"Why Isn't She Working Hard?"
Harris has repeatedly said she is running as an underdog, but her schedule does not appear to mirror those claims. Harris’s Tuesday schedule shows one event — she will sit for an interview with Charlamagne tha God at 5 p.m. Eastern.
Typically, candidates in the final stretch of a presidential campaign traverse battleground states, speaking with as many undecided voters as possible at town halls, local events, and campaign rallies.
. . . “Why isn’t she in three battleground states a day? Why isn’t she in four media markets in Pennsylvania today rather than one?” political analyst Mark Halperin said on The Morning Meeting. “If you assume she’s behind, which, again, I think she is right now, not by a lot. Why isn’t she working hard?”
Questions about Kamala's campaign ineptitude aren't new. This CNN post mortem of her abortive 2019 campaign for the 2020 nomination has a similar theme:
As Harris’ jump in the polls steadily gave way over the summer, senior aides within the Baltimore-based campaign began to search frantically for a message that would reinvigorate the sputtering campaign.
Instead, according to people close to Harris, the search exacerbated a series of central issues within the campaign: A lack of clear messaging from the candidate and combative infighting between some of Harris’ longtime aides from California, her sister-turned-campaign chairwoman Maya Harris, and campaign manager Juan Rodriguez.
. . . Others accused Rodriguez of overseeing a campaign rife with mismanagement, an assertion that centered on the fact that Harris had over $35 million to spend but still struggled to fund a successful campaign.
That, according to sources, is a lingering question that has infuriated Harris and top officials: How could the campaign spend so much money, without being able to place TV ads when they count?
“That will be the central question to examine: Where did the $35 million go? Why was the campaign structured like this?” said a person close to Harris.
The campaign’s financial situation was also more dire than widely known, said one former aide. For example, the campaign has only reserved less than $10,000 for a digital ad that they had touted with much fanfare earlier this week. The ad was ultimately never released online and the buy was canceled Monday.
I've seen occasional references to extravagant spending on Kamala's personal travel expenses during the 2019 campaign, including first-class airfare and five-star hotels, a pattern she established in her 2016 campaign for the US Senate, as well as during her tenure as California Attorney General:
A review by The Hill of California campaign finance records reveals that Harris’s expenditures follow a pattern: The Democratic candidate regularly charges thousands of dollars in luxury travel and hotels to her campaign.
Meanwhile, Harris’s staffers usually take cheaper flights and stay in hotels for closer to $250 a night, according to both inside sources and state campaign finance reports.
. . . While the Harris campaign’s spending has come under scrutiny this election cycle — most recently in a National Journal report on luxury travel — The Hill’s investigation reveals that these expenditure patterns are consistent from January 2011 through the present.
In a standard trip, for example, Harris billed her campaign $2,482.70 in January 2013 for Delta Airlines “airfare for candidate from Washington D.C./campaign events/Presidential Inauguration,” according to state records.
On that same trip Harris stayed in D.C.’s upscale St. Regis hotel, billing her campaign $3,434.74 for a four-night stay, a nightly rate of $858.69.
. . . Harris’s filings since July 1, 2014, are less detailed and do not specifying the trips’ purposes, but the cost patterns are similar.
There is a stay at the St. Regis for $974.71; at The London NYC for $2,257.33; a United Airlines fee for $4,297.80; a $472.35 fee for limousines in New York; and $180 for limos in Aspen.
All these items were charged to Harris’s campaign account.
What we're seeing in the 2024 campaign, for instance over the past week, is travel to single=event cities in battleground states -- yesterday's trip to Detroit for a half-hour interview with Charlemagne Tha God but no other events, for instance, which would involve a luxury hotel stay and expensive travel with only the one brief campaign-related event to justify the extravagant expense.I think the answer to the question in this post's title is that Kamala has never been a hard worker, andthis has alwaqys been clear to people who've followed her career. As an opinion piece at The Hill put it over the weekend:
I have spoken with three Democratic operatives behind the scenes who all believe the race is slipping away from Vice President Kamala Harris. They offer four major reasons why this is happening.
The first is Harris herself. She is simply not a very good candidate. She lacks confidence and is seemingly terrified to take any unrehearsed or unvetted policy questions. This liability is not a surprise to those who follow politics closely, but is a new concern for a number of voters.
Maybe more to the point, she's always been more interested in the perks of office than the office itself, and this is reflected in her campaign style, which isn't going to change. She likes the luxury hotels, the limos, the security bubble, the sycophants. What she doesn't like is the need actually to do any of the work. What you see is what you get.