WASHINGTON: Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris, positioned at the opposite far ends of the US political spectrum, could not be more unlike each other. The former, a white, pedigreed, establishment Republican woman from one of the reddest states in America, Wyoming; the latter, a brown-black daughter of radical immigrants from the largest melting pot in the USA — California.
Yet, united by what they asserted was their shared love for the country and the constitution, they lit into Donald Trump and his MAGA movement on Thursday, producing one of the most striking moments in the presidential elections.
With a banner reading “Country Over Party,” Cheney, a rock solid conservative and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney pitched for the true blue liberal presidential candidate, saying,”In this election, putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration. It is our duty.” In turn, Harris urged that “in the face of those who would endanger our magnificent experiment (that is the United States), people of every party must stand together.”
The event, which could reshape politics in the US beyond the November elections, took place in Ripon, birthplace of the Republican Party in Wisconsin, a battleground state where shift of even a few thousand votes could matter. It came hours after the release of a new court filing by a Biden appointed Special Counsel which in effect implicated Trump for trying to steal the 2020 elections despite knowing he had lost, leading to an attack on the US Capitol by a MAGA mob Trump regards as “patriots.”
“What January 6 shows us is that there is not an ounce, not an ounce of compassion in Donald Trump. He is petty, he is vindictive, and he is cruel, and not fit to lead this good and great nation,” Cheney said in a reminder of the event that has virtually split the Grand Old Party.
Trump and his MAGA cohorts regard Cheney and others anti-Trumpers such as former presidential candidate Mitt Romney as establishment elites out of touch with the base. Cheney was one of the highest ranking Republicans in Congress before she was “primaried” — ousted and defeated in inner-party elections for opposing Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 elections.
Taunted by Cheney, who told the Ripon rally she was a Republican “even before Donald Trump started spray-tanning,” the MAGA supremo responded with flurry of insults, calling her a “low IQ War Hawk” whose father Dick Cheney was a “leader of our ridiculous journey into the Middle East, where Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed – and for what? NOTHING!”
While the optics of Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala is striking, the outcome in electoral terms is unclear. Pollsters are particularly focused whether they will be any shift among the white women demographic towards Harris.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign will be getting a boost with former President Barack Obama who will jump into campaign mode next week. Although former Presidents — George Bush and Bill Clinton for instance — typically refrain from active campaigning, the Harris-Obama equation is different; she was one of his earliest backers for the White House in 2008 when few people gave him a chance. He’s paying her back with exertions that few former Presidents put in.