Kamala’s risky Hillary Clinton gambit

We’re told Vice President Kamala Harris is the next great thing: a political phenom, long underestimated, and now finally able to spread her “very cool” wings and soar. “Could the Harris campaign become the Harris movement?” read the headline of Playbook’s Friday newsletter. “Her moment,” read the cover of Time magazine’s slobbering cover piece.

But is it substantive or vaporous? A mirage? If you look closely, you’ll find plenty of similarities to the 2016 matchup between businessman/reality TV star Donald Trump and Secretary of State/Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Kamala Harris represents an administration working hard to convince Americans that things are good when everyone knows they aren’t.

First, uncomfortable as it is for some people to hear, Harris is deeply unlikeable. You can protest all you want about her accomplishments in life, and they are impressive, at least as far as titles go. But she has a people problem. Her employees don’t like her and quit often. Her boss doesn’t care much for her and has quietly questioned whether she even knows who she wants to be.

The Obamas don’t like her. Michelle didn’t even mention Harris, the first black female Democratic nominee for VP, in her address to that strange, empty 2020 Democratic National Convention. She excused herself, saying it was because she’d recorded it a few days before the announcement was made, but the subtext was clear: The essentially retired former first lady couldn’t be bothered to break from Martha’s Vineyard to re-record a 10-minute video mentioning the “historic occasion.” Four years later, the former first couple were among the last prominent Democrats to endorse Harris’ candidacy.

People didn’t like Hillary Clinton, either. You can moan all you want about it and point to her own fancy titles — lest we forget, she helped turn her position as the president’s wife into a multibillion-dollar global influence empire, complete with a carpetbagged Senate seat in a deeply blue state and, later, a position in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet. None of that changes her likeability. And don’t say it’s because she’s a woman; it’s because she was mechanical with forced and unnatural expressions — and because she was blatantly Machiavellian.

Sound familiar?

Next: Kamala Harris represents the status quo. She’s the sitting vice president of an administration working very hard to convince Americans that things are good when everyone knows they aren’t. She’s working hard to run away from this record, but it’s hers. The Marines play “Hail Columbia” when she gets off the plane. Further, she has simultaneously attempted to use the dignity of the office to propel her campaign while trying to avoid the pitfalls of representing an historically unpopular administration. That’s a tough balance to strike.

And though he’s now a former president, Trump remains the consummate outsider. You can try to paint him as his own special kind of swamp creature if you like, but when every other creature in the swamp hates him to the core, it’s a hard sell.

By contrast, Clinton was the consummate insider: lauded by Hollywood, cheered on Broadway, loved on Wall Street, and feted by Georgetown’s elite (when they were still a thing). Hell, when she wanted to run for Senate, she picked a state to run in.

Unfortunately for her, it turned out that 2016 was an anti-incumbent year. Does anyone think the pressure has decreased in the years since? In mid-August 2016, a shocking 64.3% of the country believed the country was headed in the wrong direction, according to the
RealClearPolitics average. Only 28.2% believed we were going the right way — a -36.7 spread. Eight years later, those numbers stand at 65.1 to 24.8, respectively. It somehow got worse. Will Harris make it better?

To have a chance at it, she’d have to reunite the winning Obama coalition, uniting working-class whites, black voters, Hispanics, environmentalists, Big Labor, the myriad and multiplying gay interest groups, and all the rest in a movement that has a purpose. “Yes, we can!” “Sí se puede!” “Hope and change” and all that. Her husband, Doug, may have the West Hollywood Soul Cycle boys on lock, but absent Obama’s personal political magnetism, much of the rest have splintered.

And what’s she doing to change that? Thus far, Harris is trying to make the election all about Trump being a nutjob, plus some promised handouts, which is basically what Hillary did for her campaign.

And don’t forget the “vibes.” Clinton’s slogan was “I’m with her.” Her campaign theme song was “This is my fight song,” featuring an array of the high school theater horribles who now populate Hollywood shrilling vapid lyrics into the ether. Watch this video, I beg you. It’s truly awful.

Really, the only thing different this time is Harris isn’t even showing up. Seriously: The first “interview” she’s done was with her vice presidential nominee, filmed, cut and released by the campaign. And somehow it was still cringey. The folks at Vogue actually sat down
and “interviewed” Walz’s dog. They called him “man’s (and maybe America’s) best friend.” The dog is probably great. Most people really like dogs, me included. But what kind of palace eunuch of a reporter do you have to be to let the VP and her running mate turn you down for a chat, then accept an interview with the canine?

To capitalize on this unwanted sequel, of course, Trump is going to have run like 2016. We got a taste of that at his Thursday press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey: hammering the wall, jobs, and crime every day.

Don’t get hung up on the “perfect phone call” or former Vice President Mike Pence. That’s looking inward instead of forward, and it won’t win the vibes war. Trump needs to stay on message. He clearly read it from a piece of paper last week, but
one line of attack in particular stood out in his Garden State address: “You don’t have to imagine what a Kamala Harris presidency would be, because you’re living through that nightmare right now.”

The line was reminiscent of his dig on Clinton, who he correctly noticed had been in office 30 years without fixing all the things she was running to fix. Take Harris’ speech unveiling her inflation policy Friday! She’s out there complaining about the massive rise in the cost of bread and meat under a Democratic administration. Clip it and slap your name on it (like this Red State author did).

Trump isn’t running against the opponent he’d hoped to. That’s not changing. But he is running against a campaign style he’s beaten before. The trick is going to be remembering the plays.

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