The following appeared on Monday, September 2, 2024, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:

The Democratic National Convention, which was more hype than substance, attempted to portray its nominee, Kamala Harris, as a joyful challenger rather than an incumbent. Harris was scripted to come across as the candidate of change and the working class.

As for Harris’s incumbent colleague, President Joe Biden, he was permitted to speak outside of the primetime period. Immediately afterwards, his party banished him to the dust bowl of history.

In her acceptance speech, Harris presented herself to the nation as a nonideological centrist who would be tough on crime, tackle the inflation problem, and control the border by—get this—building a wall.

Apparently, the Democrats are hoping voters do not hold Harris accountable for the Biden-Harris agenda. They hope to shove the past three and a half years down the Orwellian “memory hole.”

Democrats hope the election will not be a referendum on the Biden-Harris record, but a choice election based on personalities.

Yet, despite all the convention’s hocus-pocus, I don’t believe the voters will give Harris a pass and excuse the last three and a half years.

Let’s face it: the vice president stood next to Biden at every public policy announcement. The president constantly referred to the Biden-Harris Administration.

Harris boasted she was the last person in the room when Biden made important decisions—including the one that led to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

Harris has been the leading cheerleader for the Biden Administration and the defender of its economic and spending policies, which led to rapid inflation.

She has often proclaimed that “Bidenomics” has been working and has also stated, time and again, that the president was mentally in top form.

Let’s not forget her claim that the southern border is secure. Considering there have been 8.3 million border encounters since Biden and Harris took office, versus 2.4 million under Trump, that’s a tough one to swallow.

As for being a moderate, Harris’s public record contradicts that claim. As a US Senator and candidate for president in 2020:

• Harris supported the elimination of private health insurance.
• Harris sponsored the radical multi-trillion-dollar Green New Deal legislation.
• Harris opposed the building of the border wall, calling it Trump’s “medieval vanity project.”
• Harris supported a ban on fracking.
• Harris supported the California referendum that reduced penalties for shoplifting. (Stealing under $900 is okay in California.)
• Harris called for the defunding of police departments.
• Harris stated it should not be a crime to enter the US illegally.
• Harris supports the Biden plan to destroy the Supreme Court’s independence.
• Harris supports the elimination of the US Senate filibuster.

Harris is trying to backtrack on some of those policy positions and trying to hide the fact that she is a San Francisco radical who was rated the most left-wing member of the Senate in 2020. (Yes, she was more extreme than Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.)

But will voters buy the new and improved Harris?

Here’s why I don’t think so.

Four years ago, Joe Biden, who had a 50-year record as a liberal moderate, promised the American people he would govern as a centrist.

However, after assuming office, he immediately moved to the far left to appease the AOC wing of the Democratic Party. Unlike Biden, Harris has been a lifelong leftist. And I don’t believe the American public is naive enough to buy her sudden road to Damascus conversion to moderation. They will see it for what it is—a smoke screen to get her through the election.

As for Donald Trump—he can beat Harris if he holds her accountable for the failed domestic and global policies of the Biden-Harris Administration and articulates his vision for another term in office.

If Trump hopes to win, he must—in Michelle Obama’s words—“go high when they go low.”

But, if he snaps at the Democratic Party’s bait and focuses on personalities and name-calling, he will surely lose in November.