 PM PDT by nuconvert ( Warning: Accused of being a radical militarist. Approach with caution.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England for nine days.

Do we thing Harris will do any better?


12 posted on 07/11/2022 10:15:23 PM PDT by Maris Crane
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To: SeekAndFind

More and more, the first debate, where Harris almost single-handedly torpedoed Joe’s candidacy, looks like a set-up. She delivered her lines so well they had to be rigorously rehearsed. Hardly anything she’s said since being lifted up from the bottom of the also-rans—and by the very dragon she so nearly slew—can compare with her delivery that night.


13 posted on 07/11/2022 10:17:18 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: DIRTYSECRET

An a quaintance suggested that Joe may resign after the mid-term elections in November if the Dems really get their well-deserved shellacking. But ahead of the inauguration of the incoming Congress in 2023. This would move Harris into the top slot and elevate the (outgoing) Speaker into the VP slot to “advise” Harris’ administration.

Far-fetched, perhaps, but I put nothing past them.


14 posted on 07/11/2022 10:25:42 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: BradyLS

She made a name for herself in the first democrat debate by attacking Biden.

She proceeded to drop like a rock after her moment in the sun.

Her next memorable debate was getting destroyed by VP
Pence.
She went in with a snarky attitude and Pence had her looking like she was sucking a lemon at the halfway mark.


15 posted on 07/11/2022 10:32:37 PM PDT by unclebankster (Globalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel)
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To: SeekAndFind

She knows she’s pulling off a farce right now as VP. She also knows that she’s not cut out to be a POTUS. Her own staff can’t stand her. She went in over her head when she left her job as Willie Brown’s hooker.


16 posted on 07/11/2022 10:33:43 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (First, they stole our elections. Then, they stole our country.)
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To: BradyLS
This would move Harris into the top slot and elevate the (outgoing) Speaker into the VP slot to “advise” Harris’ administration.

That's not my understanding of how the process works.
17 posted on 07/11/2022 10:37:46 PM PDT by jy8z
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To: SeekAndFind

It may not matter what she wants. The Dems don’t have the votes to give her a VP of their choice when Dementia Joe finally falters. That’s right now, and if the Republicans take the House the Speaker won’t be Pelosi, either. So she’s it. Stolen elections have consequences.


18 posted on 07/11/2022 10:46:13 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: jy8z

Yeah. Pelosi would have to be nominated by Harris...or whoever...and be run through advise and consent by the Senate, I believe. I don’t know why they’d do that. Newsome seems like more of a likelihood.


19 posted on 07/12/2022 2:31:16 AM PDT by gundog ( It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: SeekAndFind

I realize that anything can happen in national politics in 6 months. TBS, this is, in my opinion, the most likely scenario.

1. Democrats suffer a bloodbath in House, lose the Senate, in Nov.
2. Prior to the new Congress in Jan., Biden is asked to step down, due to health. He has to agree, he will be impeached for many things that will be awful for the dems to have publicized. Dem leadership will be united in this.
3. KH becomes president. (Lord, have mercy on us!)
4. Newsome, Hillary or Buttigeg are appointed VP.
5. The press will go into the giganticest propaganda lovefest in their history, telling us how historic! and amazing that we have the FIRST! BLACK! WOMAN! President!
6. Due to the press heavy-lifting and major rigging of the polls, she will initially poll in the upper 50’s or low 60’s.
7. This will be unstainable, however. The press and pollsters cannot cover-up her incompetence, stupidity, ignorance and unlikeability for any significant period. She will be rudderless and irrelevent for 2 years with an opposition Congress and a conservative SC.


20 posted on 07/12/2022 4:36:24 AM PDT by JohnEBoy
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