Plenty of people can make a case to vote against Donald Trump; I'll let them do it.
As a San Francisco resident, I have seen Kamala Harris' entire political career. So let me tell you why you should vote for her.
First, San Francisco progressives don't like her and never have. This is a good thing. Our lefties are left of your lefties. They are the ones who defunded our police department, horribly mismanaged the city's budget, and enabled a culture of corruption in City Hall.
All of this happened after Kamala Harris graduated from San Francisco DA to California Attorney General.
If Kamala Harris had stayed in office as our DA, San Francisco wouldn't be as messed up.
Of course, it's not clear that she could have continued to win election for San Francisco DA because she supports prosecuting criminals, and our lefties don't. (To be clear, I am a Democrat, but not a far-left one.)
In 2019, the city stupidly elected a far-left DA named Chesa Boudin who promised to go soft on criminals (his parents were convicted felons) and hard on cops. That's the core of the doom cycle that hit this city. Not only would he not prosecute shoplifters; Boudin considered drug dealers to be crime victims and refused to prosecute them either. You need to keep in mind that all of the chaotic videos you can find online about San Francisco crime -- people brazenly shoplifting into garbage bags; drug dealers ruling the streets around the federal building -- happened only after Harris left town.
You should also know that in each of her California elections, her opposition came from the left, not the right. Harris is a political moderate. Detractors are trying to paint her as excessively liberal, but it's not true: just ask some California lefties.
In 2004, Harris became the first woman AND the first non-white person elected DA in San Francisco. She was great in the job; we miss her. She oversaw a much higher conviction rate on serious crimes than we had seen in recent years, or have seen since. But she also created well-thought-out programs that successfully reduced recidivism, including a re-entry program for drug offenders.
Harris was the last good San Francisco DA we had until 2022, when we recalled Chesa Boudin and elected Brooke Jenkins. Jenkins is also a woman of color, also believes in prosecuting criminals, and the lefties here also hate her. Plus ça change ... (If you're wondering, San Francisco's most virulent lefties are white. They can't accept that people of color might have their own agenda.)
In 2010, Harris beat LA's district attorney in a statewide race, becoming the first woman AND the first non-white person to be elected California Attorney General.
Once again she became unpopular with our leftiest lefties, but she ended up on the right side of history. While launching a new program to research ways to cut down on recidivism, she unsuccessfully opposed efforts to do a mass early release of prisoners -- a release most of us came to regret. She created a cybercrime unit, necessary and ahead of its time. She required all cops to wear body cameras. She oversaw a major prosecution of international criminal gangs. She also refused to defend California's Proposition 8, which had outlawed gay marriage. She said, "It would be inappropriate for a state on the verge of bankruptcy to use all those resources to defend a law found to be unconstitutional." And she turned out to be right -- Proposition 8 was indeed ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.
Harris and Gavin Newsom came up through San Francisco politics at the same time. They've never really been either allies or rivals. I wish I had been a fly on the wall when the jobs of Governor and Senator both came open. If you're wondering, though San Francisco lefties also dislike Newsom, Newsom is further left than Harris. I wonder how different the state would be if Harris was governor and Newsom was Senator. My guess is the state would be better run. (If you can't tell, I prefer Harris to Newsom.)
Harris only spent 4 years in the Senate before becoming vice president, but she distinguished herself with her tough questioning of members of the Trump administration. Jeff Sessions, Trump's first attorney general, said Harris' questioning "makes me nervous." That's what we like to hear!
Vice presidents don't do much and Harris hasn't been an exception; the job is a bit of a waste of her talents. But she'll be great in the top job. In every one of her elected positions, she has prepared, studied the issues, and taken smart steps to address them. World leaders will fear her like Jeff Sessions did. You can't go into a conversation with Kamala Harris unless you know what you're talking about.
If you want an example of Harris learning and improving, consider that her 2019 campaign for president wasn't great. A national campaign is a new skill and was held against her as a potential candidate. But this time around, she's doing great. She's disciplined, she's focused, she's smart and she has turned around the election, just in time to save the nation.
You can vote against Trump. That's fine. But me, I am proudly voting for Kamala Harris.
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