Now that we are a half a year removed from the November presidential election, bookstore shelves are full of missives explaining just exactly why President Donald Trump was selected by voters for another term in the White House, and why the Democratic ticket came up short.
A lot of the blame is being laid at the bedroom-slippered feet of former President Joe Biden, whom the books allege lacked the stamina, energy, and mental acuity necessary to vigorously campaign for the highest office in the land. Plus, yeah, okay, there was the uncontrollable drooling.
Look for these tomes in the “painfully obvious” section of your favorite bookstore.
One of the books making that very point, written by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, is titled “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. “
In it, Tapper and Thompson give countless examples of Biden’s unfitness for the job, including unforgettable tales of Biden’s memory loss, like not knowing who actor George Clooney was on the very night that Cooney was hosting a campaign fundraiser for Biden. For you non-hipsters, George Clooney is the husband of attorney/activist Amal Clooney.
But ultimately, Biden’s name was not on the November ballot, Vice President Kamala Harris’ was. And she was the one who went down in defeat to Donald Trump.
In presidential elections, a million different factors go into why one candidate wins and one candidate loses, and it’s impossible to chalk up a result to any one thing.
However, it’s clear to most people that Kamala Harris never really laid out a clear vision for the country the same way that President Trump did.
Everyone knew what Trump was going to do if he won the election – get control of the border, impose tariffs on foreign nations, and reign in federal agencies.
What was Kamala Harris’ agenda? I certainly couldn’t tell you.
In their book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes conclude that the lack of vision was the former Vice President’s fundamental problem.
“She [Harris] had a chance to win, but she did not have the most fundamental premise of a presidential candidacy worked out: her reason for running. She did not articulate a vision for the country, or the concomitant policy matrix, that might have convinced enough voters to elect her. She did not have a counter to Trump’s use of her own words and record to portray her as a liberal extremist,” they wrote.
They went on to quote an unnamed Harris advisor who explained, “We were holding sand in the palm of our hand and it was slipping out of the fingers slowly…I don’t think we needed more time. We needed more sand. We needed more substance. And she did not have more substance.”
Fast forward to the present, Kamala Harris is kicking tires on running for California governor in 2026…and seems perfectly prepared to make all of the same mistakes.
In a lengthy piece on whether or not Harris will run for California’s top job, the New York Times wrote, “After 22 years as an elected official, she must decide whether, or how, to continue her political career in an environment that was remade by her defeat.”
The Times went on to say that, “Ms. Harris has good reason for leaning toward a run for governor, according to people who have spoken with her…She has watched with horror as institutions Democrats care about — universities, law firms and more — have caved under pressure. And she believes that as governor of the nation’s most populous blue state, she would have a powerful platform from which to push back against Mr. Trump and his policies, and to defend Democratic priorities and values.”
Meaning a run for governor would be all about her. Her résumé, her legacy, her relevance, and her future run for president.
She has no vision for California, the same way she had no vision for the country.
Who among us actually believes that Kamala Harris has thought through our complex problems and has the solutions for what ails us?
Nobody, outside of the most rabid Democratic partisans, that’s who.
California would just be just another stop on the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sorry, Kamala. If we wanted that distinction we have Gavin Newsom to work with.
But here’s the greater question: If Kamala gets elected governor in a deeply blue state and wins despite her lack of vision, does that make her a stronger candidate for president in 2028 than she was in 2024?
Not likely.
John Phillips can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on “The John Phillips Show” on KABC/AM 790.