Why Kamala Harris VP pick could cost Biden the election
The only person who should be happier with this pick than Kamala Harris is Donald Trump
In what may go down as one of the worst vice-presidential picks in U.S. history, Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he has chosen Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., to be his running mate for the 2020 presidential election.
Harris is exactly the opposite of what Biden needed in order to compete with President Trump in November.
BIDEN'S SELECTION OF HARRIS FOR VP MEANS DISASTROUS SAN FRANCISCO ECONOMIC MODEL COULD GO NATIONWIDE
Harris is from California, a far-left state that Biden was certain to win regardless of who he selected to be his running mate.
She garnered so little support and enthusiasm among Democratic Party voters during the primary season that she chose to drop out of the race in December, more than a month before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
Harris has been heavily criticized by many on the far left for her stances on some criminal justice issues while she served as the top prosecutor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011 and attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017.
For example, she previously opposed a statewide police body camera mandate, fought against a reduction to California’s mandatory minimum law, and opposed the legalization of marijuana -- a position she has since reversed.
TRUMP VS. BIDEN: STOCK MARKET WILL PICK THE WINNER
She has a long, well-documented record of political opportunism and grandstanding, going all the way back to her days in San Francisco.
According to an SF Weekly report from 2009, “The cops, in turn, argue that District Attorney Kamala Harris, a striver and candidate for Attorney General, is loath to take difficult cases lest she blemish her political future with an embarrassing loss.”
But worst of all, Harris has in recent years adopted increasingly more radical policy positions, frequently aligning herself with socialist politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
BIDEN PLEDGES TO ROLL BACK TRUMP'S $2 TRILLION TAX CUTS
Perhaps the most notable example is Harris’s support for Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, the most radical, socialistic proposal in history.
Among other things, AOC’s Green New Deal resolution, which Harris co-sponsored in the Senate in 2019, includes a call for single-payer health care, retrofitting every home and business building in the country, a new system of publicly-owned banks, free college tuition, “universal access to healthy food,” a federal jobs guarantee, the complete destruction of the fossil-fuel industry and requirements that would prevent Americans from purchasing gasoline-powered cars.
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
All told, the American Action Forum estimates the Harris-backed Green New Deal could cost as much as $94 trillion over 10 years, making it the most expensive plan ever proposed.
Harris’s support for the Green New Deal and other socialistic policies such as a basic income program for most Americans and a $2,000 monthly “stimulus” check that would be paid out for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, put her squarely outside of the political mainstream and moves the Biden campaign even further to the left than it has already drifted over the past two months.
When you add up all of Harris’s proposals, it’s hard to see how her platform differs substantially from that of Bernie Sanders. Although Harris denies she is a socialist, her recent track record suggests that is exactly what she is.
KAMALA HARRIS, BIDEN'S RADICAL VP PICK SIGNALS BAD NEWS FOR AMERICAN WORKERS, ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Biden’s decision to choose Harris is bizarre, to say the least. She provides almost no political benefits and a whole lot of far-left baggage.
The reason Biden was chosen by Democratic Party primary voters in the first place is precisely because they didn’t want a socialist on the ticket, and yet, that’s exactly what they have ended up with now that Harris has joined the Biden campaign.
Harris’s socialist policy views will not play well in the conservative Midwest and moderate upper Midwest. Middle-of-the-road voters in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as swing states further to the east, like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, have no interest in voting for the socialist policies championed by Harris.
When they find out just how radical Biden’s new running mate is, it could very well prove to be catastrophic for his campaign.
With that in mind, the only person who should be happier with this pick than Kamala Harris is Donald Trump.
Justin Haskins (@JustinTHaskins) is the executive editor and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute and the editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com. He's the author of "Socialism Is Evil: The Moral Case Against Marx's Radical Dream."