The two biggest names in Democratic Party presidential circles are being swished around again, and while probably and arguably also the most laughable, the fact remains it's all they seem to have at the moment.
This fawning little number was in Democrat and decent guy Dan Turrentine's X feed yesterday.
He didn't write it, but did note that it confirmed things he'd been told earlier about the subject - Kamala Harris can't shake her aspirations to the throne.
I have said it since late Spring, when I heard from two birdies in her orbit: @KamalaHarris badly wants to run again in 2028. https://t.co/gR7dlePc9N
— dan turrentine (@danturrentine) December 9, 2025
It's really a love letter wrapped in news article camouflage.
There are gentle criticisms offset by the strangest affirmative adjective choices, and it is dripping with pathos.
...Defeat hit Ms. Harris deeply. She had not felt such grief since the death of her mother, she has said, a line that sears even as she repeats it so often as to become a talking point. She spent the early months of 2025 cooking and cocooning away from the cameras.
But it has been a year since her loss to President Trump, the traditional period of mourning.
Friends and allies swear she is more relaxed now. She is certainly more relaxed about swearing.
On a recent long-form podcast, the likes of which she got so much heat for avoiding last year, Ms. Harris let fly a two-word phrase — rhyming with “bucket” — to describe her new ethos. She says she is now on her “freedom tour.”
This is Kamala Harris unleashed. But it is still Kamala Harris, the profanity a proxy for plain-spokenness. She is the first woman to serve as vice president, and well attuned to the double standards of gender and race. Lawyerly language remains her safe space, and she still defaults to acting as if every question is part of a deposition where answers can and will be used against her.
UNLEASHED! LAWYERLY LANGUAGE REMAINS HER SAFE SPACE
I guess that's how toney, lickspittle NYT reporters describe what we knuckle-draggers commonly called Kamala's 'word salad.'
They then thoughtfully provide an example of the former vice president's lawyerly language.
...She has mostly been a bystander in the Democratic Party’s raging debate over its direction. Should Democrats veer to the left or center? More populism? More progressivism? Both? Neither? What exactly should the party stand for?
“This sounds really corny,” she said in the wide-ranging interview with The New York Times in Nashville. “But we have to stand for the people. And I know that that sounds corny. I know that. But I mean it. I mean it.”
Gracious. That was deep.
Deep but truly authentic Kamala word salad - yup.
Harris is thrilled people are paying good money to line up and hear her word salads on this tour, and the Times points out only one other Democrat has had the drawing power in national tours that Harris enjoys - Bernie Sanders.
She believes there should be a bust of her in Congress.
...Ms. Harris has made clear she doesn’t “feel burdened” — yes, she still uses that phrase — by where she fits in the punditry pecking order or the polls or the cable chyrons. She is enjoying the freedom from what she calls the “transactional” constrictions of campaigning, of asking people for a vote.
Her place in history is already secure, and she knows it.
“I understand the focus on ’28 and all that,” she said in the interview. “But there will be a marble bust of me in Congress. I am a historic figure like any vice president of the United States ever was.”
Her sense of her own place in history is so secure that Harris even called the newly elected mayor of New York to advise him on how to fill his team and be an effective executive, having been so effective herself at every opportunity.
...She called Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor of New York City, the day after he won, offering advice on how to hire his staff and serve as an executive.
“I do not think he’s a scary face for the Democratic Party,” she said of Mr. Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, praising the excitement he has generated from younger voters.
The NYT authors don't point out that pinning down what exactly Harris's 'ideology' is is difficult thanks to her utter vacuousness and vapidity.
Again, they redefine Harris's space-cadet-like delivery and vagueness as 'elusive.' Isn't that a much prettier word?
Damn near makes a questionable intellect mysterious instead of laughable.
...The elevator pitch of Ms. Harris’s ideology remains as elusive as ever.
In public and in private, she has been exploring issues of trust, misinformation, social media, community and artificial intelligence. She is particularly obsessed with young people and their growing disillusionment, which she shares.
“For now, I don’t want to go back in the system,” she told Stephen Colbert in her first interview about her book. “I think it’s broken.”
I believe Kamala Harris owes a portion of the $7M she made selling her email list to the DNC to these two reporters for the tongue bath.
Is the country ready for a run at Word Salad Redux? You'll note I'm not asking if we want one - we won't have much choice if Democrats don't have much choice.
Stu Burguiere, discussing the article with Megyn Kelly - who howls over the 'historic' figure conceit - contrasts Harris's style (lawyerly, don't forget) with Jasmine Crocker, who blurts out every word the second it pops into her head.
Harris, he says, is trying to do the exact opposite, just 'trying to survive, because she's not quick enough on her feet to come up with a real answer.'
For the moment, Harris is playing coy Hillary Clinton word games, and having surrogates make sure they use the terms 'white boys.'
...Black voters, particularly in the South, have swung the party’s last two open presidential nominating contests. Ms. Harris has made a point of traveling through the South on her book tour. Her stop in Birmingham, Ala., was so popular that the venue added a second event.
“That’s what so many of the white boys — the Josh Shapiros, the Gavin Newsoms of the world and even Pete, although I would vote for Pete — that’s what they miss about Kamala,” said Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina legislator who has been an informal Harris adviser, referring to the governors of Pennsylvania and California and to Mr. Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary. “She is so important to so many people.”
At the Ryman, Ms. Harris drew one of her loudest ovations when she knowingly described a future president as “whoever she may be.”
Gavin Newsom's name does pop up towards the end of the article.
A 'very talented' California rival
That has to sting a smidge as does the recounting of the Newsom anecdote from Harris' book, where she'd called to ask for his endorsement and got a 'Hiking. Will call back' text. She says she never heard from him again, even though Newsom did quickly endorse her.
Why so catty in the book, then - Newsom wanted to know, too. So he says he asked her.
...Mr. Newsom has questioned why the episode was included, given that he endorsed her so quickly. He texted Ms. Harris to ask her this after her book came out, he recounted recently to a video game streamer.
He said she had a pithy reply of her own: “On book tour. Get back to you later.”
“Anyway,” Mr. Newsom said with a laugh, “that’s the relationship.”
The love letter to the Word Salad Queen ends as love letters do - with a swoon over Harris' heroics.
The authors recount Harris's visit to Tennessee to support young legislators there who were being censured for disrupting the session with their antics while encouraging protestors storming the Capitol.
FORCEFUL
...That forceful visit was seen by many Democrats as a key moment in finding her voice.
Ms. Harris, however, has a correction to that timeline.
“You tell them,” she said, “I never lost my voice.”
Can't you hear that in your head in that nasal delivery of hers?
Oh, barf.
600K copies of her book have been sold, and venues have been packed for her appearances. This has to be tickling the ambitious fantasies of her 'very talented' California rival, who, coincidentally, has announced the release of a no doubt riveting memoir of his own next year.
What a novel approach.
And who, somehow, is enjoying an inexplicable tick-up in popularity at the moment that defies reality on the ground.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has seen a bump in favorability as he has engaged in a war of words against President Donald Trump amid rumors he could run for the Democratic nomination in 2028.
The governor’s willingness to battle the president has made his popularity soar, with a new poll finding that Newsom’s overall approval rating is now at 56%, a 10% jump since June. Among Democrats in California, his approval rating is 82%.
Newsom announced this morning that he will be releasing a memoir next year, fueling new speculation about a 2028 presidential run.
And Gavin Newsom promises pathos, having been born the poor child of black sharecroppers...or something close.
...“A lot of people look at me, the stark white shirt, the blue suit and yeah, the gelled hair and they think, ‘Oh, I know this guy. I know this guy better than I ever want to know.’ I get it,” Newsom said in the announcement. “This is the story of a kid who always felt like he wasn’t quite enough.”
The book release comes as Newsom is seeing a bump in approval after his attacks on Trump on social media, his forceful pushback against immigration raids and his successful November campaign for Prop 50, which allowed redistricting in California to counter Republican redistricting in other states.
Just another proof point @GavinNewsom had the best 2025 of the 2028ers. Period. https://t.co/MVUaoatk8z
— dan turrentine (@danturrentine) December 9, 2025
I could swear this sticky Randall Flagg Lite wannabe was THE WORST if I didn't remember I'd just written 500 words or so about Kamala Harris right above that.
Although I will give greasy Gavin the edge because he's actually been in charge of something and done nothing but botch it horribly for so long. Anything Harris was ever 'in charge of,' even as Attorney General, had other people doing the work for her (they never did find any trial transcripts where she was the lead attorney, I don't believe). As VP 'in charge' of borders or whatever, thankfully, she was a powerless embarrassment, not a legislative menace.
The WORST.
Maybe I should change that headline to 'Avoiding the Worst of the Worst,' instead.
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