Senator Kamala Harris is struggling after her poor performance during the recent Democratic presidential debates in Detroit, and it isn’t difficult to understand why she’s failing to connect with voters.
During a Monday stop at an Iowa nursing home, Harris responded to a question from an elderly woman who didn’t much care for the California senator’s “Medicare for All” plan by literally talking down to the senior.
“Can I ask you a question,” the little old lady with white hair asked Harris in a video posted online.
“Yes, of course,” the former prosecutor said, crossing the room to greet the woman seated in a wheelchair.
“I understand that you are advocating health care for everyone,” the woman said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Harris replied in the video, initially a livestream from the Bickford Senior Living Center in Muscatine that attracted about 15 viewers.
The woman got straight to the point.
“Who’s going to pay for it?” she asked.
Harris flipped her hair and bent down to talk to the woman like a child, hands between her knees.
“We’re going to pay for it, because right now, let me tell you something, we’re all paying for health care for everyone and it’s an emergency room,” Harris said as the elderly woman shook her head.
She wasn’t buying the baloney.
“No we’re not,” the woman said. “No we’re not.
“Leave our health care system alone,” she added. “We don’t want you to mess with it.”
Harris apparently thought the disagreement was cute, and all but pat the old lady on her head.
“Ok, I don’t intend to mess with it. Do you have Medicare?” Harris asked.
The response from the woman was unclear.
“Well, I want to make sure your health care is the way you like it,” Harris said. “So, I’ll promise you that, ok?
“I won’t mess with the health care that you have,” she continued. “Are you on Medicare?”
The woman’s response was again inaudible.
“Well it was nice to visit with you. Thank you for the time,” Harris said.
“Ok, take care guys,” she said as she looked to the camera with a wink and uncomfortable smile.
The awkward interaction came at the same stop Harris read off bingo numbers in an attempt to court older voters.
h/t @deepa_shivaram, sending in this magic moment: “B7!” @KamalaHarris is calling out #s for bingo in Iowa. She said: “I’m here to answer any questions you might have, but other than that— I’m here to play some Bingo!” Day 5 Iowa bus tour pic.twitter.com/ECENQQl9Rd
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) August 12, 2019
“I’m here to answer any questions you might have, but other than that – I’m here to play some Bingo!” she said to an unenthused audience. Videos online showed Harris reading out the numbers.
“N-40!” she said. “N-4-0.”
Day 5 (last day!) of the @KamalaHarris bus tour across Iowa — at stop number 2 of the day, Harris plays bingo at a senior center in Muscatine pic.twitter.com/84SiaIUi6i
— Deepa Shivaram (@deepa_shivaram) August 12, 2019
There was total silence in the room with the exception of the media cameras that came to capture the visit.
Harris enjoyed a brief surge in the Democrat primary for 2020 following the first debate in June, when she attacked former vice president Joe Biden over his proud history of working with segregationists and opposition to integrated busing.
Harris went into the second debate in Detroit riding high as a frontrunner with strong support from Democrat voters, competing closely with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Biden. But Harris struggled to defend her record as California’s attorney general, when she prosecuted minorities for minor marijuana offenses, argued to keep an innocent man on death row, and leveraged the state’s prison system for cheap labor, all issues that don’t sit well with Democrats.
A Quinnipiac University poll after the second debate showed Harris’ support faded from about 20 percent support among Democrats to just 7 percent after her performance.
Even among black voters, only 1 percent voiced support for Harris – one of only two black candidates – following her performance in the second debate, The American Mirror reports.
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