Choosing what it must think is the lesser of two evils, the Biden campaign has Vice President Kamala Harris hitting the campaign trail, rather than continuing to conspicuously keep her under wraps.
Problem is, upping Harris’ visibility can only remind voters that she’s likely to rise to the top when President Biden is no longer even able to fake being up to the job — and, worse, remind them of her utter awfulness.
For the record, her net favorability shows as -17.2 in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average (37.2% favorable, 54.4% unfavorable), vs. Biden’s -14.5 (+40.7%, -55.2).
In the 538 site’s (slightly less up-to-date) averages, she’s -15.2, he’s -15.9.
And while Biden’s low rating is plainly mainly due to the grim results of his policies, Harris’ unpopularity is all about her personally.
Her inability to say anything unscripted without falling into hopeless word salads; her weird cackling and blatant lack of principles.
He picked her as veep because she checked some historic “first” boxes: a woman, African- and Indian-American.
Certainly her own 2020 presidential bid showed zero talent: Its highlight was her disingenuous attack on him over 1970s school-bussing, which bombed.
Indeed, she dropped out before anyone voted: Not making it to the Iowa caucuses pretty much defines failure.
But not sending her out to campaign now would be seen as a dis of the very groups she’s supposed to help with: women and blacks.
So there she was in North Carolina the other day, for the fourth time this year and her 12th visit as veep, announcing clean-energy grants in Charlotte.
Yet sending Harris to North Carolina is basically make-work. A strong Democrat can carry the state, but only en route to a national blowout — whereas Biden’s campaign rightly expects a tight race: Its keys to victory are genuine swing states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.
The re-election braintrust knows that concerns about Joe’s age add majorly to voters’ doubts about him, and that reminding people that Kamala would take over “if” he has to step down only deepens that dread.
So if Kamala comes to your state these next six months, you’ll know it’s not a seriously contested one.
Consider hearing from her a small price to pay for not drowning in nonstop campaign ads.