Tell me if you’ve heard this before: a Democratic politician from a famously liberal state who once was ranked as “the most liberal senator” runs for president. They’re pounded relentlessly by Republicans and conservative media as an elitist radical who can’t be trusted with national security or other responsibilities requiring toughness and common sense.

You don’t have to think back all that far: It’s Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in 2004. Kerry dealt with the “too liberal” label by stressing, then overstressing, his own heroic war record in Vietnam, setting himself up for an intensive smear campaign by a shadowy group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who disputed the details of his military service. The Democrat narrowly lost to George W. Bush.

During the past week, Vice-President Kamala Harris has been thrust into the harshest spotlight imaginable as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Like most vice-presidents, she has not gotten a great deal of public attention in that job; all glory and honor in the White House is reserved for the president. Her brief and unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2019 had given her a national profile but not a terribly distinct identity other than as a critic of Joe Biden’s civil-rights record, then as a running mate who was acceptable to all elements of the party and fit Biden’s promise to select a woman.

What Americans do generally know about her is that she’s half-Black, half–South Asian, and from California. And it’s very clear Republicans plan to give her the John Kerry treatment, calling her “too liberal,” “extreme,” and “radical” in an effort to thwart Harris’s plan to refocus the campaign on Trump’s bad character, shaky record, and hair-raising agenda of “vengeance.” As Axios reports, there’s already a clear consensus in the GOP about how to go after the veep:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is urging its candidates to hit Vice-President Kamala Harris for being........

© Daily Intelligencer