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Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) “called for the legalization of marijuana at a federal level in a Monday morning interview, making her the latest 2020 contender to weigh in on an issue that has become front-and-center as the presidential campaign season begins,” Politico reports.
When asked if she opposed legalization, Harris said: “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?”
She added: “Listen, I think it gives a lot of people joy. And we need more joy.”
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) “directly confronted critics Monday who have questioned her black heritage, her record incarcerating minorities as a prosecutor and her decision to marry a white man,” CNN reports.
Said Harris: “So I was born in Oakland, and raised in the United States except for the years that I was in high school in Montreal, Canada. And look, this is the same thing they did to Barack. This is not new to us and so I think that we know what they are trying to do.”
She added: “They are trying to do what has been happening over the last two years, which is powerful voices trying to sow hate and division, and so we need to recognize when we’re being played.”
“I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it.”
— Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), telling the Washington Post that she doesn’t define herself by race or ethnicity, just as “an American.”
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“She certainly started off with a bang. Having run for president myself three times — she’s certainly doing better than I was doing.”
— Former California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), quoted by the Palm Springs Desert Sun, on Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) presidential campaign rollout.
The biggest beneficiary of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s decision not to run for president may be Sen. Kamala Harris, who is the only high-profile presidential candidate from California, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“Since California’s primary will be held on March 3, 2020 — far earlier in than in many past election cycles — it could have an outsized impact on whom the party’s nominee will be.”
CNN’s Town Hall with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was the most watched cable news single candidate election town hall ever, CNN reports.
David Axelrod: “The best campaigns are tactically sound and strategically clear. They share a coherent and compelling narrative about the candidate, campaign and the country.”
“Harris’ nascent message lacks the crystal clarity of, say, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s. Why is Harris running? What is her vision for a rapidly changing world? Her announcement speech was powerfully delivered but laden with anodyne Democratic applause lines any candidate might offer.”
“Even before Kamala Harris’ campaign launch in Oakland on Sunday, her nascent 2020 bid had already hit full gallop — a star turn on Good Morning America, a self-reported seven-figure fundraising milestone, a friendly reception in a key primary state,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“With that fast start, Harris has stoked a perception that she is not just an elite candidate, but among the Democratic front-runners — a designation that is loaded with both upside and danger in this very early stage of presidential jockeying.”
“The California senator and her campaign strategists aren’t yet declaring her the favorite. But her days-long debut, crafted for maximum impact, showed a desire to make a big and early splash.”
Willie Brown admits that he once dated Sen. Kamala Harris and “may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker.”
“And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco” as he did other politicians over the years.
He adds: “The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that that I would be indicted if I ‘so much as jaywalked’ while she was D.A. That’s politics for ya.”
Sen. Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign raised $1.5 million in its first 24 hours from 38,000 donors, her campaign aides told Politico, “a massive haul for the first-term senator from California that tied Bernie Sanders’ one-day total from his 2016 presidential campaign.”
Politico: “Kamala Harris’ Democratic opponents are already telegraphing that they plan to make her law-and-order background an enormous vulnerability with voters on the left. But the California senator, who announced her bid for the White House on Monday amid an early wave of scrutiny of her career as a prosecutor, thinks she can turn the criticism on its head.”
“According to interviews with a half-dozen of her confidants and strategists, Harris will court voters wary of law enforcement by presenting herself as a kinder and gentler prosecutor — a ‘progressive’ attorney who advocated for the vulnerable and served the public interest.”
“At the same time, they believe leaning into her background will allow her to project toughness against Donald Trump, and contrast what they call her evidence-based approach to law and politics with the president’s carelessness with facts and legal troubles with the special prosecutor.”
Los Angeles Times: “Her rivals could soon see the mix of cold calculation, relentless fundraising and force of personality that drove Harris’ quick rise, starting with the overthrow of her old boss in the prosecutor’s office. It set her on a path to statewide office and, barely two years into her Senate term, a top-tier try for the White House.”
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) picked “For the People” as the slogan for her presidential campaign, a reference to her courtroom introduction when she served as a prosecutor, when she would address the court as “Kamala Harris, for the people,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“Her campaign logo is designed in part as a throwback to the campaign of Shirley Chisholm, who became the first black woman to run for president from a major party when she mounted a 1972 run for the Democratic nomination. The logo borrows Chisholm’s light yellow and red color scheme, with a retro font.”
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) “joined the 2020 presidential contest on Monday, thrusting a daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India into the Democratic race two years after she arrived in the Senate,” the Washington Post reports.
“Harris, a 54-year-old former prosecutor raised in a state that has been the crucible of the Trump resistance, expanded a growing field of candidates fighting for the nomination of a party that is increasingly nonwhite and fueled by women alienated by the president.”
“She made the announcement during an interview on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America‘ and in a video that her campaign posted online.”
“A little-noticed vote cast last year by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) angered her fellow Democrats, but it also gave her a way to stand out from the crowd on the key issue of immigration if, as expected, she seeks the party’s presidential nomination in 2020,” Bloomberg reports.
“Defying President Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding is a unifying message for Democrats with the 2020 campaign already under way. But in February 2018, Democrats were willing to grant Trump $25 billion to build a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border in exchange for giving young undocumented ‘Dreamers’ a path to citizenship.”
“Harris was one of just three Senate Democrats to reject that deal, provoking the anger of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, colleagues and some immigration activists… Some of them suggested that Harris already had 2020 in mind.”
“With her expected campaign launch nearing, Kamala Harris has settled on Baltimore for her team’s HQ, after also considering Atlanta and (briefly) Philadelphia,” according to New York magazine.
“A West Coast campaign base was never really in play for the California senator. Logistics, logistics, logistics.”
Sen. Kamala Harris has decided to seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, sources close to her told KCBS Radio.
She’ll announce her candidacy on or around Martin Luther King Day, probably at a campaign rally in Oakland.”
Los Angeles Times: “The book, timed for release as rival Democrats are launching their campaigns, aims to introduce Harris as uniquely positioned to fight for civil and economic rights: as a child of immigrants from India and Jamaica who rose to the top of their fields; as a prosecutor who forced law enforcement agencies resistant to change to confront racial bias; and as a political crusader who defied pressure from colleagues and forced more money out of the nation’s most powerful banks to compensate homeowners in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis.”
NPR: “So is it a great book? No. No, it is not. But that’s not a particularly interesting question, as campaign books are rarely great reads. The question is whether it’s an effective book. On that count, Harris is more successful.”
Politico: “The timing of the book tour and media blitz gives Harris — a first-term Democrat who still lacks the name recognition of some of her would-be competitors despite cutting a high-profile during the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Brett Kavanaugh — the opportunity to get a toehold in the news cycle while still preserving some intrigue for a formal campaign launch in the near future.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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