Me and Kamala

Here's the deal. 

About a year ago, I followed my wife to Cedar Rapids, where she and a couple of other Sioux County Democrats (yes, there are some--more every month) got an award from the state Democratic Party at the annual Hall of Fame Dinner. Quite a shindig.

They were all there, the whole bunch, 19 Democrats who'd thrown their hat in the Presidential ring, including Kamala Harris. (That's her, top of page--and I took the pic.) I didn't know her really, but I liked the fact that she was a woman of color. And her story interested me, as did Obama's--someone of mixed parentage. I didn't favor her; she was, back then, one of 19 candidates who each got five minutes to sing their own praises. 

We had seats right up front, honored guests after all, twenty feet at best from the whole parade. I liked Kamala even more when it was over. No one smoked all the others; it was impossible, when we left, to say who was the strongest candidate. But I came away with a Kamala t-shirt, in great part because to my knowledge she rose somewhere close to the top of the heap.

Maybe it was the t-shirt--I don't know, but I started to believe I had an investment in her,  and I determined, for good or ill, that one of the reasons I liked her--maybe the most important--was that she laughed so well. The woman has a big, notable, boisterous laugh that heartily splashes over the whatever table she's sitting at when she's interviewed. This laugh--

via GIPHY

I liked it, and I liked her. I liked (still do) scores of the blokes left on the Democratic stage. But the question is, which of them can beat King Donald? That's the important question we all face in 2020, those of us who are not Donald's chosen people. Who can beat the only President who day after day calls his opposition "human scum"?

I kept thinking of the way he beat up on Hillary in 2016, walking behind her like some thug stalker. Who of the Dems can get on stage with the man whose sins so magically disappear that Bible thumpers consider him a "baby Christian," as James Dobson called him?

This was my thinking. I loved the way Kamala laughs. It's devil-may-care, full-throated, and startlingly gutsy, maybe especially for a woman. She laughs as if she's not afraid of a thing. And she's made a terrific prosecutor. I told myself this woman can get on stage with President Trump. Of the two dozen candidates, she could wage public war with Donald of Orange. She'd laugh at him, and nothing makes him more angry than derision. She's the one who could do it; she could take him on better than Warren's systems or Boot-Edge-Edge's elegance or Bernie's Jeremiading. She could look in the face of the almighty (lower-case a) and just laugh. 

In response to one of her several hundred emails, I sent her a note that told her I'd be happy to fill our house with potential supporters (Iowa's famous retail politics) if she'd ever come way out here to northwest Iowa. Never heard from her, but that didn't surprise me. I still thought her right up there at the top of the possibilities.

Her first debate made a splash when she made VP Biden looks like sauerkraut with that busing blast, but it was pretty much all downhill after that. Some wonder why. Some blame her demise on racism or misogyny. Others say she just simply didn't know what direction she needed to push or pull--or didn't want to. The candidate with the best laugh walked off stage with little more than a tepid, sorrowful smile.

And I got a t-shirt I wear to the gym, a tea shirt that flops in the garage on a rack full of sweaty workout stuff, just one of a half-dozen other oldies. 

I still like Kamala, still love her laugh. But she's gone, pulled out of the race. 

I'm having Amy K's people over at three next week. She's going to be answering questions. If you're interested, let me know. I like her. She doesn't have Kamala's laugh, but way back in the beginning, she took some flak for being tough on her staff. That's great. There's hope. 

Who knows?--maybe I'll get a t-shirt. Go Amy.