Kamala Harris 2020

Since her election to the Senate in 2016, Harris has thrilled liberal audiences with her punishing interrogations of Trump Administration officials. She made former Attorney General Jeff Sessions blanch and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh squirm. And in May, she deftly filleted the current Attorney General, William Barr, asking him, “Has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?” Barr was reduced to stuttering. He wouldn’t or couldn’t answer. In recent weeks, the clip has gone viral again as new questions have arisen about Barr’s involvement in the President’s political pressuring of foreign governments.

Sitting in the office in Los Angeles, Harris says she asked that question on a prosecutor’s hunch. “It has become clear to me that these are the kinds of questions you have to ask members of this Administration,” she says. “What kind of unethical requests has this President made of you? I knew by instinct and by example that it is not beyond him to think that America’s justice system is his personal apparatus for political gain. He’s made that quite clear.”…

By upbringing and orientation, Harris seems to have a strong sense of right and wrong and a fierce drive to fight injustice, coupled with virtually no large-scale policy instincts. Presented with a problem, she looks for ways to solve it, starting with data, guided by few firm ideological convictions. “All these grand ideas that academics and so many have about how you’re going to transform the world,” she says. “But, you know, pay attention to the basics.”

Perhaps, in these days of brutal ideological combat, that kind of pragmatism could be sold as refreshing. But in Harris’ case it seems to be having the opposite effect. Some of the attendees at her events in Iowa told me they don’t think she’s progressive enough; others said she strikes them as too far left. “She hasn’t gone far enough to get the activists behind her, but she’s gone too far for some of the moderates,” says Larry Gerston, a professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University. “So she’s in kind of a no-person’s-land in terms of having a good base.” And yet, polls indicate that Democratic voters still want to like her–if only they can figure out what she’s about. The race is far from over. Iowa voters are notorious for shopping around until the end…

There’s a theory on political twitter that ‘people just don’t know who Kamala Harris is’… yet. If true, that can — and will — change.

Kamala Harris going into more detail on electability riff at Supermajority event — talks about how painful it was after Clinton lost in 2016 and people still say America is not ready for a woman:

“We cannot wait for other people to give us permission to tell us what is possible”

— Deepa Shivaram (@deepa_shivaram) October 3, 2019

Harris wins endorsement of civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump https://t.co/euDkvabp0Y via @politico

— Stank Stan ????????? (@StankAttitude) October 2, 2019

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump is endorsing Kamala Harris for president, citing the California senator’s record on criminal justice and comparing her campaign to former President Barack Obama’s historic White House run in 2008.

Crump, a high-profile Florida attorney, represented Trayvon Martin’s family after the teen was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in 2012. He has since represented other families whose children were killed in fatal altercations with white police officers that captured the nation’s attention, like Mike Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Mo., and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Crump said that while he had gotten calls from multiple campaigns, Harris was the candidate in the top tier who stood out to him.

“When you look up some of the stuff that she’s tried to do working from the inside, you know that she understands the challenges of trying to get progress when there are a lot of powers that be that are pushing against the cause for equal justice,” he said…

This @TIME photo of Kamala Harris and these young black girls ?? pic.twitter.com/KyX440Bitb

— Zara Rahim (@ZaraRahim) October 3, 2019

Good piece. https://t.co/JSkqkz3TJT

— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) October 2, 2019

Wow. This is who @KamalaHarris really is. pic.twitter.com/ck6TI145Mu

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) October 2, 2019