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Most Democrats are completely wrong about why Kamala Harris failed. It’s always important to use the word “most” when making claims about a large group. It’s impossible to poll everyone, and if I had started my opening statement with, “Democrats are,” surely there would be someone who would pop up and say they knew the real reason Kamala Harris’s campaign failed. But what I’ve found in my travels is that no Democrat is seeing her failure through the proper lens. Neither racism nor misogyny played as big of a role in her political failure as Democrats believe. In fact, a majority of Americans on both sides of the political aisle do not take race or sex into account when looking at candidates.
This is one of the most counterintuitive arguments I can make, but it’s accurate and if you hang in there, I’ll demonstrate why.
An article on CNN caught my attention so much, I actually read it all the way through. This is rare, as most CNN articles tend to lose my attention very quickly. But this particular article was fascinating because it embodied the prevailing perspective of the current Democrat Party, especially in regards to the realization that after starting with a very diverse range of candidates with varying degrees of brownness, the final six (seven if you include Michael Bloomberg) who have enough attention to have a shot at the nomination are Caucasians.
Here’s the article. You don’t have to read it. I’ll highlight some of the important points:
Kamala Harris is gone. Why is Pete Buttigieg still here?
There are many reasons that Kamala Harris could not sustain her presidential run but one central obstacle is that she made her presidential bid in a country that is unused to seeing women who look like her in power — let alone in the highest political office. Ninety percent of elected offices in America are held by whites with 65% held by white men, according to the Reflective Democracy Campaign. Harris, who had occupied the top law enforcement positions in San Francisco and then all of California, won statewide office as a moderate in a majority minority state (where notably political offices are still held mostly by whites).
With that resume, Harris then tried to contend for America’s political center as a candidate. On healthcare, she took the centrist position of supporting a version of Medicare For All while stopping short of a Bernie Sanders-esque complete overhaul of the healthcare system. She argued that her record as a prosecutor who pursued pragmatic rather than ideological solutions to thorny problems (such as the death penalty) uniquely qualified her to do the same if she won the presidency. That argument largely fell on deaf ears.
What Harris saw as political dexterity, essential to bringing people together, others saw in this moment of ideological tribalism as a damning failure to pick a side. Meanwhile, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, white and male and espousing many of the same positions as Harris (but with far less time holding political office under his belt) has fared a lot better, even leading the polls in Iowa. Like Harris, Buttigieg supports a version of Medicare For All but without a total overhaul of the healthcare system. Both come from middle-class academic families who have supported their political ambitions.
The premise being pushed by author Rafia Zakaria is that there is a mold Americans are accustomed to, one that features mostly Caucasian men as our elected leaders. She blames this mold for making it harder for the electorate to vote for people of color, particularly women of color. This is 100% wrong. We’re coming off a midterm election that saw the highest percentage of women as well as people of color elected in history. Our previous president was black. America has clearly demonstrated we are ready and willing to vote for both women and people of color.
If that’s the case, one might wonder why there’s such a discrepancy, according to the numbers Zakaria is using. First, it’s because with no term limits on Capitol Hill, we’re still seeing remnants from the last millennia sitting in offices they won in the Clinton, Bush, or Reagan era. Come are even older. But the biggest reason for the discrepancy is that fewer people of color actually run for office. This is shifting greatly now, but until recently mostly Caucasians and mostly men ran for political office.
Is there racism in America? Absolutely. There’s a hint of racism that is likely never applied publicly in many if not most Americans. There is also the truly hateful racism that’s present in organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and Black Lives Matter. As long as there are organizations that set their goals based solely on race, there will be ugly forms of racism in America.
But contrary to what Zakaria posits in her article, the difference in success between Harris and Pete Buttigieg isn’t race, though that difference is obviously present. The real difference is that Buttigieg is inherently likable and Harris is not. She was at the top of my “oh crap” list in late 2018 as the potential candidate I thought would have the best chance against President Trump. She seemed to have the intelligence and the energy to win the nomination and possibly win the general election. Then, she spoke about policies. She talked about her campaign, plans, and ambitions for America. It was less than a month after she announced her run for the nomination that I realized she wasn’t a threat. She has the personality of spoiled cabbage.
What’s worse for her is that she is too ideologically malleable. There were times when she would flip-flop on her own proposals multiple times in the same week, especially as it pertained to healthcare. At no point has she owned an issue. The same can be said about Buttigieg and even Joe Biden. The difference is they’re likable.
But likability isn’t everything. Andrew Yang is likable and he’s getting zero attention. Tulsi Gabbard is likable at times. Kirsten Gillibrand was somewhat likable. Compared to Harris, their personalities are far superior, yet Gillibrand dropped out early, Gabbard seems to be playing for a VP nod, and Yang is still scratching his head wondering why nobody covers him. The other factors in play are more unfair than any perceived racism among the electorate.
The real nail in the coffin of the notion that Harris failed because of race is that she soared in the polls after the first debate. Some were saying she was on pace to win the nomination outright in the early states and smoke the competition if she could keep up her meteoric rise. If racism and/or misogyny were the real culprits in her fall, she wouldn’t have risen at all. Democrats were willing to give her a chance and look at her more closely after her hit on Biden. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t do very well when voters took that closer look. What they saw wasn’t very compelling.
Barack Obama didn’t overcome racism in ways that Harris could not simply because he is a man. He overcame any lingering racism at the time because he was extremely likable. Heck, I couldn’t stand his policies but I’d love to have a beer with him. He’s confident, which Harris is not at times. He’s charismatic, which Harris is not, ever. He broke through the last bits of a racist barrier to the highest office in the land and changed America forever. His policies, especially on the social front, harmed America greatly. But his presence as a black man in the Oval Office opened the doors to greater things in the future.
Now, to the original point I intended to make. If racism were still a major problems in American politics, Harris would be doing BETTER than she did. Cory Booker would be among the frontrunners and Julian Castro would still have a chance. Why? Because the counter to racist sentiment is to force the issue through promoting minorities. Affirmative action is natural when necessary in today’s America. It’s not necessary now, not in the presidential race. Most Americans have moved beyond looking at the color of a candidate’s skin. There is likely more lingering misogyny in place, but only because we haven’t broken that particular glass ceiling yet. I imagine Nikki Haley will break through that last barrier in 2024.
The fact that the field was diverse doesn’t mean the people of color were pushed down over racism. Meanwhile, the lack of racism in political decisions meant there was no need for affirmative action to take hold. Americans look at how well a candidate fits their personal mold, and race has very little to do with it in most. As a result, the stronger candidates, who this year happened to be Caucasian, rose to the top. We saw the opposite in the 2016 GOP nomination race as well when three of the final five candidates were people of color. With the exception of John Kasich who was the Establishment holdover, we had Ben Carson and Ted Cruz as conservatives who inspired voters. We also had Marco Rubio and Donald Trump as populists who inspired people. Race didn’t keep any of them down, nor did it prop any of them up. Trump had the charisma and a smart campaign behind him, which is why he won.
We could very well see the final proof that racism and misogyny do not play a significant role in the nomination race if Michelle Obama jumps in. She would win the nomination quickly and easily.
If Kamala Harris had been more ideologically firm and had a likable personality, she would still be in the race. But she wasn’t. Let’s not assume because she’s a woman of color that racism and misogyny held her back.
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