‘If She Ran for Dogcatcher, She’d Lose’: Kamala Harris Faces New Wave of Criticism After Book Gives Harsh Account of Her Failed Campaign

A new book about Vice President Harris’s failed presidential campaign — filled with detailed descriptions of a weak candidate and feuding campaign staff — is leading to renewed criticism of Ms. Harris and Democratic Party elders, especially due to its description of how top Democrats did not believe Ms. Harris could win even as they pushed President Biden aside. “It is so bad, when you start to read how horrible of a candidate she was, about the staff infighting,” said the former Trump White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, on “The Morning Meeting” podcast. “Her decision making and her staffing were atrocious. She couldn’t run for anything and win.Mr. Spicer added that, “If she ran for dogcatcher, she’d lose.”A Democratic strategist, Dan Turrentine, said on the same podcast that, “I do not think she’ll run for president. I think if she runs for governor, it will not be as easy as she thinks it will [be], and if I had to bet, I bet she loses running for governor.”The new book, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” is by the political reporters Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, who together wrote the bestselling book “Shattered” about Secretary Clinton’s shocking loss in 2016 to President Trump. The book has never before reported details about the debate inside the Democratic Party around forcing Mr. Biden out of the race and what was going on inside Ms. Harris’s campaign. The authors note that Democrats had deep concerns about Mr. Biden’s mental acuity, but they were also concerned that having him step aside would lead to Ms. Harris becoming the nominee. ‘A Mistake’As pressure mounted on Mr. Biden to drop out, his top aides reportedly told donors the Democratic Party would make “a mistake” and nominate Ms. Harris if he suspended his campaign.“One donor on the receiving end of an electronic message summed up the sentiments of Biden’s top aides: ‘They were aggressively saying that we would wind up with the vice-president and that would be a mistake,’” the book states.Allies of the 46th president were not the only ones with his hesitation about the vice president. When Mr. Biden was showing increasing signs of weakness in the spring of 2024, when Democratic party elders were deliberating who might replace him on their ticket, President Obama “determined that he didn’t think Harris should take the president’s spot on the ballot.” Instead, the book says the 44th president favored the party nominating the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, for president and the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, for vice president. This would allow the party, Mr. Obama reckoned, to rally around a ticket made up of a woman and person of color– but no Ms. Harris.Then, during Mr. Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate against Mr. Trump that dramatically accelerated calls for a change at the top of the ticket, the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reportedly fretted, “Oh my God, it’s going to be her.”Once it became clear that Mr. Biden — pressured by Ms. Pelosi — would step aside, he was not ready to endorse Ms. Harris, and didn’t plan to endorse anyone in his announcement he was stepping aside. But behind closed doors, the vice president reportedly pleaded with the president to endorse her as his replacement quickly, which she said would be “important for your legacy.”“She knew that if Biden stepped aside without explicitly backing her, it would be taken as a statement that he lacked confidence in her ability to win or to do the job — or both,” the book states. “That could mean crib death for a battle that she had not yet begun to fight.”In the end, after Mr. Biden announced he was suspending his campaign, he waited only half an hour to publicly throw his support behind Ms. Harris. As for Mr. Obama’s endorsement, the authors write that Ms. Harris was “very annoyed” that the former president did not endorse her for five days.“To seem real, Harris had to fake surprise and enthusiasm about what should have been an obvious endorsement from both Obamas. It took days of intense negotiations to strike a deal on the simplest act in politics. The whole frame, including the script, was designed to elevate the Obamas by making it look like she was begging for their blessing. This was typical bulls—,” the book says.The Election Ms. Parnes told USA Today that she was “honestly shocked” that Ms. Harris and the Democrats thought they were going to win the election. The journalist says that Ms. Harris’ “own campaign gaslit her” and “essentially telegraphed a win to her,” even though internal polls suggested the race was close, at best.In light of her campaign apparently feeding her optimism about the election, Ms. Harris was “completely shocked” when she lost.During an interview on the podcast “Somebody’s Gotta Win with Tara Palmeri,” Ms. Parnes said, “Kamala Harris was looking at her crowd size, and they felt like the vibe was strong and people were saying, ‘Oh, we have more boots on the ground. We’re doing better in fundraising. And she bought all of that. She bought the hype, and so did a lot of people in the campaign.”“So, you know, when they come back now and say, ‘Oh, no, we didn’t really have a chance.’ No, that’s not what they were thinking,” Ms. Parnes said. As the shock set in, the vice president reportedly asked if her campaign should ask for a recount. The book also states that Ms. Harris is placing some of the blame for her loss on Mr. Biden, saying, “She could have won, she told friends, if only the election was later in the calendar — or she got in earlier. In other words, Joe Biden was to blame.”However, the book notes even her friends and former aides disagree with that assessment. One friend of the vice president called the assessment “f— bonkers … If Election Day was October first, we might have actually somehow pulled it off. Shorter was actually better, not longer.”A former advisor is quoted in the book as saying, “I don’t think we needed more time… We needed more substance. And she did not have more substance.”The book is being published as Mr. Harris is reportedly considering whether to run for governor in California or make another bid for the White House. Some pundits are not convinced that Ms. Harris has a shot at winning the White House or the gubernatorial election.Former NBC News journalist Chuck Todd suggested Ms. Harris should stay out of politics for a few years because “I just don’t see a path for her.”“If I were advising her, I’d tell her: go throw yourself into the rebuild of LA and get involved with the LA Olympic Committee. Be above politics for a couple of years and come back maybe in 2030 or 2032,” he said in an interview with NBCLA earlier this month. A conservative commentator, Bill Mitchell, wrote on X, “Kamala Harris was just like Hillary and believed her own campaign lies that she would win. This is the Democrat’s greatest weakness that in the end they believe their own lies. It is their downfall.”Ms. Harris’ office did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

‘If She Ran for Dogcatcher, She’d Lose’: Kamala Harris Faces New Wave of Criticism After Book Gives Harsh Account of Her Failed Campaign

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