Southern California News Group commentaries on Kamala Harris’ unfortunate rise to power
Kamala Harris is a bad politician with bad ideas and a worse record.
With President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential campaign and endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him, we present commentaries from our opinion contributors telling it like it is.
One is sure to notice a common theme: Kamala Harris is a bad politician with bad ideas and a worse record.
Kamala Harris’ progressive campaign, regressive record by Steven Greenhut
In Orange County, Harris still is getting brickbats for her refusal to provide oversight as the county endured its snitch scandal. “The former attorney general’s efforts in Orange County were far from a profile in courage,” assistant public defender Scott Sanders told the OC Weekly recently. “Her unwillingness to stand up to dishonest law enforcement will be her lasting legacy here, and the criminal-justice system will continue to pay the price for years.”
Harris also promoted policies that ramped up the power of police and prosecutors to imprison more people, including an Orwellian anti-truancy campaign that finally is getting much-deserved scorn. The left-leaning Guardian recently reported on a video of Harris at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in 2010, where she lightheartedly boasted about prosecuting the parents of truants and about using her “huge stick” as a prosecutor.
Harris once said Tupac was the best rapper alive, decades after his death. She has often professed her love of venn diagrams, with explanations like: “It’s just something about those three circles, the analysis about where there is the intersection, right?” And she’s been repeatedly mocked for her overuse of her catchphrase: “What can be, unburdened by what has been.”
Lest you feel I’m nitpicking, remember that she regularly finds herself in these moments, many of which are scripted. She comes off as insincere, especially when trying to appeal to a younger, more diverse audience.
She proved even more capable than Garcetti at failing upward, from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general to U.S. senator to somehow flipping a bombed presidential campaign into the vice presidency.
As San Francisco DA, she was blasted by the courts for failing to disclose serious issues at San Francisco’s crime lab. As California attorney general, Harris made a name for herself fighting the release of Daniel Larsen, who had been exonerated by the Innocence Project. Then there was her presidential campaign. We know how that went. And yet, somehow — well, we know why — she failed up.
For some reason Harris supporters think the criticism of her is unfair and people would like her if they just got to know her. But the opposite has proven to be true. The more she appears publicly and makes comments, the deeper her unfavorability plunges. While Harris seemed competent bullying witnesses in Senate hearings, her performances fell apart as soon as she wasn’t the one asking questions.
Kamala Harris’ abysmal record on justice issues by the editorial board
During her bid for the presidential nomination, Harris portrayed herself as a “progressive prosecutor” who championed police accountability, but that’s a fanciful recasting of her record. In 13 years as a “top cop,” Harris wasn’t a reformer, but a tough-on-crime prosecutor with close links to the police unions — and someone who stayed on the sidelines in police-misconduct cases.
The problem with Kamala Harris by Douglas Schoen
During her bid for the presidential nomination, Harris portrayed herself as a “progressive prosecutor” who championed police accountability, but that’s a fanciful recasting of her record. In 13 years as a “top cop,” Harris wasn’t a reformer, but a tough-on-crime prosecutor with close links to the police unions — and someone who stayed on the sidelines in police-misconduct cases.
Joe Biden’s Kamala Harris problem by John Phillips
Harris’ RealClearPolitics average job approval rating is currently 38%, with an average of 54% of respondents giving her an unfavorable assessment.
According to reporting from Reuters, Biden has been frustrated with Harris throughout his term. In fact, one former Biden administration official said Biden’s desire to run for re-election may be connected to the perception that neither Harris nor any other Democrat could beat Donald Trump in a general election.
The frustrations, the former official said, are rooted in Harris’ lack of “consistently rising to the occasion.”
He’s not wrong.