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In the days after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential election to be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, there was real joy among Democrats across the country. That was not just a made-up media story, I saw it, but with less than a month to go, the joy is gone and a quiet panic is setting in.
In the first week of August I was, appropriately enough, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Democrats I spoke to were ebullient and effervescent at the change atop the ticket. One woman told me of calling her mother to celebrate together the chance at a Black female president.
Other left-leaning voters told me that they didn’t love how Biden had been shown the door but that they felt Harris could turn the race around and take down Donald Trump. For about a month, it sure looked that way.
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In San Francisco, most voters I spoke to, red and blue alike, felt like Harris was likely to win, that the Democrats’ stalled campaign had called AAA, gotten a jump, and was back on the road.
Harris had erased the lead Trump had over Biden, quickly eclipsing him as the frontrunner and much like a new restaurant opening in a small town, voters were eager to give her a try.
While Republicans and some in the media were frustrated by her unwillingness to do traditional interviews or hold so much as one press conference, her arrogant advisers smirked and said basically, “So what? She’s winning.”
Well, she’s not winning anymore, and with her back against the wall appeared on “60 Minutes” this week, showing voters the real reason why she is camera shy when it comes to tough questions.
Asked if she and the Biden administration had lost America’s influence with our Middle East ally Israel, the veep once again proved herself to be a walking, talking salad bar, here is what she had to say:
“Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
The most generous interpretation of this odd assemblage of verbiage is that she is saying, “we’re trying,” the more likely one is that she has no idea what she is talking about.
Over the past two weeks in my travels, it has been increasingly difficult to engage Democrats about the presidential race, much like a fan whose team has dropped a few playoff games and who is avoiding the sports page, they just don’t want to talk about it.
As one lifelong Democrat in Ohio who I did get to talk to put it, “I don’t know, she’s just kind of there.”
It is hard to say exactly when the shine started wearing off the Harris penny, when joy gave way to frustration, but the failure of the Teamsters to endorse her, and the massive union’s internal polling showing Trump with a lead seems significant.
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It was only after that, that I started hearing Democrats uttering words that seemed unthinkable back in August, namely, “Maybe we should have stuck with Biden.” Ouch.
Biden himself even joked about it at a press conference, something he is at least still capable of, quipping “I’m back in.”
Harris spokespeople are busy trying to talk Democratic voters down off the bridge, they insist she still leads in the polling averages, she has a war chest worth more than Fort Knox, and a ground game that Trump can only envy.
These points are all true, and the latter may prove decisive. The Harris movement may be Astroturf and not grassroots, much like her crowning as the nominee, but those busloads of supporters in matching teachers’ union T-shirts are the same machine that gets out the vote.
But still, there is no mistaking that the thrill is gone.
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It is not clear what Harris can do to reverse the clear trends favoring Trump today, “60 Minutes” wasn’t it, and her appearances on podcasts, late night shows, and “The View” make her look like she is pitching a new rom-com, not running for president of the United States.
The only answer left may be for Harris to make this fight uglier and dirtier as the clock runs out. If the joy is gone, and it is, the only thing left to do may well be to rage and rage, against the dying of the light.
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