By Todd Lassa

Vice President Kamala Harris has been in a precarious position since she became the Democratic Party’s last-minute presidential candidate in late July. It should not be a surprise or even a disappointment among her supporters, at least, that she waited a week after formally accepting that nomination at the Democratic National Convention before her sit-down interview along with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, by CNN’s Dana Bash.

Democrats have been clamoring for an agenda that would be new and fresh and a departure of some sort from President Joe Biden’s. Republicans have wielded this alleged lack of clarity by the Harris/Walz campaign as a political weapon.

We learned this Thursday evening: The Harris/Walz campaign will not back off Bidenomics. It is, after all, not just the Harris/Walz agenda but also the Democratic Party agenda. Harris will not be distracted by Republican candidate Donald J. Trump’s often gender- and racially charged personal attacks. 

The Harris/Walz campaign will continue to support and arm the Israeli government, but acknowledges the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza, with constant, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire in the war. The desire for a ceasefire to happen during the Biden administration, before the November 5 election in order to secure support by Democrats threatening to withhold their votes over the war seems wishful thinking as negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas continue to go nowhere.

The vice president made it clear she will continue to push back against Republicans’ attacks on her work as “border czar” (even the question of whether Harris had that designation is contentious) by calling out Trump for killing the bipartisan border bill. She said she would name a Republican to her cabinet, like Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- but not Donald J. Trump -- before her.

Harris told Bash she has opposed a fracking ban since 2020 (when she joined Joe Biden’s campaign – and after she signed on as senator from California to the New Green Deal in 2019, which included a ban on fracking) and she is “very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%, the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors,” adding that Trump said he would “do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Never happened. We did it.”

A Harris/Walz administration would invest in small business, reinstate the $6,000 child tax credit and promote affordable housing, including with a tax credit for first time home buyers. This is essentially a modification of Bidenomics, the middle-up economic policy that for three-and-a-half years, with investment in clean energy and transportation and in the nation’s infrastructure has slowly been reversing the “trickle-down” supply side Reaganomics of the previous 40 years.

“My values have not changed,” Harris said Thursday night. Though if she and Walz prevail in November and they can advance some of these initiatives through Congress next year the term “Bidenomics” could transform into “Harrisnomics.” 

-- FRIDAY, Aug. 30, 2024