Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned or a CNN panel confronted with the truth.
And make no mistake: Most of the panel that was convened at 10 p.m. Eastern on Thursday had just been confronted, the day prior with the first genuine bomb of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Sure, she had that interview with Fox News, but that was Fox News. CNN is friendly territory; anyone who pretends otherwise is delusional or believes CNN viewers are dupes. Indeed, I’m not sure those two things are mutually exclusive.
However, nobody who witnessed the previous hour, where Harris flailed and failed with a mostly simpatico Anderson Cooper, could ignore questions like this:
CNN: You’ve been in the White House for four years. Why haven’t you done any of this already?
KAMALA: “I’m pointing out things that need to be done that haven’t been done that need to be done.”
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 24, 2024
COOPER: Is there something you can point to in your life that is a mistake that you’ve learned from?
KAMALA: “I have worked very hard to make sure that I’m well-versed on issues.”
The Kamala you see stumbling in every unscripted answer she gives is what she calls “well-versed.” pic.twitter.com/fmENkOtpvI
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 24, 2024
There were plenty of takeaways to discuss even a day after the event, and in a sober panel who realized the disaster that the event was, they’d likely be talking about how the vice president clearly hasn’t unburdened herself of her past cringeworthiness in the past four years or so.
Are you a fan of Kevin O’Leary?
However, given that the panel was given over mostly to lefties to moderator Abby Phillip, Washington Post opinion writer Catherine Rampell, CNN en Español political commentator Maria Cardona, and former Comedy Central host Larry Wilmore, it was up to conservative strategist Shermichael Singleton and “Shark Tank” panelist and businessman Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary to represent the right side of things.
O’Leary went a bit further than offering an apologia for Donald Trump, arguing that the very selection process that gave the Democrats Harris as a nominee without her earning a vote was partially responsible for her sinking poll numbers and disastrous performances.
“I would like to introduce the concept to the panel tonight. It’s going to be a short dissertation. But I want you to think about this, because I watched like you did yesterday and something hit me pretty hard,” he said.
“Only 90 days ago, Pelosi went to Biden and said, ‘you need to step aside,’ and convinced him to do so. He made the decision, and he did actually ask her, and we’ve now learned this — is she the right person to drive this home? He questioned that,” he said of Harris.
“He could have said, we need to run a process in order for me to make this move, but they decided not to. I don’t know who they is. Was it Obama? Was it Pelosi? I don’t care who it was. In stock picking, just listen to this analogy, you may agree, you may not, 88 percent of managers, because of the world I live in, cannot beat the S&P year in, year out. So, you give them $1,000, the S&P beats them, they can’t pick stocks. This is the second time the Democratic Party has circumvented democracy and chose –“
“That’s not true,” Rampell cut him off.
“Yes it is. Hillary Clinton was chosen … And what happened to her? And now we’ve chosen —
“Kevin, Hillary Clinton won a primary, OK?” Phillip said. “She won a primary.”
But, as O’Leary pointed out, that wasn’t exactly a primary where the Democratic Party allowed much in the way of a challenge: “Nobody could compete with her, even Bernie Sanders,” he said.
“She won a primary,” Phillip reiterated.
“So, did Kamala Harris win the primary?” O’Leary shot back.
Crosstalk ensued. Phillip tried to end it by resorting to the last refuge of the desperate: Blame Canada!
“I know that you are from Canada, but the primary process–” she said, before getting cut off.
“That’s why it’s — I’m perfect for this,” O’Leary countered. “I have no skin in the game other than to get a great president.”
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
NEW: CNN panel completely loses it after Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary (correctly) points out that Kamala Harris was not democratically nominated.
The “pro-democracy” party really hates it when you point out that they don’t actually support democracy.
O’Leary: “Listen to this… pic.twitter.com/HhpIIUQpgJ
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 25, 2024
“I think the case I’m trying to make to all of you and I hope I’m going to win it by the end of this show, is that there’s nothing wrong with the policies or whatever they are,” O’Leary said.
“This is the same candidate that lost in 2019 and 2020 and has never been tested by the markets for various reasons we can argue about, but she’s never won anything.”
O’Leary went on to note that he does have some skin in the game; his kids were born in the United States and most of his investments are here, he says. However, the salient point is this: A small group of individuals who choose a candidate rarely outperform the primary process, flawed indeed though it may be.
The only time we had something that looked like a primary process was on the 2016 and 2024 side for Republicans (Donald Trump won both) and in 2020 for the Democrats, which produced the electable-if-senescent Joe Biden. More importantly, it rooted out a clique of younger, more progressive Democrats who were beloved by the media but didn’t translate electorally. Harris — along with Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Julián Castro, inter alia — were casualties of this hype.
In 2016, there were primaries — and surprisingly close ones — but the Democratic National Committee made sure that Hillary Clinton won.
We all know what happened in the first case: Bernie Sanders came surprisingly close to her in a number of key primaries and, even though he lost, cast a pall over her campaign. Thankfully, she was faced with a candidate she was sure she could smear with so much mud that he was unelectable: Donald Trump, along with his “basket of deplorables.” That worked out about as swimmingly as you can imagine it would in hindsight, but at the time nobody seemed to notice anything amiss until Election Day turned into election night, which turned into tears and anxiety attacks for anyone wearing an “I’m With Her” button.
What does she have in common with Kamala Harris? Both candidates were handpicked by party elites because it was Their Turn. Neither had grassroots support. And it all seemed like it was going to work, until it didn’t.
The polls are showing both Harris and Trump essentially even nationally — a huge blow for Harris, who likely needs to win by several points in the popular vote to carry the swing states she needs. It’s unlikely to improve over the next week-and-a-half.
This is what happens when you don’t allow the people to select a nominee. Individual investors generally can’t outperform the market in picking stocks, and party elites can’t outperform their voters in picking someone that America will vote for. It’s a lesson the Democrats, holding on for sweet life, are learning far too late — if they learn it all.
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