{"id":35102,"date":"2024-07-24T12:39:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T19:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=35102"},"modified":"2024-07-24T12:39:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T19:39:29","slug":"in-vibes-based-election-kamala-harris-appeal-will-trump-her-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/24\/in-vibes-based-election-kamala-harris-appeal-will-trump-her-record\/","title":{"rendered":"In vibes-based election, Kamala Harris\u2019 appeal will trump her record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> JULY 22, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vice
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during funeral for California Senator Dianne Feinstein at City Hall in San Francisco on Thursday, October 5, 2023. Photo courtesy Gabrielle Lurie \/ San Francisco Chronicle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Mission<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sign up below to get Mission Local\u2019s free newsletter<\/strong>, a daily digest of news you won\u2019t find elsewhere.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Party has wrapped its month-long summer stock review of \u201cJulius Caesar\u201d \u2014 Et tu, Nancy? <\/em>\u2014 and a parade of upwardly mobile would-be candidates is rapidly lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Everyone, it seems, loves a parade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nation and the party are in a nigh-unprecedented place. But for Harris, yet another veteran San Francisco politician in the national firmament, there is a strain of familiarity here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has been a fixture of public life since 2003, when she defeated incumbent Terrence Hallinan and Bill Fazio<\/a> to become San Francisco\u2019s district attorney. Like every \u201cproperly ambitious<\/a>\u201d politician, she has always sought \u201cthe next thing.<\/a>\u201d And she\u2019s gotten it: Millions of voters in 2010 enabled her to escape the gravitational pull of San Francisco politics and ascend to California attorney general<\/a>. Millions more in 2016 backed her to win Barbara Boxer\u2019s old Senate seat, a race she clearly had \u201cwired.<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, her own presidential bid fell short, but unprecedented numbers of voters went on to select the Biden-Harris ticket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mission<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stay informed on local elections \u2014 sign up for Mission Local’s free daily newsletter<\/strong> today!Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As ever, friends and foes alike are now highlighting her voluminous dossier \u2014 but, as ever, Harris has (almost) always succeeded and ascended not because of her record but, in many ways, in spite of it<\/a>. It\u2019s not necessarily Harris\u2019 record that has won her election after election. It\u2019s her ability to generate excitement and her appeal \u2014 she has \u201cit.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, that\u2019s familiar. And, once again \u2014 as in 2003, when she topped Hallinan and Fazio and in 2010, when she beat Steve Cooley \u2014 Harris finds herself pitted against a deeply flawed opponent<\/a>. Things have changed. But this thing hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"August<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And now, it\u2019s far more than her own career that\u2019s relying on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo by Miki Katoni, January 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many years ago, your humble narrator obtained a copy of a trove of opposition research amassed by one of Harris\u2019 deeply flawed opponents. And it was<\/a> massive; it was the size of an encyclopedia or phone book or any number of word-on-paper items that young people have never seen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there was nothing revelatory in there, not for anyone who\u2019d bothered to pick up a newspaper (also a word-on-paper item increasingly seen as an anachronism). A highlight reel: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jennifer<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Her former romantic interest Willie Brown placing her<\/a> on $95,000-a-year commissions and buoying her career; rampant ineptitude and dysfunction and cover-ups <\/a>at the police DNA and crime labs; the San Francisco DA\u2019s office inexplicably applying for \u2014 and receiving<\/a> \u2014 millions of federal dollars earmarked for border counties it was forced to pay back; her initiative to cite the parents<\/a> of truant children \u2026 and much, much more.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All of this happened, more or less. It feels a bit far-fetched to imagine GOP oppo researchers striking gold with arcana about Harris\u2019 tenure as San Francisco district attorney a generation ago. But it is not <\/em>hard to imagine salacious Republican broadsides involving her relationship with a powerful older patron like Brown \u2014 and Brown probably isn\u2019t helping<\/a> by jumping in front of a phalanx of cameras and microphones and holding impromptu press conferences on her behalf. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To borrow an apt passage from the movie \u201cAnchorman\u201d: \u201cTake it easy, Champ.<\/a> Why don\u2019t you stop talking for a while? Maybe sit the next couple plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next four months, Harris will likely suffer through the most toxic, misogynistic and racist campaign in American history. We can also anticipate stories of San Francisco chaos, filth and disorder, already a cable TV and online staple, to reach a whole new level.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what we can expect from the Republican Party of Donald Trump. But Harris \u2014 or any Democrat \u2014 remains competitive, even after a month of nonstop Democratic circular firing squads. And that\u2019s because, once again, Harris is facing a deeply flawed opponent. In fact, she is now facing two<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201csix way parlay. i want Biden step down on Sunday. i want Kamala at the convention. I want trump pennsylvania and arizona, kamala electoral, kamala popular. read it back to me\u201d pic.twitter.com\/pqPKUGgA95<\/a><\/p>— BuccoCapital Bloke (@buccocapital) July 18, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>