One 2020 hopeful’s campaign looks to have officially entered into desperation mode.
After Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was overheard making a profanity-laden comment about “moving to Iowa” by a reporter, her campaign has decided to turn the slip-up into a campaign slogan.
Say what?
The incident took place Wednesday on Capitol Hill. In a private conversation with Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Harris joked, “I’m f****** moving to Iowa.”
Harris apparently did not realize that the conversation she was having with Hirono was overheard by reporter Matt Laslo. Laslo noted, in the Twitter message in which he made this incident known, that this occurred “before she noticed me.”
In a follow-up tweet, Laslo added, “She saw me after it left her mouth but I wasn’t hiding. She smiled in a way like, “oh no,” for a second and then she smiled in a way that was like, “**** it.”
An opportunity
It is no secret that Harris’s campaign has been struggling and that, frankly, she needs a big turn around if she is going to have any shot at winning her party’s nomination. In particular, Harris’s support is collapsing in Iowa, as shown by a new poll of Democratic voters in the state. Harris dropped 13 points to just 5 percent, which put her in sixth place, behind Amy Klobuchar.
A crucial moment for Harris will be the Iowa caucuses, the first of their kind, which will take place in a little less than five months from now — and which explains Harris’s remark that she is “moving to Iowa.”
“Iowa is more important than it has ever been,” a Democratic strategist told Reuters, adding that the top two finishers in the Iowa caucus will redefine the race. “If there is going to be a shake-up, it’s going to happen there,” he said.
Although Harris will not actually be moving to Iowa, she is expected to travel to the state once a week during the month of October. Her hope is to gain enough support for a top-three finish at the caucuses.
Harris’s campaign is already capitalizing on the moment. Lily Adams, Harris’s communication director, took to Twitter on Thursday to post a picture of a t-shirt with the slogan “I’m f****** moving to Iowa,” on it.
Desperation
In addition to the t-shirt, Harris’s campaign sent out a fundraising email Thursday evening with the headline, “‘I’m f**** moving to Iowa’ – Kamala Harris,” the Washington Examiner reported. “She cut to the chase,” it read. “We’re doubling our organizers on the ground in Iowa and Kamala is ramping up her time on the trail there, beginning today in Cedar Rapids.”
It’s not the most traditional approach, certainly. But you know what they say: desperate times call for desperate measures.
No comments: