The New York Times recently published a resignation letter from Sen. Kamala Harris' (D-CA) former State Operations Director, Kelly Mehlenbacher, which detailed the many issues the senator's presidential campaign is having. According to the former aide, the biggest issue was the lack of leadership and the horrible treatment that staffers experienced. The icing on the cake though? Harris' rival, Michael Bloomberg, picked Mehlenbacher up as a campaign staffer.
Naturally, MSNBC had to debate whether or not The Times was covering Harris fairly and if that very coverage was racist. Because, you know, everything is racist these days.
According to former Hillary Clinton advisor Philippe Reines, The Times is not racist.
"I don't think The New York Times is being racist for covering a collapse of someone who, at the beginning, was one of the top five candidates. I think they're covering reality," Reines explained. "By the way, the media loves when anyone fails so I don't think when people drop that they won't look one at a time, including when Beto dropped."
But, of course, Reines had to reprimand the media for how they've covered the California senator, as if the coverage of her has been harsher than other candidates.
"That's not to excuse how Sen. Harris is being covered though," he explained. "She's getting the double whammy. She's getting covered as black and as a woman so there's absolutely a lot of that at play with the media."
The former Clinton aide did, however, remind viewers of one important tidbit: the Democratic Party started with 24 people vying for the nomination. At the end of the day, 23 of those people will walk away from the process as a loser.
"There are going to be 23 campaigns full of people, like Kelly, who put their lives into it and are going to lose and it's going to be a great deal of frustration but, at the end of the day, the candidate is the CEO," he said. "If the candidate wasn't comfortable with how their campaign was being prosecuted, the candidate should say, 'Something's not right.'"
One of the reasons mainstream media outlets, like The Times, are writing stories about Harris' collapse and lack of funds is because she was originally raising tons of cash.
"If you think about, and one of the reasons that Sen. Harris scores a piece like this is because she was raising a tremendous amount of money to start and she raised $2 million in the 24 to 48 hours after she had the interaction with Vice President Biden," Reines explained. "There's something unique about what's happening to Sen. Harris. She, to date, is the person who polled the highest with the greatest success, who has cratered. And I don't think you can apply that to anyone else. Even Beto never hit numbers polling the way she did."
While some Democrats argue Harris' ability to fundraise is because of a crowded field, Reines said that it has more to do with the way her campaign is being run, which he said "begins with the candidate."
Look, regardless of how you feel about The New York Times – because we know most of their reporting is garbage – sometimes we have to give them credit. This is one of those instances where they shouldn't be chided for covering a top-tier candidate losing steam.
Harris has continually positioned herself to be the best person to take on President Donald Trump in a general election yet she has issues managing a staff and a campaign. And if she can't handle a campaign, how the hell is she going to handle a White House?
The entire Harris team has wanted to play the various minority cards – her being a black woman of color – and yet they get mad when people point out those very characteristics about her. If there's negative coverage of her, because of some dumb decision her or her staff made, why can't that be the reason behind the coverage? Why does it have to instantly resort to being sexist or racist? Why can't the criticisms be just that – warranted criticisms?
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