The mainstream press certainly wants you to think so. Why? Because even though a quarter or so of the American people are hard-core liberal/progressive, the vast majority of Americans are not. Therefore, if the public perceives the Biden/Harris ticket as being more moderate, it is far more likely that that ticket will defeat the Trump/Pence team this fall. And that is a priority of the mainstream press this year, whether they want to admit it or not.
So is Kamala Harris, in reality, a moderate? Well, let’s look at her record on the issues, and let that record speak for itself.
She believes illegal immigrants should get free healthcare, and has compared ICE agents to the KKK. She believes that taxpayers should pay for other people’s abortions, including partial birth abortions, and has said that Catholics who belong to the Knights of Columbus are unfit to serve as federal judges. She wants to raise taxes, a lot. She wants to get rid of the Senate filibuster rule, in order to pass the radical so-called Green New Deal. She cosponsored Bernie Sanders’ government takeover of healthcare called Medicare For All. She led the over-the-top assault on Justice Cavanaugh. She wants to ban fracking altogether, a technique that has led the way to America’s energy independence, and significantly lower prices at the pump. She wants a compulsory gun-buyback program. She wants to ban plastic altogether. And she had the most liberal voting record in the Senate last year – even to the left of the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
George McGovern, with VP running mate Thomas Eagleton, who was replaced by Sargent Schriver 19 days later.
So clearly, Kamala Harris is no moderate. And looking at her position on the issues, combined with where Joe Biden now stands on the issues, this Democratic presidential ticket is the furthest-to-the-left ticket going back nearly half-a-century to George McGovern in 1972. And what happened that year? The Democratic ticket went down in flames.
Is that what’s going to happen this time? No one knows for sure. And of course Biden is currently up in the polls. And the COVID pandemic has put a hold on much of the traditional campaigning we see in a presidential election year (except for the TV commercials.) Even the national conventions will be taking place virtually this time around.
But my belief is this: once the majority of American voters recognize just how far to the left the Democratic ticket is, they are unlikely to trust that ticket with our nation’s future. The American people usually get it right – and I think they will this time too.
See you next week.