Hot Air suggests that Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California is running for president in 2020. The prospect has many Democrats, especially the big money people, in a state of excitement. Harris has some advantages that could make her the best hope available for knocking off President Donald Trump.
What Kamala Harris?
Senator Harris is the newly elected junior senator from California, having replaced Barbara Boxer who, mercifully, retired. She is not only younger than 70, but since she is in her early 50s, she is practically a kid next to the potential geriatric candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
She is telegenic and is not well known outside the state of California. She lacks the baggage of a Hillary Clinton. In short, she can be the great female hope of 2020 the same way that Barack Obama was the great African American hope of 2008. If the economy is sour at home and a foreign policy disaster happens abroad (say the war in Korea) she stands a good chance of prevailing.
Harris does have some liabilities, though
On the other hand, Harris is a San Francisco liberal in the style of Nancy Pelosi. She is anti-gun rights, anti-death penalty, pro-abortion, pro-illegal immigrant, and a radical environmentalist. She doesn’t have much of a record, yet, on taxes, healthcare or foreign policy, but Harris has positioned herself in total opposition to the Republican agenda in her brief term in the Senate.
Harris is not likely to appeal to any of the voters in the heartland who turned out in droves for Donald Trump. Her support, such as it is, will probably be confined to the coastal elites in states that Democrats tend to carry anyway. She is a younger Hillary Clinton or, if you will, a white, female Barack Obama. Unless Trump botches everything, Harris does not stand much of a chance of prevailing.
What Democrats really need
While Republicans certainly have their problems, as the turmoil over Obamacare repeal and replace illustrates, the Democrats are divided into the left wing (the Hillary faction) and the far left wing (the Bernie faction). Neither have much of an appeal on the national stage.
The Democrats need Bill Clinton, circa 1992, a smart, smooth center-left candidate who can appeal to people in the south and the heartland while holding onto the liberal base.
Unfortunately, thanks to the decimation that the Democrats have suffered on the congressional and state-wide levels, such a person does not exist. The Democrats can thank Barack Obama for the fact that its bench is so thin going into 2020.
