On the surface, Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, would seem to be the perfect person to go up against President Donald Trump in 2020. She is a young, fresh face from the most populous and, in many ways, the most liberal state in the union. She is saying all the correct things to appeal to the Democratic base. Harris has the advantage of not having any skeletons in her closet. She could be the first female president of the United States.
However, a lot of people from the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party are saying, not so fast.
Harris is thought to be a wild eyed radical by people on the right and by Trump supporters. The Bernie wing has a different perspective altogether, according to the Washington Examiner.
The problem with Kamala Harris
Sen. Harris has one problem that sets the Bernie Sanders people’s teeth on edge. She tends to schmooze with Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley tech billionaires. Indeed, she is headed to the Hamptons to party with corporate titans.
Sidling up to people with lots of money in considered Politics 101 for individuals who have national ambitions. One cannot campaign for president without money and the quickest way to get it is to make friends with people who have it. Hillary Clinton knew this principle very well.
That is a problem, suggests the Bernie folks.
The supporters of Sen. Sanders are still nursing resentments from the Democratic primaries in which, in their view, the Democratic Party established muscled their guy out of the nomination. The fact that Hillary Clinton went on to lose so spectacularly confirms their belief that their guy might have done better had it not been for the perfidy of the Democratic establishment.
A look forward to 2020
What if Kamala Harris becomes the new pick of the Democratic Party establishment, a sort of Hillary 2.0? The Bernie wing will want to rally around a more leftist alternative. Who would that person be? Elizabeth Warren, the firebrand senator from Massachusetts? One of the Castro brothers from Texas? Bernie Sanders himself?
Every potential exists, once the initial shakeout occurs in Iowa and New Hampshire, for another establishment vs. radical fight for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Let us say that Harris is the pick of the establishment, and Elizabeth Warren is the pick for the far left. The ensuing battle will be over who can hate Wall Street the most, the source of all unhappiness for the Democratic base and, ironically, the source of a lot of the party’s support. Depending on how the economy is going and whether the United States is at war or not, the spectacle may be a pleasing one for President Trump.
