General Discussion

Nancy Plencner is a noted writer and contributor to political articles in Arizona and shares her thoughts about the upcoming election. She is also the editor of the BRIEFLY SPEAKING newsletter.

"Not a single Democrat I speak with believes that Vice President Kamala Harris will win on Tuesday.

All hoped for an open convention in August to identify and select the best candidate possible, but they were denied. To that point, this past Thursday, The Hill featured a piece headlined, “Democrats start to point fingers even as they hope for Harris win.”

A Democratic strategist is quoted as saying, “People are nervous, and they’re trying to cover their ass and get a little ahead of Election Day. It’s based on anxiety, stakes and the unique nature of this cycle. We didn’t have a traditional process for this election. We didn’t have a primary. People just had to fall in line.”

Again, this is coming from a Democrat. They had to just “fall in line” because they were ordered to do so. Then, any hope of an open convention was further dashed by the combined backroom dealings of the Democratic National Committee, former President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Immediately after those backroom dealings, every nonconforming Democrat had to accept that Harris, without getting one vote in the primary, was being installed by the machine to replace the sputtering President Joe Biden. With that selection predetermined, Biden officially announced on July 21 that he would not be running for reelection and was endorsing Harris as his replacement.

The temporary buzz and “joy” began. Except it began to dissipate even before the Democratic convention in Chicago on Aug. 19. Why? Because Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6. As these Democratic operatives told me, from almost day one, she had to spend precious time and energy defending that choice.

The selection of Walz is the first reason she lost momentum. To be sure, much of the party — and many in the liberal media — wanted Harris to pick the more moderate Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — first because the Keystone State was certain to be the most pivotal in the election, and second because Shapiro would have added some ideological balance to the ticket.

By any honest analysis, Harris is a far-left liberal. That said, it can be argued that Walz is even further to the left than she is. Leaving aside the practical reasons Harris should have picked a more moderate running mate is the reality that self-described “knucklehead” Walz has been a liability from day one.

The choice of Walz yoked Harris to all of his baggage — his exaggerations of his military record; his DUI arrest, which involved him driving 96 miles per hour with a 0.128 percent blood alcohol content; his multiple visits to China and associations with communist officials; his fabrication that he was in Hong Kong on the day of the Tiananmen Square massacre when he was actually in Nebraska; his being turned into an “Elmer Fudd” meme because of his comical handling of a shotgun; and his being the governor who allowed violent anarchists to run wild and burn down parts of Minneapolis.

To add insult to injury, Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) clearly trounced the obviously nervous and unprepared Walz during their vice presidential debate on Oct. 10.

The second decision that greatly contributed to the crushing of the Harris momentum came on Aug. 23, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his independent campaign for president and endorsed former President Donald J. Trump."