Analysis of the Kamala Harris selection, significant Republican convention momentum, and additional insights
Liberal: The Kamala Gamble
“It’s far from clear that Harris is the strongest candidate to take on Trump,” observes Michael Barharaeen at The Liberal Patriot.
She “has popularity issues of her own,” as her approval rating has always been under the 50% mark.
Add “a concerning electoral track record,” running far behind other California Democrats as she won the state attorney general job in 2010 while “her presidential campaign was perhaps an even bigger disappointment.”
And she needs to “distance herself” from Biden’s failures, “come into her own as a candidate” and “develop a campaign pitch” appealing to swing-state voters in the “swing states who will decide this election.” Definitely “an uphill fight.”
Pollsters: A Major GOP Convention Bounce
Their post-Republican-convention poll shows that “among likely voters, Trump’s personal favorability (49 percent) is 7 points ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris,” report Douglas E. Schoen & Carly Cooperman at The Hill.
Overall: “The convention and Trump’s speech, which a majority (55 percent) of likely voters felt was ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ was worth between 3-4 points for Trump.”
More: “A strong majority (61 percent) of likely voters say that the Republican Party as a whole is addressing issues they care about.”
Yes, “this polling boost could prove temporary, as it historically does post-convention.”
But it still “suggests that it is growing more difficult by the day for the eventual Democratic nominee and down-ballot Democrats to win.”
Conservative: Kamala Proves Dems’ Disconnect
“The disconnect between progressive policies and the voters will be [Kamala] Harris’s biggest challenge,” argues Spiked’s Joel Kotkin.
“With the ascension of Kamala Harris, the Democrats have made a full break from their historic roots as the party of workers,” as “the party’s emphasis will now be on issues like climate change, abortion, reparations and trans advocacy.”
“Lunch-bucket Joe” Biden “was something of an anachronism in an era where the white working class, the supposed homebase of the Bidens, has been shifting inexorably” to the GOP.
Democrats’ “new party base, concentrated in a handful of cities, as beneficiaries of both government largesse and the stock market boom, has reason to love the current regime. But working-class people are doing less well.”
From the right: ’Bam Screws Joe, Dems — Again
“President Biden was reportedly stewing over Barack Obama’s role in the orchestrated campaign to force him off the Democratic ticket,” notes The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn.
“For Mr. Biden, it must have brought back unpleasant memories of 2015,” when Obama backed Hillary Clinton over his veep, Biden.
Yet the president’s exit now leaves Democrats with a candidate “who didn’t receive a single primary vote.”
Had Dems like Obama intervened before the primaries, the party might now have a strong nominee “who enjoyed” full party support.
Instead, they gaslit Americans about Biden’s condition.
And though, as No. 2 in the White House, Harris herself was in a position know, she too “was happy” to keep it from Americans. “Now she asks them to trust her with the presidency?”
Iconoclast: ‘Era of the Noble Lie’
The reason Democrats are scrambling now “— the reason the most basic elements of the Democratic (and democratic) process are being so dramatically challenged — is because of the lie that everyone around Joe Biden told themselves and then told the public,” thunders The Free Press’ Bari Weiss.
It’s not just that people like George Clooney “knew about Biden’s condition and lied about it.
They knew they were lying and believed they could dupe their supporters.”
The “generous read for why Democratic elites chose this path” goes from “If we want to defeat Trump again — and save democracy — let’s stick to the winning horse” to “A few white lies for the sake of the Republic seems a small price to pay.”
But that “same thinking” led smearing “anyone who uttered the words ‘lab leak’ as a conspiracy theorist.”
It’s time to “Stop spinning, stop lying, and stop the condescension.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
