Harris Hints at 2028 Run on Book Tour

I personally do not dislike former Vice President Kamala Harris, but I don't take seriously this idea that she's going to run for president again. Former Vice President Kamala Harris is signaling she may run for president again. In a BBC interview, when asked, she said, quote, I am not done and that a woman president could possibly be her. According to the Times, the comments came as she promotes a new book about her 107 day presidential campaign. Harris said she hasn't decided on 2028, brushed off early polls and argued her 2024 warnings about an authoritarian Trump have come true, saying he, quote, weaponized the Department of Justice. She's taken a cautious approach to the current administration, even declining a California governor's run. Here's the context politicians often use book tours, test a message, stoke speculation and sell books, sometimes before they jump in. Sometimes. Instead of running, Harris is keeping the door open while building attention and leverage. As she put it, public service is, quote, in my bones. What's the real message here? Kamala Harris is floating the idea that she might run for president again while on a book tour. Be skeptical. It's a great way of selling books. But if her poll numbers don't go up dramatically, I don't know why they would. She's not running for president. She is going to become richer and more famous being a celebrity and that she's really good. Let's dig a little bit deeper. Okay. So I personally do not dislike former Vice President Kamala Harris, but I don't take seriously this idea that she's going to run for president again because you had Donald Trump, who is by most accounts the most unpopular leader of a country presidential candidate in history. His negatives are astronomically high. They were astronomically high in 2024. They were astronomically high in 2020 and 2016. And she still lost to him. And she lost with a good economy and a good track record. I just think it's going to be very, very hard to convince people she deserves another chance. Now, it is true there's precedents for candidates running, not winning and running again. Richard Nixon did it famously. It's probably the most direct analogy to her situation. Nixon was a vice president, ran in 1960, lost very narrowly to Richard Nixon, and eight years later, in 1968, he ran and won. So it's not that it's impossible, but I think the dynamics are very, very different. Now, let's keep in mind a lot of candidates, political figures, write memoirs. It's a great way to cash in and make money and it can help you politically if you do decide. But there's also the idea that if you make people think you're running, a lot more people will buy your book because they think this may be the next president of the United States. I need to know how they think. Elizabeth Warren had a book, this Fight Is our fight in 2017, and she wrote tested some messages for a presidential campaign. Ron DeSantis had a book, the Courage to be Free 3 came out in 2000, 2023, that preceded his own launch for president. Mike Pence wrote a book, so Help Me God, where it sort of fueled more speculation he would run. Chris Christie Republican Rescue was his book in 2021. So, yeah, a lot of people do, in fact write books about their how and then on the book tour talk about how they're going to write their run for president, but end up not doing. And of course, Barack Obama, the Audacity of Hope, his book tour in 2006 really did help his presidential campaign in 2008. It's also true that Ronald Reagan ran for president three times before winning. The difference is he never got the nomination until 1980, so he wasn't the head of the ticket and leading it to a big defeat. Now, the defeat Kamala, Kamala Harris suffered was not astronomical, but it was still more than a couple million votes. It wasn't one of these things like, Hillary Clinton actually got 2 million more votes than Donald Trump, but she lost in the Electoral College. If anyone were going to be a nominee a second time, you could make a much stronger case for Hillary Clinton because she actually went won so many more votes than Trump did in 2016. But for Kamala Harris to run again when she was given the nomination on a silver platter, let's face it, and then to lose by millions of votes against somebody who had the highest negative ratings in the history of American politics, I just don't know what the argument is for why the Democrats should go back to her. Now, you could go back in time and say, well, Adlai Stevenson lost in 52, was the Democratic nominee again in 56. Didn't turn out too well, did it? I'm sure that she would love to be president. I don't know anyone who's been a senator or governor or member of Congress who doesn't secretly fantasize about being president. That's just a part of who you are. But I also think she's a sane person and a rational person. And as we get closer to 2028, if in fact we still have presidential elections in America, if In fact, we are still a functioning democracy. If, in fact, the Democratic Party hasn't been outlawed as a terrorist organization, as has been hinted by the current administration, I think her name will start showing up on polls and there's, there's going to be about three or four names ahead of her now. She'll have high name ID. But I think at that point, if it's 2027 and democracy hasn't been shut down, you're going to see a number of other Democrats. You already see that. You already see people like California Governor Gavin Newsom ahead. And if it's a year, year and a half before Election Day and she's running three or four or five in the polls and she's making tens of millions of dollars on the book tour and Netflix deals, supposedly, and corporate gigs and public speaking gigs where she's making $200,000, I think she and her team will say, wow, do we really want to give up this cushy life? Because being a really famous person in America today is a cushy life. There's so many ways you get treated like royalty. You get paid a couple hundred thousand dollars just for showing up and spouting off your opinions. That's what former vice presidents get if they're giving a speech. People give you millions of dollars for writing a book, even if you didn't write it, if you just lent your name to it. You get millions of dollars for giving your name for rights to get a documentary made about you on Netflix and Amazon. It's a pretty cushy gig. And when you're not actually in the arena, your enemies aren't attacking you. You're surrounded all day long by people who tell you they love you, you're great, you should be president. So I have a hard time imagining that she'll give that up for what will look like a very big long shot campaign. I also just don't know what the argument is to the Democratic voters that she deserves another chance. To her credit, she did in fact unify the Democratic Party last summer and they rallied around her. They supported her. There was very little dissent. You didn't see constant sniping from other Democrats that, oh, she shouldn't have the nomination. They may have been thinking that, but you didn't hear Democrats constantly belittling her during the presidential campaign last year. She had a fair shot and it just didn't work out. What do you think? Post your comments if you're watching this live. Avey says a woman will never be president in the United States. Too many misogynistic men, maybe, but maybe not. I think never is a long time. Things change. I mean, I remember as recently as 2007, I heard a lot of people say America's never going to elect a black man with a funny, strange name, with a name like Hussein as a part of his name. I mean, that was widespread popular belief. And yet the very next year it happened. Now, they. It very well may be that the first woman president is a Republican. You know, it was the Conservatives who made Maggie Thatcher Prime Minister of Great Britain. So sometimes it comes from opposite directions that you wouldn't normally think. Okay, other comments coming in. We all know how she got her job. Well, I think I know how she got her job. And I guess it begs the question of which job are you talking about as vice president. She got the job in part because the number one constituency for Joe Biden in his campaign to get the nomination were black women. And it was seen as, okay, here's someone who's a serious person. United States Senator, been Attorney General, then a prosecuting attorney, someone who comes across as articulate, good looking. She would be a valuable asset to the party. So I think that's what you must be meaning, but you might mean something else, so feel free to share that. Erman says Kamala couldn't win the primary this time. I think you're right. She didn't do well in the primary last time. When she did run in 2020, she just was not a particularly good presidential candidate. Here's a phenomena I have noticed in my 40 years of working with politics as a campaign consultant, communications expert. There are a lot of people in the world who look really good and sound good at the state level, and people imagine them at the national level, and then they run for national politics at the national level and they just wilt under the lights. I don't think she wilted. Things just don't connect in the right way. And let me be bipartisan here. This certainly happened to Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle was seen as a bit of a wonder boy in the state of Indiana. Very young, rose to prom, you know, went to the United States House at a young age, was elected to the senate in his 30s, was compared favorably to someone who just passed away last week, Robert Redford. He was compared to Redford. And as the candidate the movie Robert Redford was in, he was seen as young, good looking and someone who has as fine an eye for political talent as Roger Ailes. Really thought that the Quayle would be great for Vice President George Bush to add to his ticket in 1988. And that's why he was put on. And then he got on the national stage, and it was a disaster the entire four years. Quayle then had his own presidential campaign. No one even paid attention. I don't think he ever did better than about fifth place. So there is this phenomenon where someone can be a superstar at the state level, and there's simply no serious person who would deny that Kamala Harris has been a superstar in the state of California. It hasn't translated on the national scene. So, hey, good luck to. Good luck to her for the book tour. It's selling very well. It's doing well. Is this going to change public perception and propel her to the nomination in 2028? I do not think that happen.