Kamala Harris will never run for president again

OPINION:

In the classic political movie “The American President,” President Andrew Shepherd, played by Michael Douglas, sums up what’s wrong with his opponent, Sen. Bob Rumson (played by Richard Dreyfuss).

“I’ve known Bob Rumson for years,” the president says. “Bob’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Bob’s problem is that he can’t sell it!”

That is politics in a nutshell. Plenty of candidates have been better than the men who won the White House, but they simply couldn’t sell their message.

Enter former Vice President Kamala Harris. She is exactly who President Shepherd is talking about. She has a message; she just can’t sell it. So she is doing what many victim-posing Democrats have done: bailing from politics and blaming the “system.”

“Recently, I made the decision that I just – for now, I don’t want to go back in the system. I think it’s broken,” Ms. Harris said in her ninth appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” “I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people. I want to talk with people, and I don’t want it to be transactional, where I’m asking for their vote.”

That’s exactly what Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent the past 20 years doing: traveling the country (without spending a dime of his own money) as he perennially ran for president. And Ms. Harris has also announced that she won’t be running for governor of California in 2026.

But neither decision has anything to do with a “broken system”; both are based on the simple fact that Ms. Harris can’t sell her message. Never could, never will. Before President Joe Biden picked her as his running mate, Ms. Harris was polling at just 3% and dropped out of the race on Dec. 3, 2019, long before the first Americans had even cast their ballots in the Democratic primaries.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because this is vintage Kamala Harris: word salads tossed with cryptic dressing and a main course of passion that somehow arrives undercooked. She said she’d focus on supporting Democrats (foreseeably a lot more fun when you’re not directly in the trenches yourself) while hinting at “future plans” that sound faintly presidential. But it’s early. She won’t run for president again.

Her claim that the system is broken is purely a concocted story to cover the fact that Americans don’t like her — and neither do Democrats. According to veteran political journalist Mark Halperin, allies of Mr. Biden are prepared to leak “Palinesque” stories about Ms. Harris’ time as veep.

What’s more, Ms. Harris also now faces a pretty glaring cold shoulder from fellow Democrats when it comes to her future political aspirations. After being handed Mr. Biden’s campaign in 2024 (following his spectacular fall from debate grace), she floundered her way to the dumpster, losing the Electoral College 312-226 to President Trump.

Democrats are done entertaining her aspirations for higher office. Ms. Harris’ political future now reads like a dry, awkward punchline, with insiders reportedly groaning at the mere mention of her running again. The party may have seen history made with her as the first female, Black and Asian vice president, but that honeymoon hardly lasted beyond the swearing-in ceremony.

“Downballot candidates outperformed her in 2024, and she was a drag on them,” a national Democratic operative told Politico this week. “These candidates were able to win last year because they put distance between themselves and her and the national party. Why would we want to do that in 2026 when she’s not on the ballot?”

One last point: Why on Earth would Ms. Harris say all this on Mr. Colbert’s show? Just last month it was announced that his show would be ending in 2026, making him virtually irrelevant.

Ms. Harris isn’t known for her political savvy, but her repeated trips to a late-night circuit dwindling in influence make you wonder if her GPS is permanently set to “awkwardly redundant.”

There’s something delightfully cosmic about two symbols of diminishing returns coming together on one stage. We can forgive her handlers, though, because … what’s the alternative? When no one cares what you say, does it matter where you say it?

If you can find a betting site to make a wager on Ms. Harris never running for elective office again, bet the house. She’s done for good. But remember, it isn’t her fault: The system is “broken.”

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.