On paper, it sounds like a great plan. Former Democrat presidential nominee becomes governor of the biggest state, with the biggest megaphone in Democrat politics and then she runs against VP J.D. Vance in 2028 and wins the big prize. It’s a great plan, except that it really isn’t.
California is a mess, as George Skelton wrote:
Kamala Harris could make history as the first woman and person of color to be elected California governor. But she’d need to really want the job.
She couldn’t see it as merely a consolation prize after losing the presidential election to Donald Trump. Nor could she view it as a stepping stone back to the White House.
California voters would sense those feelings and perhaps not elect her. Anyway, she’d probably be miserable in her work.
Rather, Harris would need to view the job as a probable career-capper, taking pride in solving complex problems that are eating away at her native state.
She’d have to be eager to deal with homelessness, the housing shortage, street crime, overregulation, a perpetual water shortage and the annual hassle of balancing a volatile state budget fed by an outdated tax system that should have been modernized years ago.
These black eyes on California are critical dilemmas. But absent a dedicated desire to solve them, they could be viewed as tediously boring compared to leading the nation on sweeping national issues and global diplomacy.
There’d be no playing of Hail to the Chief, no “president’s own” U.S. Marine band performing at state dinners, no private cabin aboard Air Force One — in fact, no gubernatorial plane at all.
It sounds more like a dead-end job than a stepping stone to anything.
What about Reagan? Yes. but that was the Golden State circa 1970, a totally difference place. It was functional back then. It is not anything like that now.
Maybe she will prove me wrong, win and set herself up more likely for 2032. Maybe she can be the governor who made California governable again, with clean streets and low crime. Maybe she can do that and run on her California miracle. Maybe — but I doubt it. I think that the job will eat her alive and force her to make decisions that she does not want to make.
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