Don’t Underestimate Kamala Harris

Did that title get your attention? Did it frighten (or anger) you as well? Then good, because that means we are on the same page.

You see, I don’t think that Kamala Harris is the least bit qualified to be Vice President, let alone President of the United States. However, she probably wasn’t qualified to be a U.S. Senator… or the Attorney General of California… or the District Attorney of San Francisco. And yet, she rose to all of those positions not on merit, but on political connections.

It is a well-known fact that Ms. Harris got her start in politics because of her benefactor, Willie Brown. Brown, who served as Speaker of the California State Assembly from 1980 to 1995, dated Harris in 1994 and 1995 while he was legally separated but still married to his wife, Blanche Vitero. James Robinson, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee, said that "The measure of his [Brown’s] flamboyance is he'll go to a party with his wife on one arm and his girlfriend on the other.”

That girlfriend was Kamala Harris, whom Brown subsequently appointed to the State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission. Brown also served as Mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004, a period during which Harris was elected District Attorney of San Francisco. Brown, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and comedian Chris Rock actively campaigned for Harris, who defeated the incumbent 56%-44%.

Harris parlayed her position as D.A. into a successful campaign for Attorney General of California in 2010. She was re-elected in 2014 before running successfully for the U.S. Senate in 2016. As a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020, Harris failed to win a single delegate, dropping out before the Iowa Caucuses. However, when former Vice President Joe Biden promised to choose a black woman as his running mate, Harris became the immediate frontrunner and eventual nominee.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So, it seems that Kamala Harris has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, which is exactly where she found herself when President Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed her instead. Other endorsements soon followed from such prominent Democrats as Barack and Michelle Obama, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Despite her dismal performance as border czar and her frequent public gaffes – and yes, that insipid laugh – Kamala seems poised to secure her party’s nomination at next month’s convention in Chicago. How she will fare against former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, on the debate stage, and at the polls in November remains to be seen. However, the Democratic Party seems overly relieved to be rid of Geritol Joe and is enthusiastically supporting Harris’s bid.

Will that enthusiasm translate into votes this fall? Will independent voters who planned to hold their noses and vote for Trump because of Biden’s precipitous cognitive decline embrace Willie Brown’s former mistress with open arms? How about young and uneducated voters? Will they be swept up in the Kamala hysteria being stoked by the mainstream media?

The answer is anyone’s guess.