November 18, 2021 - 7:00am
“The president did not appoint the vice president to be the border czar,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Capitol Hill this week. “He asked her to lead the effort in addressing the root causes of irregular migration. Those are two very different things.”
Let’s put aside Mayorkas’ on-brand, even fashionable sleight of hand of using word games to deny the reality that all concede privately: Kamala Harris was tasked with the border this past spring — and if she was addressing “root causes,” the public record on what exactly she was doing is sketchy beyond a June commandment to “do not come” to Central American migrants. The sentiment was captured by yesterday’s New York Post: “Mayorkas struggles to explain what Kamala Harris does in immigration role”.
The bad news is piling up. The centre-Left media has evidently turned on the vice president — at 28% approval in one survey — with fresh takedowns in CNN, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. If (and it’s a big if), President Biden runs in 2024, would he ponder a ticket switch? Most recent presidents have. And if Biden doesn’t run, the California vice president’s heir apparent status is now greatly damaged.
Harris will have competitors, but who are they?
The first, and most obvious, is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, “Mayor Pete.” Long a Harris rival, Harris’ allies kept the former 2020 presidential candidate out of Turtle Bay. That is, the low-risk, highly-televised role of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, where Buttigieg could have prattled on by day and built donor contacts on the Upper East Side by night.
But Buttigieg has been able to maintain a public profile in spite of the backroom knifing. A rather hagiographic new Netflix documentary was just released, and the Transport Secretary is now point man on Biden’s new infrastructure programme. That’s a double-edged sword, but if he doesn’t mess it up — and Americans actually get and like their new roads and trains — it could be enough to make him a proper Democratic front-runner.
The list from there is a familiar cast: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobachur. But perhaps the most interesting, if provocative option is an even more longstanding rival of Harris’: California Governor Gavin Newsom, who survived a recall effort in September with the gusto of a 49er. Angeleno Bill Maher pumped him for president back in the Trump years, saluting his good-looking white guyness and management of what could be its own major country (the jury’s out on that one).
When they were both in the lower ranks, Harris essentially muscled Newsom out of the running for both the Senate and Golden State donors’ attention. But maybe it’s Newsom’s turn for revenge, if he’s up to it (he never seems that enthusiastic about anything.)
If I’m to end on a joke, defrocked former Senator Al Franken is making a comeback, but before his Kirsten Gillbrand-generated downfall, the ex-comedian was hailed as a great option to go up against Donald Trump. What’s old could be new again.
One last option: Rep. Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez turns thirty-five in 2024, just in time to be eligible for the presidency…
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SubscribeA better title:
Who Will Replace Pence in 2024?
or
Who Will Replace Biden in 2024?
Doesn’t matter, they will lose and lose big.
LET’S GO BRANDON!
I think Larry Elder for Pence.
And if Biden is foolish enough to drink from a cup Kamala, or one of her staff, handed to him – well he will already be replaced by 2024.
Larry Elder? Are you serious?
Besides making old white conservatives feel all MLK-ish, the only use black conservatives serve is to make middle class suburban white women feel OK about voting Republican.
They should be designated for that kind of campaigning only.
As candidates they invariably lose ten times more white votes than they gain.
They gain ZERO black votes.
“the only use black conservatives serve is to make middle class suburban white women feel OK about voting Republican.”
F*** YOU
now now Sanford we have to be more creative with our feedback here on unherd – and also a lot worse things can happen to a person than ‘unlawful carnal knowledge ” !
Who does Kamala really know and why? She got approximately 1% of the Democratic vote during the primaries in many states. Why is she still relevant, with the exception of her skin color?
With the greatest respect, I disagree. KH would remain relevant because of her gender. Other than skin colour AND gender, let’s deposit her on the dustbin of history with a weird cackle!
Mr Mills omits the reason for both Little Pete Buttigieg’s popularity with white progressives and why he will never be the Democratic nominee.
That’s surprising because it was exactly the same reason he rose and flopped in 2020.
But the omission is not surprising because it has to do with a frank discussion of race and that is, as always, taboo.
Buttigieg is gay. White progressives love that about him. Black Democratic voters despise that about him.
And because he has no appeal whatsoever to the voting bloc that empowers the Democratic Party (ask Jim Clyburn and Joe Biden) Buttigieg can only hope to be VP.
Of course, imputing bigotry to blacks is not allowed, so it goes unsaid. The taboo holds.
That taboo, as Pedro Gonzalez recently said, is the armor we allow the Left to wear.
Not me, UnHerd.
Are you talking about Buttigieg’s chances of running for President or VP? I don’t know if you are gay, I am as it happens, and people in a free society can think anything they want about gay people.
Perhaps many black voters are relaxed enough about an individual’s sexuality but possibly less happy about a gay man being head of state, which despite the Left a notably ‘macho’ area in most countries (the women leaders also act tough). In any case there are far more pressing issues for gay people worldwide than this.
In any case, to call this ‘bigotry’ is to use a commonly used tactic of the identitarian Left, often used to shut down discussion and shut up their opponents.
And we certainly don’t want to copy the tactics of a small, zealous minority who somehow, despite years of failed solutions to the problems they raise, continue to win electoral majorities and totally dominate our institutions and our culture, do we?
No, it’s far, far better to bring our pretty penknife to the gunfight.
On the other hand, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Or, in the words of the late Rush Limbaugh’s wise maxim:
“The aggressor sets the rules.”
“ “He asked her to lead the effort in addressing the root causes of irregular migration.”
Next She needs to be turned loose on the root causes of the ‘Irregular Shopping’ issues of rioting Looters and the quasi-legalized shop lifting and street crime.
“Rep. Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez turns thirty-five in 2024, just in time to be eligible for the presidency…”Alexandria Ocascio-Corbyn” will leave an indelible stamp on the Party if she does get to that position…
That’s the one to watch, whether she takes on Schumer or not.
The rumour is that Harris will be ousted from office long before then, to be replaced by Buttigieg, simply so that the DNC have someone less hated to take over from Biden as his decline accelerates.
Who’s going to oust the first black woman VP?
Have you ever tried to fire a black female employee?
I direct your attention to the career of Sue Simmons of WNBC-TV News in NY.
Kamala will blissfully vacation in the south of France with her husband, secure behind her racial Iron Dome.
Vegan Darkle?
A bag of sand.
The major point here that the progressive Left and the media are being in this instance unfair to Harris personally.
It is the entire belief system of a cuddly welcoming immigration system, and the almost total lack of meaningful sanctions, believed in universally by the Left, that leads more and more people to try their luck. It doesn’t matter who the Democrats put in Harris’ place, they will do no better. The US needs to deter, and it needs to deport anyone illegally entering the country. (Exactly the same applies to the UK of course) .
Unless the current dominance of the debate, completely contrary to public opinion, by bleating human rights and open borders advocates is overturned, both countries will continue being a soft touch for the criminal gangs of people smugglers. The already greatly understated levels of immigration will increase even further.
Correct. Which is why in the long run-up to the 2024 GOP nomination, conservatives in the US should insist that every candidate take a stand on the REPATRIATION of all of the illegal aliens and phony asylum-seekers allowed into the US since January 20, 2021.
No more “I will enforce existing laws” or “I will return to the policies of the Trump Administration.” That’s not enough.
Too much damage has been done to treat Bidenism as a fait accompli; the policies — and the poison fruits of them — must be turned back.
Biden (and Jill) has very sharp elbows. If he’s even halfway sentient, he’s gonna run in 2024. Can’t give up what he’s worked for his whole entire life, he’s not that man. He may yet beat Trump too, with his slow, maddening but effective knifing.