Wednesday’s Final Word

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Wednesday's Final Word 1

Closing the tabs in the context of tabs that close as we tab … er …

Are Democrats coconut-pilled? Some want to see Kamala Harris run again.

Senior Democrats aren’t ruling out Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate for 2028. But not all of them are fully endorsing the idea, either.

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Ed: They’re all playing nice at the moment, mainly because they know this is a self-solving problem. Harris is so inept that even if she did run for the nomination, and even if she raised a bunch of money for it (a big if after blowing through $1.5B), she’d lose badly. There’s almost no need to get in front of the issue at this stage. But the Politico headline about being ‘coconut-pilled’ is a keeper!

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Ed: Like I said …

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“According to a new report, Vice President Kamala Harris believes that if she runs for president again in 2028, she would face a competitive Democratic primary process,” Meyers said on “Late Night” Tuesday.

“Not to mention an awkward one,” he added, showing a mocked-up picture of President Joe Biden in front of a “Biden 2028″ podium.

Ed: It’s a light-hearted dig, but any ridicule of Harris by late-night shows even now seems worth noting. 

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Ed: In fairness, rolling up her sleeves could mean something other than running for another office. It’s difficult to figure out any other path for her, though, except NGO activism — and that requires executive competence, too. 

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“I find it hard to believe that she could build support. The stories — it’s just, it’s so disappointing to see our colleagues, just as they did during the four years of the Biden administration, failing to cover the truth right before our eyes,” [Mark] Halperin said. “Is her poor performance the only reason she didn’t win? No, but it’s right up there … I think both [President] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have escaped a lot of the blame that falls to them, and that’s not just my view, but the view of a lot of Democrats — donors and members of Congress, etc.”

Ed: The reference to competition isn’t just about votes. It’s also about finding financial and political support. No one wants to rule out Harris at the moment, but Halperin’s correct. After watching her campaign so incompetently and waste so much money in such a short period of time, potential donors and allies will want to invest more wisely in future campaigns where other choices exist. That applies to the gubernatorial contest in California too, as Halperin goes on to state.

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Ed: In 50 seconds, Kamala Harris manages to say … nothing at all. Clearly she works hard at her power to say nothing, and on her ability to say nothing. 

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I propose that Harris shift her gaze away from the White House and focus on a run for California governor — or some other kind of public service. Harris was undoubtedly dealt a bad hand in the 2024 election. But she is also exactly the wrong kind of figure to try to lead the party going forward in an era of populism and rapidly shifting coalitions. …

Yet despite her manifest intelligence and poise, Harris revealed few instincts for how to climb out of that hole. In an election in which she was running to succeed an unpopular president, she struggled to articulate what, if anything, she would do differently as president. The defining theme of the campaign was Americans’ negative feelings about the economy — that, despite cooling inflation, everything still felt too expensive. But Harris lacked a clear economic message that reflected an understanding of the cost-of-living crisis.

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Ed: It’s not that she lacked the message. It’s that she copy-pasted Joe Biden’s message while simultaneously trying to distance herself from it without any clue as to what else to offer. It was literally the most important issue in this election, and Harris not only didn’t have any instincts for it, she had no grasp of the issue at all. And when you lose MSNBC ….

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