Her official White House schedule often had Harris cloistered, meeting with staff and receiving briefings. On what? Board game strategies?

Because the only thing Harris became skilled at during her empty reign as vice president was dodging interviews and ducking detailed answers with word salads if she did confront substantive questions.

Harris spent in excess of a billion dollars on her campaign. She still lost. And she still owes millions more.

Wisely, an overwhelming number of voters in more than enough key places decided appropriately that the better presidential leader for the country now was the one they already had but rejected when they fell for Joe Biden’s lie about returning to “normalcy.”

Liberal media that so conscientiously ignored and covered up Joe Biden's crippling infirmities did the same for Kamala Harris because they wanted her more than they cared about Truth.

That Truth is that absent ambition and scrambled syntax, she is an empty vessel. But now, some are ginning up a campaign for her to try again next time. Or go for California governor. Or both. Why not? Rich Democrats fund anybody.

Seriously!

Nobody asked. But Morning Consult tells us Kamala Harris is the overwhelming choice of Democrats to be the party’s next nominee, today at least. Sixty-two percent want the 2024 loser to try again in 2028 when Donald Trump will be gone, and she’ll be only 64.

Being the inauthentic, inarticulate Kamala Harris that Americans have come to know and distrust might still be good enough to fail up again, this time into the governor's job in two years because, who could do worse than Gavin Newsom? 

For reasons that do not involve air quality, affordable housing, traffic, taxes, crime, homelessness, sane legislation, and thinking, California remains strongly Democrat. Even more now since at least 700,000 of the most disaffected Californians have already fled the state, myself included.

Harris quit the 2020 Dem White House contest when she was demolished in a single debate before any voting. If she chose to try again in 2027-28, she would have to completely rebrand herself, learn some actual work habits, and learn how to speak with a modicum of substance without all the hand-waving to distract. She seems an unlikely convert to that much work.

Returning to California state politics would be much easier, keep her in the liberal media news orbit, and potentially be a political perch to monitor and perhaps enter the White House marathon again. It might also teach Golden State voters an obvious lesson about Democrat incompetence.

There’s no rush for Harris to decide. The field for the 2026 California contest is already crowded, but she’d automatically become the biggest donkey in the room. 

Joe Biden, who's spent 40 percent of his term on vacation, including this weekend, is no political role model for any ethic, especially work. So, even this fall's blessedly brief alternate campaign revealed that after four years watching Biden closeup, Harris has learned the art of coasting disappointingly well.

After a presidential administration in Washington, Sacramento might seem kind of minor league because, well, it is. But Harris could avoid any heavy lifting there, too. 

And she wouldn't have to learn all those confusing foreign affairs complexities, like which Korea is the ally.

In another national race, Harris actually would have to seek votes in a Democrat primary, which she has never done. In 2020, she quit before any primary, and this year, fellow San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi handed her the nomination free of any bothersome voter involvement. 

Democrat leaders knew that what's left of Joe Biden would be completely destroyed by Donald Trump this cycle, despite all their nefarious hoaxes, impeachments, and lawfare. Harris served her purpose in 2020 as a racial-gender symbol. 

Throw her into the already lost 2024 cause with a lot of money. If, by some freak circumstance, she won, they'd look like geniuses. If she was defeated, they had lost nothing new. And they'd be rid of her.

That's why Washington, D.C.'s real name is the District of Cynicism.

Historically, the Democrat Party much prefers senators as White House nominees. Harris was one, and no doubt others will try. 

But a squad of ambitious governors from once-reliably blue states loom off-stage now, including Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro, who’s likely thanking his lucky stars that his political future was not torpedoed as Harris’ partner.

The good news in this case is vice presidents have a reliable record of failure immediately succeeding their president (See Richard Nixon (1960), Hubert Humphrey (1968), Gerald Ford (1976), Walter Mondale (1984), Al Gore (2000), and now Harris). 

Even when candidates try a second consecutive time right after losing the first, voters have rejected them (Tom Dewey (1944,1948), Adlai Stevenson (1952, 1956).

Trump, of course, lost his immediate reelection bid, as did Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992. But Trump became only the second man in U.S. history to win a non-consecutive White House term. (Grover Cleveland 1884, 1892).

Harris is just back from a long vacation in Hawaii, where she was incommunicado while the Russian war in Ukraine escalated, and Biden wandered off into the Amazon jungle after a photo op. 

On her return, Harris taped a puzzling video message for Democrats that highlights the significant improvement work she still needs on content and presentation. 

My colleague Bob Hoge has the video and full story, including the Before and After photo here. The vacation seems to have taken a toll. In that video clip, which many suspect was fueled by adult beverages, Harris urged supporters not to give up their freedoms. 

What also drew attention was how awful she looked in that photo after a tropical vacation and brief campaign.

According to some reports, the VP took family and staff along. Better use up free government air travel while you can. And they were said to discuss her future, which includes imminent unemployment starting next month.

As everyone not living in Washington, D.C., has noticed, politicians retiring there or becoming unelected do not plunge into poverty or homelessness. 

For instance, Barack Obama had dozens of delinquent traffic and parking tickets in Chicago when he decided to become commander in chief. 

In a convention speech last summer, Michelle Obama wore a $3,000 dress while declaring that her mother warned her to be suspicious of wealthy people.

Today, the Obamas are worth an estimated $70 million. Their holdings encompass four estates, strangely including two waterfront mansions in imminent danger of flooding when their promised global warming raises ocean levels.

Their massive funds came from book sales, giving high-priced speeches, sometimes for as much as $400,000 each, a lucrative Netflix deal, and a production company. Plus, a presidential pension of $226,000 per year.

By Obama standards, Harris is a pauper. She and husband Doug are worth only $8 million, including investments, past book sales, and a $4 million LA home.

But she can grow that with as many speeches as liberal organizations are willing to finance or their audiences are willing to endure. Harris can also hire a ghostwriter for a book revealing select parts of her life story if a publisher sees sufficient sales prospects.

She can organize a PAC to accept donations for political activities to stay in the public spotlight if she chooses that path. It could pay for her travels to support progressive candidates during the 2026 midterm season, when she could accrue political favors and support for a potential 2028 rerun. 

Harris will likely spend the holidays pondering her decisions before the VP gig ends.

But come January, she must perform one more important duty, surely an unpleasant one for her. 

As vice president and presiding officer of the U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris will have to certify the democratic election victory of the man she claimed was an existential threat to the democracy that rejected her as its next leader.