In an interview with the BBC, former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris suggested that she may still have another run left in her, claiming that she would “possibly” reach the White House in the future. “I am not done,” she said. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones.”

The answer was classic Harris: she didn’t quite commit to anything either way. She raised no substantive issue that would prompt her to run to make a difference. She offered no urgent criticism of the Democratic Party and its approach to Donald Trump. As she has so often done throughout her career, she avoided saying anything particularly controversial or bold. Instead, she simply suggested that she might throw her hat into the ring because it’s the sort of thing that might be good for her career.

If there is one word that would summarise that career, it’s fecklessness. It was fecklessness that led then-Vice President Harris to proceed with a disastrous interview on Joe Biden’s immigration policies in 2021, an exercise which went so poorly that she avoided doing another major interview for almost a year.

That same fecklessness led her to avoid breaking with her boss during her short-lived presidential run last year. When asked if she would’ve done anything differently to Biden, nothing came to mind. Although in her BBC interview, she did gesture — again in vague language — that she should have stopped him running in the first place.

Harris’s attempt to keep the door open to a third presidential run now revolves around her new book, 107 Days. The title refers to the length of her doomed 2024 campaign. Because she had such a narrow window of time to make her case to the nation, the claim goes, it’s amazing that she got as far as she did.

But, of course, she had already run a presidential campaign during the 2020 cycle, when she didn’t even make it to the Iowa Democratic primary. The reality is that she would never have been heading a presidential ticket unless Biden anointed her to that position.

It’s a free country, and Harris has a right to seek the office again. Her high name recognition gives her a stable base of support in (very early) 2028 primary polls. But a politician who consistently struggles to explain to the audience what she actually believes in will have a hard time inspiring Democratic voters. While Trump is losing popularity over sticky inflation and executive overreach, Harris still hasn’t come out with a coherent argument of why America deserves better.

There was a time in years past when a tightly-controlled politician who did little but mouth the platitudes her handlers handed to her could succeed. In 2025, however, we live in a time not only of 24/7 news channels but also of in-your-face social media saturation that overly exposes every high-profile politician. Each of their utterances is combed over again and again, and there is no aspect of their personality or life that escapes the microscope.

In a political environment like that, you have to be charismatic, thoughtful, and even funny. Harris is zero for three on those fronts. Deep down, many — if not most — Democrats know that she is a lightweight politician. The question is whether she is sufficiently self-aware about this fact to avoid handing yet another win to the Republican Party.

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Zaid Jilani is a journalist who has worked for UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, The Intercept, and the Center for American Progress.

ZaidJilani

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