“So, to you my supporters, it is with deep regret – but also with deep gratitude – that I am suspending my campaign today.”
That was California Sen. Kamala Harris as she dropped out of the presidential race on Tuesday. Earlier that day, reports mentioned a super PAC reserving television time for the candidate in Iowa. On Monday, California governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to campaign for Harris in Iowa on December 14-15. As the Sacramento Bee reported, Newsom would canvas on behalf of Harris and “speak about the senator’s record on LGBT rights,” not a prominent theme in her presidential campaign.
Last month, Harris proclaimed “Our country is in a mental health crisis,” and “mental health care justice is on the ballot in 2020.” To that end, Harris planned to double the number of treatment beds nationwide and boost federal funding and education loan forgiveness for “mental health professionals.” In the style of rival Elizabeth Warren, Harris offered no price tag, and Californians may have spotted a re-run of the state’s Mental Health Services act, which raised some $13.2 billion with no noticeable benefits for anyone.
Harris raised $12 million in the first three months of her campaign, which got a boost from her jousts with Joe Biden over busing and segregation. In last month’s MSNBC “debate,” Harris proclaimed that “justice is on the ballot in 2020,” and blasted the “criminal living in the White House,” who deserved to be impeached. Harris also attacked candidate Tulsi Gabbard for criticizing the previous president on Fox News. Gabbard charged that Harris “will continue the status-quo” policy of “regime change wars.”
Like Warren, Kamala Harris supports Medicare for All, health care for illegal immigrants, and she proclaimed herself a “proud cosponsor of Senator Markey’s Green New Deal resolution.” Harris also supports a 7.5 percent payroll tax increase on employers, a top tax bracket of 70 percent, and a death tax rate of 77 percent. So as Tom Steyer said, the debaters were all “progressives.”
After the debate, Harris campaign workers started to grumble. On her way out the door, operations director Kelly Mahlenbacher wrote, “I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.” Pollsters went on record that Harris was the biggest negative surprise of the campaign.
The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, Harris gained election the U.S. Senate in 2016, replacing Barbara Boxer. POTUS 44 proclaimed Harris “by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.” When Harris ran for that office in 2010, the Sacramento Bee endorsed her Republican rival, former Los Angeles district attorney Steve Cooley. Harris carried the race and served without distinction until 2017.
As district attorney of San Francisco, Harris styled herself a crime fighter of sorts. In her 2009 Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make us Safer, Harris found the number of nonviolent offenders “truly staggering” and put them at the top of her “crime pyramid.” As DA, Harris promised never to seek the death penalty and kept that promise when gang member David Hill used an AK-47 to gun down San Francisco police officer Isaac Espinoza. Even fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein took Harris to task, as she alienated police across the state.
In the early going, Harris’ biggest booster was Democrat power broker Willie Brown, who pioneered the practice of “poontronage.” Brown appointed steady girlfriend Kamala Harris, 30 years his junior, to lucrative sinecures on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and California Medical Assistance Commission. Brown also raised money for Harris’ run for district attorney, but she was not his only choice on the romantic side.
Brown had a child with his fundraiser Carolyn Carpeneti, when he was 67 and she was 38. Brown was married at the time, so one might say that Kamala Harris was his third choice. Now, despite the good looks, toughness and brilliance hailed by POTUS 44, Kamala Harris won’t be anybody’s choice for president of the United States. That means, as one supporter tweeted, “no candidates of color are yet slated for the December debate. Six white candidates have qualified. Folks, that’s a huge red flag, and we need to talk about it.”
Democrat Eric Swalwell, a kind of Adam Schiff Mini-Me, dropped out in July. Beto O’Rourke told the nation he would take away their guns and by November he had stepped aside with little fanfare. Before candidate of color Kamala Harris did the same, BET founder Robert Johnson went on record that no Democrat in the field is “capable of beating Donald Trump, despite what the polls say.”
At odds over candidates, Democrats seem to agree on the strategy of impeaching President Trump. In that cause, Jerrold Nadler’s sequel to Adam Schiff’s impeachment show fires up Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee, without participation from the White House or the mysterious “whistleblower.”
Meanwhile, the Iowa primary takes place on February 3, one day after the Super Bowl. As President Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.
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