Kamala’s Participation Trophy?
Her Bleary Eyed Look at California Governor
To paraphrase Richard Nixon, we may have Kamala Harris to kick around for a bit longer.
Because no one has any new political ideas in California, speculation is running high that she may throw her hat in the ring and run for governor in 2026.
Just like the not very talented kids at a youth soccer end-of-season get together, it seems she may be in line to receive that particular participation trophy.
And it may just happen – at least that’s the common opinion…so far.
Her theoretical plusses being touted now are that she has won statewide office before (Attorney General and Senator,) that she can raise a bunch of money quickly, that her name recognition will swamp other contenders, and that, well, it’s California (insert your own favorite joke and/or embarrassing fact here.)
But considering her actual – and not the media-generated Potemkin version – track record, she may be less than the slam-dunk she is being made out to be.
For background, California is a one-party state. Democrats have controlled the state for decades with a grip on power only slightly less secure than Kim Jong-Un’s. Every statewide official is a Democrat, the party has impregnable super-majorities in both houses of the legislature, it is the paymaster of the lobbying blob in Sacramento, it has permanent taxpayer-adjacent funding due to bags of money given to it by the public unions (teachers, DMV cubicaloids, etc.), and, socially, it is just not okay to be a Republican:
For decades, it has been socially anathema to even be a Republican in California, let alone tell anyone you are, and god forbid you express an opinion even slightly to the right of Pol Pot in public.
The social dynamic that has established a stranglehold on the state’s public politics is real and incredibly damaging – never underestimate the power of the mob and the fear of possible ostracization.
California also has a “jungle primary” (if “jungle gym” is racist, why hasn’t anyone called that term racist yet – DEIsts need to get on that fast before they fade away) which throws everyone, no matter the party, into the competition and the top two vote-getters move on to the general election.
Quite often, those top two are Democrats; never are they two Republicans.
There are cultural and even some policy issues (remember, this is California) that keep the Democrats in charge, let alone its iron fisted guidance by the San Franciscocracy keeping meaningful internal dissent in check and the money flowing.
Another major advantage the Democrats have in the state is that they are better at politics – period, full stop, as Gov. Gavin Newsom would say.
They work tirelessly and griftily and possibly sometimes illegally but they get the job done.
The Democrats have been making the political soufflé rise perfectly every time for more than a generation, while the Republicans cannot even form a committee to figure out how to turn on the oven. And when Republicans do nearly get the pilot lit, someone invariably questions the oven’s position on abortion, chaos ensues, and they have to start all over again.
All of that is pretty good news for Kamala’s chances, but the flip side is real and possibly very problematic.
First, as was emphasized so recently, she is a terrible candidate. She cannot speak coherently, she has no particular individual ideas, she is a terrible manager of people, she burned through north of a billion dollars (Al Sharpton sure, of course, I get it, but who has to pay Oprah to endorse them?) and did worse against Donald Trump than either Joe or Hillary.
True, none of that has thwarted her in the past but that was before the public was really confronted with those truths, which it was in November.
While she can – in California – survive not being able to think or speak, she cannot survive with massive donations, bringing up the question of “would you trust Kamala with $100 million dollars to run a campaign?”
If considered clearly, no, of course not, how dare you even ask? But if the party machine squeezes the money from people for her, they may be able to fleece enough cash from Hollywood and the public unions (not so much anymore from Silicon Valley anymore; I would think they have other things to worry about) to make it a go.
Then there is the other fallout from November: she didn’t do terribly well in California and that should give the party’s crowning heads pause.
Clinton, 2016 – 62% of the vote, Trump 32%.
Biden, 2020 – 64% of the vote, Trump 34%
Harris, 2024 – 58% of the vote, Trump 38%
Trump, interestingly, got almost an identical number of votes in 2020 and 2024 in California – Harris’ total dropped by 2 million compared to Biden (it’s one of the reasons she didn’t even come close in the national popular vote, which Hillary won solely because of her 4 million vote margin in California.)
Fifty-eight percent is not an inherently awful number – in fact in 2022 statewide Democrats got 57.7% of the vote on average. But a “favorite daughter” should do better than expected in a presidential race, not about the same.
Her past elections do not tell a terribly encouraging story, either. Good, but still a bit worrisome.
Everyone knows how Kamala Harris got her start in politics – she had an affair with the then-married San Francisco kingmaker Willie Brown:
He appointed her to a couple of state boards (very little work but good pay) and helped maneuver her move from the Oakland DA’s office into San Francisco’s in order to run against a district attorney Brown did not like.
In that race, she got 56% of the vote. Admittedly a tough race, but with the Power of Brown behind her, she pretty much couldn’t lose.
In 2010, she ran for state Attorney General and actually had a real race, just barely whiskering out Republican LA DA Steve Cooley and that was mostly due to Cooley seeming to complain about not making enough public money during a debate.
When she was re-elected in 2014, running against a sacrificial nobody, she got 58% of the vote.
In 2016, she jumped to the United States senate, pulling in about 40% of the vote to lead the primary and about 60% of the vote in the general election against a fellow Democrat and certifiable lunatic Loretta Sanchez. In California, how do you only get 60% of the vote after your opponent does this?
And screeches like this?
And when Harris oh-so-briefly ran for president in 2020, she consistently polled behind other candidates in California – if she had stayed in, she wouldn’t have won the state.
She has proven that she is a hot-house flower grown by the powers that be and could not survive without them.
2020 should highlight other concerns as well – erratic behavior, being seemingly popular and then instantly fading, terrible people management skills, and blowing through a pile of money with nothing to show for it. Sound familiar?
While most observers think she would “clear the field” of other Democrats if she decides to run, there will most likely be at least one hold out to make life difficult for her, especially if that candidate runs more to the center (note – there will a Republican or two in the jungle primary and, looking at recent history, if there are two or three serious Democratic candidates, they may get into the November runoff.)
What polling has been done so far shows she could have the support of about 46% of Democrats, but the poll did not put her in the “who do you support now?” list of candidates.
Another key fact is that while California will not be “going red” anytime soon, it is not as blue as people think.
November’s vote left the loony legislature intact (thanks to the dreaded “Scarlet R” and the incredibly corrupt districting system ,) but a host of other results show clearly that the state is not quite the woke paradise it may seem to be.
San Francisco elected a more moderate mayor, Oakland dumped both its progressive district attorney and mayor, and Los Angeles overwhelmingly elected Nathan Hochman as its DA. True, he was running against the terrifying – and former Harris ally - George Gascon, but he ran as someone who will actually prosecute crime and was a Republican only a year or so ago.
The statewide propositions also showed a shift in California voters attitudes about the most progressive propositions. Allow cities more leeway to impose rent control? No. Allow cities and counties to have to get only 55% of the vote to approve new bonds? Hell no. Making it illegal (ish) for prisoners to work? Very no. Raising the minimum wage? You’re kidding, right?
And then of course there was Prop 36 that makes crime illegal again in California. 70% approval, a crushing defeat for the woke justice mob.
This issue specifically is a very large potential problem for Harris as she wrote the ballot title for the infamous Prop 47 that essentially legalized crime (36 undid that.)
While she avoided the subject like the plague in her presidential campaign, she was a supporter of the original measure, officially (the attorney general writes the “unbiased” ballot titles for all propositions) dubbing it the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.” That’s what voters saw.
She may just as well have titled it the “Everyone Gets a Cute Puppy Act” for all the relation to reality her title had to the actual contents of Prop 47.
Prop 47 may have still passed years ago without Harris’ interference, but there is no question that she is in part responsible for the massive increase in crime and drug use in the state and in a gubernatorial campaign she would have to answer for that.
Another issue Harris will face is Donald Trump.
While he is and will remain (probably) deeply unpopular in the state, the amount of embarrassing information his administration will almost certainly dump on Harris RE: her term as vice-president will be stunning.
Not only can Trump bury her in negative facts (how many real positives would there be anyway?,) if he has any level of success in cutting government, hobbling the deep state, and improving the economy, and shutting the border, Harris will have to address that and face questions like “um, why didn’t you do any of that when you were in office.”
And then there is the issue of temperament. This did not help:
Putting all that slushiness aside momentarily, would Harris “fit” the job anyway?
Being a governor, even of California, means negotiating with lowly backbenchers, tackling specific issues, and having to wade – or at least dip a toe or two – into the minutiae of government.
Even eternal Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton wondered aloud about that:
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 steppingstone 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.
So why bother? Her husband’s rich, she can teach or talk or advise or whatever to fill her days. If she is holding out for a re-do, no matter what, she will not be the Democratic nominee for president in 2028 – the only person on the planet less likely than Harris for that gig is Joe Biden (now, that would be a comeback!) so she can for the rest of her life bask in a veepy afterglow, no matter how dim that may be.
If she runs, she puts that at risk. While it is – right now – a good bet she could win, what if she fails…again?
Then we really won’t have her to kick around anymore.
It would just be too mean.