Even the usually stone-faced David Axelrod couldn't sup-press his enthusiasm at the first rally of the Democratic presidential ticket, but he was downright Rushmoreian compared with other giddy commentators on CNN's panel. I beg to differ that Vice President Kamala Harris is the second coming of Barack Obama, though that is what her campaign would like you to think. And whether her new running mate, Minnesota Gov.
Tim Walz, is the folksiest "normy," as one commentator put it, white guy in the Midwest, news anchors should be able to resist the tug of Harris mania. Poor Joe Biden, who, we should note, is still the president of the United States. What must he be thinking as Kamalapalooza takes off before the dust has settled on his shuffle off to Delaware — or wherever Nancy Pelosi has stashed him.
A bad picture can't be taken of Harris. She's gorgeous. She's also a big-government liberal.
Big government, which Republicans since Ronald Reagan have viewed as the enemy (except when they're running it), isn't Harris' best selling point when the country is facing a likely recession and a vast swath (70%) of Americans can barely pay their bills. Recent polling and election history tell us that voters usually turn to Republicans when the economy is on the line. Walz boasts that Democrats, unlike Republicans, "don't have the Ten Commandments posted in our classrooms, but we have free breakfast and lunch.
" Which is to say Walz might be to the left of Harris and is one of the reasons Trump said "I could not be more thrilled" when Walz became Harris' pick as running mate. But Walz will "unleash HELL ON EARTH," as Trump also said (his emphasis). I didn't realize vice presidents were so powerful.
The man whose assaults on democracy (and women) are too numerous to mention was referring to Walz's expansion of state services to undocumented Minnesotans, including drivers' licenses for all, access to the state's publicly funded health insurance program for low-income residents, and in-state tuition for low-income students, including the undocumented. Minnesota has an estimated 81,000 undocumented residents. I suspect that if Trump prevails in November, he'll be shipping a few thousand (or million) more to Walz's backyard.
These observations shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of Trump, who remains as Trumpy as ever, despite his near-death experience at the hands of a would-be assassin. Nor of his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, erstwhile hillbilly/ Harvard law grad/hedge funder and provocateur, who, among his several foot-in-mouth feats, let the cat ladies out of the bag.
As unforced errors go, this one surely has nine lives. While Vance promises to "mop the floor" with Walz, Trump doesn't exactly burn up the debate stage — unless, of course, his opponent is cognitively impaired. When trying to make a point, as in a recent Fox News interview, Trump circles the barn so many times, I can collect eggs from the henhouse and water the horses before he gets to it.
A debate between him and Harris would require not only a fact-checker but a sous chef adept at deconstructing word salads. As for his recent meltdown, shoving insults into his musket and firing off invectives at Harris and Walz, Trump merely proved that he can't control his childish impulses and wouldn't recognize the high ground if he walked on stilts. At 78, he's apparently not intellectually agile enough to recognize that things aren't what they used to be.
I feel embarrassed, sad and a little scared. As New York magazine heralds "Kamalot" on its cover, The Movement is being sold as Obama 2008. The giddiness has all the markings of a run on tulips.
Harris and Walz, meanwhile, are calling themselves "joyful warriors," waging a war of smiles and killing it with kindness. It's smart strategy juxtaposed against the unsmiling, petulant Trump, but that's all it is. Strategy isn't policy, and except for Harris' radiant smile, 2024 is nothing like 2008.
Obama was more than just a pretty face. He brought a keen intellect to the arena and remains the most eloquent, effective orator of our time. Harris remains the person she has been for the past 3 1⁄2 years: a sometimes bumbling beauty with a stride that conveys confidence if not precisely competence.
I've listened to Harris as often as the Biden administration would allow her to speak, which hasn't been often. No matter how many times her campaign and its surrogates in the media try to portray her as such, Kamala is no Barack. And Trump is still Trump.
Good luck, America. Parker writes for The Washington Post: [email protected] .
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