Vice President Kamala Harris’s Democratic presidential nomination guarantees an all-out effort to change who she is, who she has been, and in what she believes.
The Democrats are smart enough to know that a San Francisco radical with a history of strange attitudes and unpopular positions cannot be elected president. Experienced Democratic professionals remember that George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry were all defeated due to their radical views and odd demeanors.
McGovern gave “1,000 percent” support to vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton just before he dumped him. Dukakis looked like Alfred E. Newman in a tank. John Kerry windsurfed and went goose hunting in a brightly colored hunting outfit more appropriate for a Hollywood Halloween party.
In Harris’s case, there will be an all-out effort to move her to the center and make her seem normal.
For Republicans, the key will be to simply let Harris’s own words and images remind the American people who she really is. Attacking her will not be effective. Communicating her own words will be.
The clearest example comes from just before Harris became a candidate for president.
Her biggest weakness is her disastrous and disputed role on illegal immigration and the border. There is no question about her commitment to open borders and illegal immigrants. Just consider what she told NBC’s Lester Holt on June 8, 2021, when he questioned Harris about the border crisis.
She said, “We’ve been to the border. So, this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border.”
Holt responded, “You haven’t been to the border.”
Harris’s baffling response: “And I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t, understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”
In fact, Harris didn’t visit the border until June 25, 2021, and she never returned.
A year later, on Sept. 11, 2022, “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Harris if she considered the border secure, despite a record 2 million people illegally crossing it.
With a straight face, Harris said, “We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration.”
I suppose Harris’s version of a secure border means 1.9 million illegal crossers in FY 2021; 2.8 million in FY 2022; 3.2 million in FY 2023, and 2.4 million in FY 2024, so far.
The Harris record on the border is so bad there is a concerted Democrat-propaganda media effort to deny she was ever in charge.
When President Joe Biden assigned Harris to solve the border crisis back in 2021, Democrats and the national media dubbed her the border czar.
Now, the Democrats are pretending that never happened.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jefferies recently asserted: “She was never assigned the position of border czar; they are making that up.”
To help assuage this clear weakness, Harris’s allies in the news media are trying to rewrite history as well. Stef W. Kight with Axios recently wrote, “In the past few days, the Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the ‘border czar’ title — which she never actually had.”
However, the same story included an editor’s note which acknowledged, “This article has been updated and clarified to note that Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar’ in 2021.”
This memory hole effort has been followed by virtually every other media outlet.
Harris’s affection for illegal immigrants goes far beyond an open border. She wants to offer Medicare-for-All to every resident of the United States – even if they are here illegally.
On May 12, 2019, she told Jake Tapper on CNN, “Let me just be very clear about this. I'm opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.”
So, Harris is for free health care and free education for everyone who crosses the open border illegally. She reinforced this commitment at the first Democratic presidential debate in 2019. Harris raised her hand when she was asked “if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.”
This support for illegal immigrants getting tax paid services is the natural result of her position as California attorney general, where she did not consider illegal entry a crime. In her own words during the 2019 presidential primary debate, she said, “being an undocumented immigrant is not a crime. To suggest that undocumented immigrants are criminals is an absolute mischaracterization of the issue.”
Vice President Harris isn’t just a San Francisco radical on policies. She is also at times simply incoherent.
The heart of the 2024 campaign will be the Harris’s team trying to convince you she is someone else. The Trump team has the benefit of decades of quotes and videos that prove exactly who she is.
It will be a fascinating contest.
For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.
