Kamala Harris’ campaign rollout a very big success
Sen. Kamala Harris vaulted into serious contention for the Democratic presidential nomination with a campaign kickoff that couldn’t have gone much better.
Well, she’s in serious contention for now. Sprinters who break from the gate fast sometimes stumble.
One quality the former California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney did show in her campaign rollout is the grit to compete against stiff odds. She leaped into the race relatively early, seemingly without hesitation.
Another thing became evident: She’ll need to polish her answers to predictable questions from voters and journalists. If not, she’ll be hammered by campaign rivals and the media.
In a televised CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, Monday night, Harris gave an out- of-sync answer about health care.
“We need to have Medicare for all,” she said. “The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care and you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company,” she said.
Well, it doesn’t work that way. Medicare is really a public-private partnership. Many Medicare beneficiaries buy supplemental private plans and the two function together.
Another clumsy answer came when moderator Jake Tapper asked her why she opposed state legislation requiring the attorney general to investigate fatal shootings by police officers.
“I did not oppose the bill,” Harris replied. “I had a process when I was attorney general of not weighing in on bills and initiatives because … I had a responsibility for writing the title and summary. So I did not weigh in.”
Let’s just say there was a perception in the Capitol that Harris did oppose the police probe bill. And the inference that the attorney general writes titles and summaries of bills is just plain wrong. That’s handled by the Legislature’s own lawyer.
The attorney general does write titles and summaries for ballot initiatives. That was Harris’ excuse for not taking positions on controversial initiatives including two death penalty repeals, a measure to strengthen the death penalty, criminal sentencing reduction and marijuana legalization. It’s a lame dodge no modern attorney general used prior to Harris’ predecessor, Jerry Brown.
But overall, Harris’ weeklong kickoff extravaganza was eye-poppingly impressive.
She announced her candidacy on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The first big rally was a telegenic masterpiece, drawing 20,000 people on a sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Oakland, her hometown. CNN carried her 35-minute speech live.
CNN also carried her Iowa town hall, and afterward announced it attracted the most viewers of any single-candidate town hall in the network’s history.
Harris performed well. She was personable and connected with the audience. She seemed passionate about her beliefs. Capping off her successful rollout, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Tuesday he won’t run for president. He denied being intimidated by Harris, but …
Now Harris doesn’t have a pesky, major California rival.
“A spectacular kickoff, spectacular announcement, spectacular town hall,” says longtime Democratic strategist Robert Shrum, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “She has obviously been catapulted to the top tier of candidates. But that doesn’t mean she’s on her way to the nomination.”
No California Democrat has ever come close to winning a presidential nomination.
But right now Harris seems to have the best chance of any Californian since Republican Ronald Reagan to be elected president.