L&T Publisher Earl Watt
Anyone who enjoys a good sporting event knows it is more exciting when there is actually a competition.
In the race for the presidency, Donald Trump was on his way to a blowout victory over Joe Biden. The polls were sliding away from Biden, and after the disastrous debate performance in June, the writing was on the wall that the race for the White House was all but over.
Biden’s heart was willing, the body was weak. Like a quarterback that has been sacked several times in a row after fumbling multiple times, Biden still wanted to go back in and prove he was they guy, but the rest of his team had lost confidence in him.
Whether he had an epiphany or was threatened with the 25th Amendment, Biden took himself out of the game.
Instead of tryouts, the Democratic Party suited up Kamala Harris and sent her onto the field, and that gets us where we are today.
It comes as no surprise that her team instantly responded positively. Who hasn’t wanted to see a change when your team is losing?
Changing the player does give an immediate sense that the team can now head in a different direction.
But so far, that is all that it is — hope. There has yet to be a snap.
After believing their team to be doomed to failure, Democrats now can at least believe again, and that is a positive of having someone else at the top of the ticket.
Harris is also not suffering from the obvious signs of old age that has rapidly attacked Biden. There’s no question that is an improvement.
She is also looked at as representative of a younger generation. Harris is 59 years old. Biden is 81.
Harris has been vice president for three-and-a-half years, giving her executive branch experience She was a senator for four years before that.
Harris is a minority. Her father is Black and her mother is South Asian. Biden had been hemorrhaging with Black voters, so Harris might be able to stop the bleeding.
Democrats have a new sense of confidence with Harris, or anyone else, entering the race, and that was needed because of the enthusiasm gap.
The challenge will be trying to appeal to Republicans and independents.
Harris was rated as the most liberal U.S. senator before she became the vice president. That is not going to bode well for independents. Shay may pisk a more moderate Democrat as vice president, but that has little sway on most voter’s view of the ticket.
Harris wanted to eliminate private insurance and force everyone on to Medicare. Basically, this would be a national government takeover of the health care system.
Even when Barack Obama forced “Obamacare” through Congress, the midterm elections stripped Democrats of control of the Senate and the House, and Obama never had his party in control of either the remaining six years of his presidency.
If Harris pushes this far left agenda, it won’t end well.
She also wants to change border violations from criminal to civil penalties. In other words, anyone who crosses into America illegally simply pays a fine instead of being deported.
That will not help with the massive illegal immigration issue that has arisen under the current administration.
Harris wanted to ban fracking and limit fossil fuel production.
Issue by issue Harris has taken the most extreme far left position. While she may be able to articulate her positions better than Biden, she is still articulating the exact same policies Biden and Harris have supported that led to high inflation, expensive fuel costs, illegal immigration at record levels and international wars.
Trump provides an alternative to these policies, and the challenge will be to show that there is no daylight between Biden and Harris. They literally hold the exact same positions on the major issues.
Harris will score points with some women, for sure, but the cons so far outweigh the pros that polls are already settling back in that this election may yet be a blowout.
