‘The best available candidate’
She is not the ideal candidate but certainly the best available candidate. This is Robert Kuttner’s view of Vice President Kamala Harris. The co-founder of liberal American magazine The American Prospect stresses in an interview with Kathimerini that it has been a long time since he has seen the Democrats so united.
According to Kuttner, “before Biden agreed not to run the general view of Kamala Harris was that people did not really quite understand what she stood for. But since she became effectively the nominee, everybody loves her.”
Journalist Robert Kuttner discusses US election dynamics after Harris’ bid
With a long career in political commentary and an award-winning author, Kuttner admits that many Democrats were “relieved” by President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. “Democrats had become so depressed about the prospect of Biden losing the election to [Republican candidate Donald] Trump that there was a sense that we really need to unite behind Kamala Harris,” he says.
“The fact that the undecided went up is very good for Kamala because a lot of those undecided voters are giving her serious consideration. Despite this, you should know that many people are tired of Trump’s divisive behavior and negativity, and during the campaign, his nastiness and inconsistency will become more and more apparent.”
Discussing Harris’ strategy toward Trump, Kuttner points out that “Kamala basically embraces the Biden program of improving jobs, improving industry, doing more for workers, doing more for families. And even though the economy has been very good, a lot of people feel that it is not good enough. A young family finds it very expensive to find housing, they find that wages are not high enough to support a family and that health coverage is insecure. And so she has got to demonstrate to ordinary working people that she is capable of making life better for them.”
“I think that the gender and origin of Kamala will favor her positively because what has happened since she became the nominee is that she has really excited young people. She has really excited women and she had really excited African Americans and Asian Americans. Therefore, I think she will get the traditional Democratic base. So, you know, it is a completely different election than it was previously.”
Critical of Trump’s stance on women’s issues, Kuttner makes the argument that Trump’s “vicious” and “nasty” rhetoric when talking about women “is going to backfire on the Republicans. Also, the fact that abortion rights and reproductive rights have become such a central theme in the campaign really puts Trump at a disadvantage because it divides the Republican Party.”
“Of course,” Kuttner underlines, Trump’s running mate J.D. “Vance has been even more extreme on that than Trump. Vance looked like a very clever choice when they thought Biden was going to be the nominee. Now, he does not look like such a clever choice.”
With Harris’ liberal program left to be “tested” in the former Steel Belt, Kuttner comments that, “particularly for white men in the Midwest, she has to demonstrate that her values and her program are more likely to improve their lives than Trump’s. In the three key states in the so-called Rust Belt, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, who she chooses as her vice-presidential candidate will make a difference and that is where the election’s going to be decided, and it will be very close in those states.”
