WHAT’S UP WITH KAMALA HARRIS? When Al Gore lost the presidential race in 2000, he grew a beard, disappeared for a while, and got weirder than ever. After John McCain lost in 2008, he often said he slept like a baby — “sleep for two hours, wake up and cry, sleep for two hours, wake up and cry.”
So, it would not be a surprise to learn that Vice President Kamala Harris is taking defeat hard. But Harris is a different case. McCain was a senator when he lost, so his slipping into despair for a while would not affect the course of government. Yes, Gore was vice president when he lost, but the president, Bill Clinton, was 54 years old and entirely compos mentis while serving the final weeks of his term. There was no real need for Gore to be ready should Clinton somehow falter.
But Harris serves under the 82-year-old Joe Biden, whose own party powerbrokers pulled him from the 2024 race because he was no longer mentally or physically up to the job of president of the United States. So now, and for the next seven weeks until the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, the U.S. faces the dangerous situation of having a president who is addled and a vice president who is in a deep funk, unable or unwilling to face the continued responsibilities of her job.
That’s not a good place to be.
On Tuesday evening, the Democratic Party, on its X account, posted a 28-second video of Harris speaking directly to a camera. “I just have to remind you — don’t you ever let anybody take your power from you,” an emotional and slightly woozy-looking Harris said. “You have the same power that you did before Nov. 5. And you have the same purpose that you did, and you have the same ability to engage and inspire, so don’t ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.”
Huh? What did that mean? Social media commenters immediately said Harris looked like she had been drinking, but there was no hard evidence of that beyond personal impressions. But Harris certainly did not look as together as she had been during the campaign, even though she spent the previous several days relaxing and recuperating in Hawaii.
The video clip came from a call Harris and former running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) held for supporters earlier on Tuesday. Harris spoke for about 10 minutes and moved in and out of a more businesslike presentation and the kind of emotion she displayed in the brief clip.
What seemed utterly mysterious was that the Democratic Party had posted the short video on its X account, which has 2.3 million followers. Why would it post something that made the party’s recent standard-bearer look so bad? There was plenty of speculation about that, too — perhaps someone in the Democratic National Committee was trying to hurt Harris. Otherwise, why post something so embarrassing? But it was all just guessing.
Still, there’s no doubt Harris is not exactly the darling of some parts of the Democratic Party these days. Like previous losers, in the close aftermath of defeat, she is thinking about running for president again. A lot of Democrats, as much as they might defend her against Republican criticism, do not think she was a very good candidate and do not want to see her run again.
Four days ago, Politico published a story headlined, “Harris is telling her advisers and allies to keep her political options open; She could run again for president — or California governor.” The article noted that Harris has been “laying low” since her loss. And then: “Privately, the vice president has been instructing advisers and allies to keep her options open — whether for a possible 2028 presidential run, or even to run for governor in her home state of California in two years. As Harris has repeated in phone calls, ‘I am staying in the fight.’”
That possibility, at least the possibility of Harris running for president again, is exactly what some Democrats do not want to see. Others probably felt the same way when Harris’s discomfiting video showed up on the party account not long after.
It is not unusual for losing presidential candidates, in the immediate aftermath of their defeat, to believe they can run again. For example, John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush in 2004, made noises about running again in 2008. His party told him to forget about it. Of course, right now, you might be saying that Trump lost and then ran again, and even won again. But Trump was in the historically near-unique position of having won the presidency and then lost the presidency, and then ran again. Even without his argument that he really won the 2020 election, much of his party remained loyal to him on the basis of his first term in the White House.
The bottom line is that Harris will have to let go of the idea of running for president again. Her party is already moving on, just a few weeks after her loss. That process will continue, and by 2026, when 2028 aspirants start seriously making the rounds at state party events, Harris will be many, many miles in the rearview mirror.
So, politically, it doesn’t matter whether there was any intrigue behind the brief video on the party’s X account. Harris does not have any hopes for the presidency. The real worry is for the next seven weeks, with a president who is addled and a vice president in a deep funk. All Americans should hope for the best.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
