Barabak: The true query isn’t whether or not Harris will run for governor. It’s why.

For some people, this summer time will probably be a time of rest: picnics, barbecues, trip. For others, a mad scramble between work and swim meets, baseball tournaments or purchasing earlier than cabinets go naked and the Trump tariffs worth all the pieces past attain.

For Kamala Harris, it’s a time for deciding.

The previous vice chairman is anticipated to spend a piece of her summer time weighing numerous choices — whether or not to retire from politics after greater than 20 years looking for elected workplace, whether or not to mount a 2026 bid for California governor or whether or not to make a 3rd try on the White Home in 2028.

In keeping with a number of who’ve spoken with Harris, she is genuinely undecided, torn between concern and affection for her dwelling state and an undimmed need to be president.

The competition is already properly underway — 10 severe (broadly talking) candidates have to this point introduced their candidacies. Whereas Harris’ near-universal identify recognition and nationwide fundraising base permit her to attend longer than others, a severe gubernatorial bid will take quite a lot of months to mount.

That forces a call and a public announcement sooner relatively than later.

If she does run, one factor Harris should keep away from in any respect prices is something that bespeaks vanity, entitlement or something lower than a 100% dedication to serving as governor. It’s not exhausting to think about certainly one of her first utterances as a candidate could be pledging to serve a full four-year time period and vowing to not use the workplace as an interim step towards one other presidential bid.

Failing that, voters have each cause to ship Harris packing. California doesn’t want one other governor with a wandering political eye.

One other crucial Harris faces is providing a compelling cause why she needs to be governor. Searching for the workplace for a similar cause climbers sort out Mt. Everest — as a result of it’s there — received’t do.

A cautionary story

Historical past gives a lesson.

In November 1979, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy was getting ready to launch an upstart bid for president in opposition to the unpopular incumbent, Jimmy Carter. He gave a tv interview that was so legendarily terrible it’s turn out to be an object lesson in how to not begin a marketing campaign.

Requested why he wished to be president, Kennedy paused at size, showing stricken. He then unspooled a long-winded, curlicued, two-minute response that talked about pure assets, expertise, innovation, productiveness, inflation, vitality, joblessness and the economic system, amongst different issues. His reply was lucid as a fog financial institution and galvanizing as a stalk of celery.

“Kennedy was on a rocket ship,” stated Dan Schnur, a veteran communications strategist and political science professor, who makes use of the Kennedy interview as a part of his curriculum at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley. Carter was in dreadful form, Kennedy was political royalty and the keenness for his candidacy on the Democratic grassroots “seemed prefer it was going to comb him to the nomination.

“And then he did that one interview,” Schnur recollected, “and he couldn’t answer the most basic question.”Although Kennedy ended up giving Carter a stiff problem, he by no means totally recovered from leaving that horrible impression.Harris ought to take heed.

A latest ballot by the L.A. Instances and UC Berkeley gave her a 50% approval ranking amongst California voters, which isn’t precisely a quantity to beat the band. Nonetheless, she would enter the governor’s race as a heavy favourite to at the least make the runoff below the state’s top-two election system.

If a Republican nabbed the second spot, Harris could be strongly positioned to win in November, given California’s sturdy Democratic leaning.

However, once more, neither is a cause for Harris to be governor.

A few of these near the previous vice chairman marvel how a lot she actually needs, or would get pleasure from, the job.

In 2015, when the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat each got here open, Harris — the state’s lawyer common on the time — opted to hunt the latter. Her causes have been each private, involving household concerns, {and professional}, given the platform and alternatives afforded a member of the Senate.

In brief, Harris has by no means burned with a ardour to be California governor.

Determine it out

That makes it all of the extra essential for her to clarify — clearly and convincingly — why she’d need to be elected.

“She’s got to give some affirmative reason why she’s running and why it would be good for the voters of California,” Schnur stated. “And it’s not only a matter of establishing a number of phrases right into a sentence.

“It’s not hard for someone as smart as Kamala Harris and her team to concoct a lab-tested phrase that tests well,” he went on. “The challenge isn’t typing out a sentence. It’s developing a core purpose that can then be explained in a sentence.”

Harris has all summer time to look inward and determine that out.

If she will be able to’t, California voters ought to select another person for his or her subsequent governor.