Can Kamala come back? | RealClearPolitics

The songs of his crowd imported during the summer meeting of the National Democratic Committee felt desperation. "She's smart, strong, with Kamala, you can not go wrong!"

Yes, the presidential campaign of Senator Kamala Harris has seen better days.

The fall of Harris in the Democratic primary primary worried donors and supporters after its launch drew a huge crowd facing great expectations. Charismatic and accomplished rising star, they thought she could not go wrong. They also thought that she could participate in her clash with the leader, former Vice President Joe Biden. After all, his decision to shake his campaign by attacking Biden during the first-ever contest between candidates had first proved fruitful – Harris had let him tremble at the knees and doubted. The Congressional Black Caucus has approved new supports, as well as numerous donations, as well as reports from voters and insiders in the media that speak of its unique ability to "pursue the case. "against Donald Trump, as the former Attorney General of California says.

But last week, a CNN national poll with 17% support – in second place – in June was now in fourth place with only 5%. In the new USA Today / Suffolk University poll released Wednesday, Harris is 6%, but is now fifth behind Pete Buttigieg.

Some factors have contributed to Harris's decline, but nothing more than the fact that it has focused on health care – the most important issue of the mid-term elections and probably the election of next year – and that she was mistaken. The original co-sponsor of Senator Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan, Harris started campaigning on it a year ago, long before she announced her candidacy, through Ads on Facebook and other platforms where petitions invited clickers to share their impressions. e-mail addresses – that she will use, of course, later to raise funds.

The young California senator maintained this position for almost a year and during the first debate in June, raising her hand when asked if she would eliminate private insurance. But Harris hesitated the next morning, saying that she had misunderstood the question and that she would not take any insurance from anyone. She was just ready to give up hers.

Last month, she introduced her own plan, which maintains private health insurance but creates a 10-year path to Medicare for all. Two weeks ago, she told donors at a fundraiser in Hamptons that she had realized that Sanders' proposal was "not the best of plans" and that " for several months, I have not been comfortable with Bernie's plan "and" I do not do it ". I do not just want to choose between them without finding a way to create options. "

The Sanders campaign had already rejected his proposal, calling it "concocted to handle different poll numbers," and then the proud Democratic Socialist responded to his comments to donors with this tweet: "I'm not going to the Hamptons to look for Billionaires Money If I went there, I would tell them the same thing I 've said over the past 30 years: we need to adopt a Medicare for All system.

Harris has other vulnerabilities, including his past as a repressive Attorney General, as black party leaders fear to upset too many black voters. "It's a fraud in criminal justice reform," as one congressional source described. And her health care challenges are exacerbated by other positions that she has altered, such as the legalization of marijuana and the question of whether the next president should sue Trump once he has been arrested. he will have left office. She has again changed the idea recently when she first refused to attend CNN City Hall on the climate, invoking time constraints, but then decided to attend it as soon as it would have attracted criticism.

The day after she raged on Biden about school transportation, Harris went on to suggest a return to practice in 2019 as schools are even more separated from each other. She did not repeat that anymore. But as triumphant as her team and herself felt that morning, some Democrats described their reaction to her treatment of Biden as viscerally negative, and they viewed it as a calculated asset. There were (perhaps premeditated) jubilees, with t-shirts bearing the words "This little girl was me" and the image of a young pig-tail Harris, ready to be sold on his website the next morning.

During the second debate, Harris did not react well to the attack and did not seem to have much second act. For now, she looks like Beto O'Rourke: overrated and reconsidered. Her flop-flop on health care made her not serious, her dismantling of Biden now looks like a mistake, and the momentum of Senator Elizabeth Warren, as well as Bernie's sustainability in the polls, l? have held well away from Summit Three.

To get back into the conversation, Harris released a new program to help people with disabilities and launched a new line of brave applause about the Trump campaign – "The guy has to go" – that her husband and D & C Other supporters circulate in GIF format. It's smart, and some people want it on a t-shirt, but it highlights its main weakness: it has no message. Yes, she's super accomplished and smart and attractive – and a black woman – but contrary to what Biden says, he's the only Democrat to win, nor to Warren's or Bernie's calls to reorganize the economy, the # 39; more implicit appeal of Beto to potentially win 38 voters votes in Texas, or even the call to the love of Cory Booker, Harris does not have a lot of selling point, and she has no basis.

Warren's rise has produced predictable comparisons, and Harris learns that the Massachusetts senator not only started her white papers earlier and more effectively than anyone else, but that she cleverly lobbied the establishment of the left. Between her public appearances calling for revolution on the way to the election campaign, Warren, according to the New York Times, has met with super-delegates and officials to assure them that she is a team player who can position to win the general electorate if it was insured. the nomination. She also reminds them of her considerable support for the candidates – as well as for the party – at the semester sessions of 2018.

At this point, Harris can not help but think that she is not only a candidate for number two, but that she is number two. This would seem to make her and her staff angry, although their belief that she could only run on her resume and her fabulous appearance now seems naive.

"Harris is clearly one of the most talented Democrats and has room for improvement if things complement each other," said a long-time Democratic strategist. "But his inexperience in national politics has also come its way and it has cost him."

Harris could still be president someday. Because more than anyone else on the ground, she is best positioned to be a designated vice president at the end of next year.