On July 26, in the aftermath of the Democratic Party’s ruthless midsummer coup of their own democratically elected presidential nominee, this column predicted that the elevation of dimwitted cackler-in-chief Kamala Harris to the party’s presidential slot would “spectacularly backfire.” More specifically, I wrote: “Practically, the path to winning 270 Electoral College votes still runs through the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. It is frankly bizarre for Democrats to swap out the man who talks ceaselessly about his hardscrabble Scranton upbringing for a Californian who boasts the most left-wing voting record of any presidential nominee in modern history.”
I’m feeling pretty good these days about that prognosis.
Harris recently campaigned in Erie, Pennsylvania—a crucial regional hub in this election cycle’s most important battleground state. Conspicuously absent from that snoozefest was incumbent Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.). Harris tried to pass off the snub as a nothingburger, suggesting that Casey was doing the more important work of knocking on doors and getting out the vote. This doesn’t pass the laugh test. Facing a spirited challenge from Republican hopeful Dave McCormick, Casey has clearly concluded that Harris’ immense Bay Area lefty baggage—her history of endorsing the Green New Deal, a national fracking ban, and crippling electric vehicle mandates—is an electoral albatross around his neck.
It’s tough to blame Casey. Other vulnerable Senate Democratic incumbents, such as Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), reached the same conclusion a while ago. Such a conclusion makes a great deal of sense: A recent Marist national general election poll, for instance, shows Trump up a whopping 10 points on Harris with registered independents. If that margin ends up being anywhere near accurate, it is extraordinarily difficult to see a scenario in which Trump loses.
Harris has recently been engaging in what the psychology profession calls “projection,” ludicrously criticizing Donald Trump for avoiding the media when it was actually Harris who infamously avoided a single one-on-one sit-down interview for weeks on end following the Biden coup. In reality, Trump recently sat down for two interviews with Time magazine, whose owner is a vocal Harris donor. Harris declined a Time interview nonetheless. Prior to this week’s desperate, last-second change of course, which saw her sit down with Fox News’s Bret Baier, Harris had only deigned to sit down with the most obsequious media imaginable.
One can only wonder how bad the Harris-Walz internal polling must be to impel her to ditch the far-left “Call Her Daddy” podcast and the friendly ladies of “The View” for the considerably more mainstream Baier. Desperate times sure call for desperate measures. Democrats routinely blast Republicans as misogynistic, but their own chronic misandry is so bad that Kamala is apparently considering a sit-down with podcast king Joe Rogan, whose own brand of woke-skeptical irreverence sharply clashes with Harris’ identity politics obsessions and overt race-based pandering. The tables sure have turned. Will the last person hanging around Harris-Walz campaign headquarters please turn off the lights?
Snark aside, this race isn’t over yet. But the Harris-Walz camp cannot possibly be feeling too good right now, either.
Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for their predicament. Throughout this interminable campaign season, they have studiously avoided substantive discussion of the four issues that Americans consistently tell pollsters are most important to them this cycle: the economy, inflation, immigration, and crime. Instead, they have repeatedly attempted to shift the electoral terrain back to the few issues that poll in their favor: namely, abortion and the Jan. 6 jamboree at the Capitol. In this, they have completely failed. The American people still care above all about the same four basic quality-of-life issues that they have cared the most about for years now. It is Democrats’ fault that they are so woefully out of touch with the voters’ sentiments on those issues and that the Biden-Harris administration’s track record polls as poorly as it does.
Perhaps if the Harris-Walz ticket does go down in flames, Democrats will pause and take a long, hard look in the mirror. Perhaps they will recognize that promising late-term abortion is a peculiar way to pander to women, that pledging mass amnesty for illegal aliens is a counterproductive way to pander to Hispanics, and that dangling marijuana legalization is an outright offensive way to pander to Blacks. Perhaps. But if history is any indication, they probably won’t.
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To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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This article brought back a speculative thought I had about a week ago…what if the Left never expected the Harris/Walz ticket to win?
What if, having foisted the corrupt JRB on the public 4 years ago as a moderating influence & pushing the country hard left, the puppet masters realized that a) they had pushed too hard & resistance was building up and b) their puppet was too obviously defective to still be useful, so they had to get rid of poor ol’ Joe from Scranton. Having done so with stunningly ruthless efficiency, they are left with the quandary of who to install as their nominee. Bypassing Harris would be an admission that she was, indeed, a DEI hire & might alienate certain very vocal elements of their own party that they still need to retain power, so they shrug and pass down the word that Harris will be their anointed choice
Now there are rumblings within their own party about knee-capping their own duly-elected nominee in favor of the least popular VP in recent history…and they have to pick a new potential VP. It is absolute speculation on my part but I wonder if Walz had also become a liability in Minnesota; yes, he has the support of Democrat voters but he’s shaky with independents & unpopular with Republicans.
By pressuring Harris to select Walz over the considerably more popular ( and articulate) Shapiro from Pennsylvania, the Left can shed some unpalatable excess baggage and spend the next 4 years sowing chaos in the name of “saving democracy” from the bad Orange Man and boiling the frog a little more while they decide who has the best chance of winning in 2028.
Do I have proof? Of course not…but I have to wonder if, having pushed too hard again, this is the regroup before the next hard push.
Perhaps if the Harris-Walz ticket does go down in flames, Democrats will pause and take a long, hard look in the mirror. Perhaps. But if history is any indication, they probably won’t.
That is correct, Mr. Hammer, they won’t. The progs who’ve taken over the Democrat party are true believers–fellow travelers all of them. They are as zealously committed to utopian collectivism as any monk or devout ascetic.
But unlike those who follow a non-violent spiritual path, the woke aren’t encumbered by any moral code except total control. And they pursue this goal “by any means” necessary; a nihilistic, amoral outlook that sees absolute control as the ultimate nirvana, and the path to that divine goal unrestricted by moral or virtuous circumspection.
Sounds plausible; these are people who would likely for the sake of the cause eat their own young or sell kith and kin down the river, if it proved expeditious to advancing their agendas.
Consequently, the apropos, only attitude, that is reasonable and actionable to take towards them is to destroy them, neuter them and their power bases, which someone truly intelligent who put their mind to it - could.
No matter how powerful someone is; irrespective even of a dictatorship’s willingness to use force, violence, kill, maim, incarcerate to strike the fear of them in the hearts and minds of others? There always is?
A weak link, an Achilles heel there that someone who is adroit at understanding such things, who is just as Machiavellian capable as the evil ones but, on the side of the Angels, God, Truth, Justice and the American Way! SMS
That is the point at which we have now arrived, but before we could reach it - things had to get worser than worse, badder than bad - to the point that the evil of the LEFT was soooooo patently obvious that even a blind man essentially could see it.
My observation and assessment of people in general is that we humans are a lazy bunch who usually don’t change until we realize we have no choice - think alcoholics or others who have adopted profligate habits that finally they realize the cost of keeping are too high; losing their families, fortunes and all their friends. Then, they change. (And, usually wonder after why they didn’t long before.)
Well - the human race is just a huge conglomeration of individuals and as a whole we tend to act similarly on a mass scale. “Imminent death has an amazingly clarifying effect on the mind.” Samuel Johnson
Fact is, we really don’t have a choice because my guess is that this is the last time God will step in and bother with us if we don’t straighten up and fly right.
We are not going to get another chance to “fix” this situation, if we eff it up and let them regroup and regain momentum.