Axios reported on Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris is putting her “stamp” on her presidential campaign by bringing on a bunch of former Barack Obama campaign staffers.
That sounds less like Kamala’s “stamp” and more like Obama’s.
Former Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe, as well as Obama’s former deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, will be taking key roles in the Harris campaign.
Plouffe will be leaving TikTok to ensure that Kamala wins the Electoral College.
Since winning the Electoral College is the only way to win a presidential election, shouldn’t that be the job of every member of the Kamala campaign?
Stephanie Cutter is in charge of “strategy messaging,” which, in Kamala’s case, will likely involve preventing the media from asking the appointed nominee any questions while deploying an army of “campaign surrogates” to do the talking for her.
Stephanie Cutter is also tasked with preparing Kamala for eventual media interviews. Hopefully, Stephanie will get hazard pay for that particular assignment…
Obama’s former grassroots organizer Mitch Stewart will act as Kamala’s battleground state senior advisor. If all Mitch accomplishes is to convince Kamala to visit Wisconsin, the Harris campaign will already be in a better position than Hillary was in 2016.
Team Kamala has also taken on Obama’s former public opinion research guy David Binder to ensure that Kamala knows which way the wind is blowing before she settles on a policy position.
It’s likely the Obama alumni are in for a rude awakening.
Kamala Harris is no Barack Obama. She lacks Obama’s easy extemporaneous speaking style that won over voters in 2008, and unlike the smooth Barack, Kamala is awkward, insecure, and uncomfortable in her own skin.
On top of that, Kamala is unwilling to educate herself about pesky things like facts and details, choosing instead to burp out pre-scripted and oft-repeated bromides like, “We can imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been.”
In 2021, a former Kamala staffer told the the Washington Post that Harris refused to review the briefing material painstakingly prepared for her and then would blame her staff when she appeared unprepared.
As Vice President, Kamala had a higher staff turnover rate than most fast-food restaurants.
The Obama people, known for their loyalty, won’t know what hit them.
Then again, unlike most presidential campaigns that last 18 months to two years, Kamala’s is a short-term gig. It’s possible her campaign staff won’t be on the job long enough to get to the point of quitting in a frustrated rage.
Team Obama doesn’t need to like Kamala Harris to work for her campaign. That’s not why they’re on board.
All that matters is defeating Donald Trump. Even cocky Obama bros will put up with a horrible boss like Kamala for three months if it means Trump loses in November.
There are other benefits to launching a campaign 100 days before the General Election.
The attention span of your average voter makes a three-month campaign appealing, especially for a vacuous candidate like Kamala Harris.
As long as Team Obama packages Kamala with loads of style and flash, voters may not notice that she lacks any substance.
Think of it as empty calories. If Team Obama can feed voters nothing but junk for the next 90 days, the sugar high might last through Election Day.
Voters might even forget that nobody voted for Kamala in the primary.
The current Kamala Fever is fueled largely by collective relief over Joe Biden’s departure from the race. All Team Obama has to do is keep that relief going for 90 days and Kamala wins.
In that respect, hiring Obama alumni is a genius move.
Their job isn’t to turn Kamala Harris into an experienced executive and effective commander-in-chief. All they have to do is touch up the surface and keep the momentum going for three months, and once Kamala is installed in the White House, the former Obama bureaucrats who have been running the Executive Branch for the last four years can take over from there.
The only question is whether Team Obama can keep Kamala in check for three months.
Kamala Harris is the campaign’s biggest liability.
Just one disastrous interview could send the sugar-fueled voters crashing to Earth.
The Obama crew might take a page from the Biden campaign’s 2020 strategy and keep Kamala under wraps as much as possible, letting her out only to deliver prepared campaign speeches written by the same people who made Obama sound like a modern-day Cicero.
Team Obama will also have to decide if it is wise to let their candidate debate Donald Trump.
The Kamala campaign has gotten a lot of mileage out of calling Donald Trump a coward for refusing to honor the debate conditions he made with the guy who’s no longer in the race.
Trump announced on Friday that he has agreed to a September 4 debate on Fox News moderated by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
It would be a bad look if Kamala refused, especially after directly challenging Trump during her Atlanta campaign rally when she told him, “If you have something to say, say it to my face.”
At the same time, Kamala won’t even sit down with former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, so what are the odds she would agree to a debate moderated by Fox News anchors?
Team Obama might succeed in giving Kamala a veneer of authenticity and likeability but they aren’t miracle workers. There is no way they would agree to a debate that isn’t on friendly territory.
Trump’s offer is a brilliant strategy. It places the ball in Kamala’s court while calling her bluff.
If Team Kamala refuses, it will be Kamala, not Trump, who looks like a coward.
If she agrees, Americans will get 90 minutes of unscripted Kamala, and that’s the last thing her campaign wants.
Admittedly, Trump is not a master debater. We might like him, but we know he’s not. He is erratic and unpredictable. But for Kamala Harris, who gets easily flustered when dislodged from her memorized talking points, Trump’s unpredictability could bring out the worst in her.
Here’s the bottom line. No matter how many Obama alumni Team Kamala hires, the Obama magic only works if your candidate is Barack Obama.
Kamala Harris is not Barack Obama.
One bad interview or embarrassing video clip from the debate, and the veneer Team Obama constructs will collapse like a house of cards, and voters will remember why they never liked Kamala Harris in the first place.
