Kamala Harris has blundered on busing and Biden
There is no better day than the 4th of July in American politics to bury bad news or, in the case of Kamala Harris, to answer some tough questions.
It probably suits the junior Senator from California that the news broke yesterday when most of America is obsessed with fireworks, tanks, and the size of the presidential crowd/ego. Yet it was on Wednesday that Harris clarified her position on “busing” (less often “bussing”), the practice of transporting black students to white-dominated schools to rebalance demographic inequalities and/or the effects of segregation. That, you might remember, was the topic she had used to nail Joe Biden to the stage on the second night of the first Democratic debates. Biden looked stunned when challenged on his civil rights record; perhaps angry too, if his scattergun reply was any measure, amounting to a “What? Me? Racist? What! Why, I’ll…!”
As we reported at the time, it was a particularly unpleasant exchange, beginning with Harris using the coded phrase “I do not believe you are a racist […] but” which, on the night, felt more like “I do think you’re a racist but I wouldn’t say so publicly… I’ll just let people infer what they like”. She then went on to attack Biden who, she maintained, was opposed to busing.
“I did not oppose busing in America,” replied the Vice President. “What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed.”
But, by then, it was too late. Harris would enjoy her “That little girl was me” moment, the room would sob, and a few of us would think it all a bit unpleasant given that Biden’s nuanced argument was being used to demonise him. It was also a lesson in ugly politics wrapped around a lesson in basic American civics. Biden was right. The federal government, largely personified by the President, has limited power over the states. This argument is almost as old as America itself. Lincoln spent his relatively short but brilliant life trying to justify the right of the federal government to outlaw slavery in the face of opposition mainly in the south. It’s not up to a president to step in and impose something that should be the business of the state to decide. Similarly, it’s not the president’s job to stop something over the wishes of the state.
Yet that is precisely where Harris pressed Biden. What, she essentially challenged, if the state failed in their duties? To one of the bigger cheers of the evening, she hit him low. Real low. “That’s where the federal government must step in.”
“Watch Kamala Harris Demolish Joe Biden on Race During the Democratic Debate” crooned Rolling Stone afterwards, typifying so much of the media response to the debate. Yet the problem with so much of this media-led characterisation is that too often the media are wrong. They were wrong in the immediate moments of The Mueller Report’s release when they didn’t factor in the prejudice of William Barr’s note, and announced the report had cleared Trump and that the story was over. They were wrong too to say that Biden had done poorly. He’d clearly gone into the debate hoping to place it safe and make no headlines. Only that meant he committed the grand sin in this era of political expediency: he remained consistent.
The same cannot be said about Harris who clarified her position on Wednesday and now seems to hold the same view as Biden did then and now. Describing “busing” as “being in the toolbox of what is available”, she went on to say, “I believe that any tool that is in the toolbox should be considered by a school district.” Note the phrase “by a school district”. What she didn’t say was that it should be mandated by the federal government, which goes to the heart of the argument and her subsequent climbdown.
The reality of this is that Biden’s support lead has been cut in half among African Americans yet busing itself remains universally unpopular. Biden has been punished for being right by a politician who has now quietly admitted she was wrong. As Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director, put it: “It’s disappointing that Senator Harris chose to distort Vice President Biden’s position on busing — particularly now that she is tying herself in knots trying not to answer the very question she posed to him!”
Unfair? Yes but sadly effective. I wrote at the time that her attack felt cheap and might not play well among moderates. That’s still the case but it’s also a matter of Harris’s opponents using this against her and making the duplicity register with voters. The coverage and controversy around this year’s 4th July celebrations will obscure the story a little and Harris might have done herself some momentary good, but she would be unwise to confuse winning a battle with winning the war. This is a story that should rightly come back to haunt her.