Kamala Harris makes for a highly unusual running mate in that most Americans believe (according to at least one poll) that she herself will shortly be president. Any attempt she makes to rebrand herself as being supportive of Joe Biden’s “moderate” platform (it isn’t) will be seen, and properly so, as contingent upon his endurance, which is in question. Her actual policy ideas stand an excellent chance of being implemented should Biden–Harris win in November, and everyone knows it.
And those ideas are breathtakingly radical. Harris’s theory of the Democratic Party primary was that a far-left candidate was bound to win, and she campaigned accordingly.
Can you imagine being a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, or Montana and having to explain away a president-in-waiting who promises to do this?
If Republicans continue to block progress, I’ll get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal. #ClimateTownHall
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 4, 2019
If Harris backs away from this statement, who will believe her? She has said she would enact a breathtakingly radical rethink of the entire U.S. economy even if there were only 50 Senate votes for the plan.
It doesn’t really matter if Harris tacks to the center in the general election. She has already committed to a far-left presidency that may well come to pass, and so she is stuck with the proposals she floated last year in order to pander to the activist wing of the Democratic Party.
