ONE of the most fake election campaigns of all time is currently under way in the US.
It is a campaign to make Vice President Kamala Harris look like she could be President.
Even a few weeks ago all of this would have seemed impossible.
Joe Biden was clearly unable to run for re-election this year.
But he and his family insisted otherwise.
Eventually the Democratic Party came to their senses and gave him the heave-ho anyway.
But as they did that, they knew they had one big problem still ahead. What to do about Kamala?
After all, Harris had been appointed as Vice President in 2020 for a very specific reason.
Despite the party condemning anyone who says this now, she really was a diversity hire.
In 2020 the left-wing media and Democratic Party insisted that old Joe had to choose a black woman as his running mate.
He said that he was down to a list of four black women and then chose Kamala.
He did so despite the fact that she had used her time on the 2020 Democratic debate stage to call him a racist.
Having been a prosecutor and then a senator, Kamala just kept falling upwards.
But to fall as high up as she might be about to is still quite something.
Even until this past month the idea that Kamala might actually be the candidate was fantastical.
The Democrats knew they had to put their best fighter out there against Donald Trump in the election this year.
And anyone who thinks Kamala is their best fighter needs their head examined.
Except that the Democrats knew one thing above all — they couldn’t move her aside.
Once Joe Biden exited the race for the White House this year, they always knew there would be the problem of Harris.
After all, how can a party committed to DEI and other diversity mantras possibly push aside not just doddering Joe but the first black female Vice President?
The answer is that they couldn’t. So they didn’t.
Some people clearly had reservations.
Former President Barack Obama was reported to be among them.
But Kamala and her team ended up securing her nomination in super-quick time.
Eventually even the reluctant Obamas fell in behind her.
And now the November election is set to be between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Even a few months ago Republicans might have licked their lips at this prospect. The main thinking was that Harris was an even weaker candidate than Biden.
She had too many faults to list. Where even to begin?
She had failed at the few tasks she had been given as Vice President.
Soon after coming to office, Biden gave Harris the task of trying to control the inflow of illegal migrants at the southern border.
Not only did she fail to do that, but illegal migration actually rocketed upwards during the Biden-Harris years.
Then there were the almost uniquely weird speeches.
Clips of Harris speaking have been a viral phenomenon for the past four years.
There are the odd repetitions of things she seems to think sound wise. Like her talk about the past and the future and how they are different from each other.
Or how great yellow school buses are. Or something about falling out of a coconut tree.
And then there are the mannerisms. Not least the bizarre laughter which she would break into on occasions.
She even did it early on when an interviewer asked how she could be the running mate of someone she had called a racist just a few weeks earlier.
“It was a debate,” she replied. “It was literally a debate.”
And she laughed like a drain all the time she was saying this — as though it was a universally agreed joke to smear someone and then work with them.
All the time she actually gave the strange impression that she realised she had been promoted way above her capabilities and was doing what she could to cope with it.
But now all of this has been forgotten.
Now that she is the candidate, the American Left has swung behind her.
It is the Kamala reboot.
And strangely enough it seems to be working.
The media is in full swoon mode. “Kamala-lot” is just one headline of recent days — making a link between Kamala and the “Camelot” era of JFK and Jackie Kennedy.
Some polls even show it is working. Young women seem to have swung behind her.
As does a significant share of the black vote.
And she does actually present a real problem for Trump.
We don’t yet know if they will do a TV debate.
But if they do, she may well bring out his worse instincts.
And if he talks over her, bullies her or insults her, a significant number of swing voters will see him as disrespecting not just a woman, but a black woman at that.
Republicans used to think Kamala would simply be the worst candidate for their rivals to run.
Turns out she may well be the worst.
But she could also win.
