newYou can listen to the Fox News article!
Vice President Kamala Harris has announced that she will not attend this year’s Al Smith Dinner, making her the first presidential candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984 to skip the New York City landmark Catholic event.
The tradition began in 1960 when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon donned high hats, white spats and Arrow collars, and has since become a night of national and political unity.
Kamala Harris misses historic dinner with Al Smith despite long-standing tradition
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of Gotham called Harris’ decision “unfortunate” and reminded her that Walter Mondale lost every state except his home state when he voted against her in 1984. Even liberal commentators are scratching their heads over the decision.
After all, the Al Smith Dinner is a revered institution because it represents a rare moment in today’s politics when candidates enjoy a dinner together, lightly poking fun at each other, and showing the country that there is more that unites us than divides us.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan sits between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation annual dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City on October 20, 2016. The white-tie dinner, which benefits Catholic Charities and honors former New York Governor Al Smith, has been attended by presidential candidates since 1960 and provides an opportunity for candidates to poke fun at themselves and each other. (Photo: Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
In fact, Harris has at least five very good reasons to shy away from this showcase of unity, each deeply cynical, but taken together they explain exactly why she is turning her back on tradition and trying to alienate Catholic voters.
1. Harris doesn’t want to humanize Trump.
The Vice President is running a bizarre and unprecedented campaign in which she claims she no longer holds the position she held three years ago and feels no need to tell us what her new position is. This leaves her with a strategy to portray Donald Trump as a fascist and would-be dictator who will destroy democracy the day after he is sworn in with a copy of Project 2025.
A fabulous dinner hosted by the affable and personable Cardinal Dolan doesn’t really convey that message. In fact, it conveys quite the opposite message. And if Trump isn’t actually the embodiment of evil, people might suddenly start comparing economic policies. Democrats shouldn’t allow that.
2. Dinner with Al Smith was too unplanned for Harris
It’s no secret that the Harris campaign keeps its candidate away from unscripted events whenever possible; medieval monks weren’t so secluded. To participate in the banquet, Harris would have to stand on stage without a teleprompter and deliver a five- to 10-minute comedy routine in front of an unselected crowd. Nothing she’s done so far suggests she can do that, and her entourage may be well aware that she can’t.
3. Protesting the church is a wink to the far-left
Harris’s team has settled on a vaguely centrist approach, denying her past as the most liberal member of the Senate and winking at progressives that she doesn’t really mean it. Ignoring the most important Catholic event on the political calendar sends exactly that message to her far-left supporters. Of course, to get elected she has to say certain things, but she’s all about rebelling against the oppressors, and nothing says that better than insulting the Catholic Church.
4. Harris doesn’t want a level playing field.
As evidenced by the fact that Harris’ team only handpicked left-leaning networks for her debate against Trump and declined to debate with President Joe Biden on Fox News, Kamala has no intention of going toe-to-toe with Trump. With no advantage and no biased debate moderator, there is no reason to think that Harris can go toe-to-toe with anyone, let alone Donald Trump. She has no real primary experience and does not want to be in a fair fight.
5. Kamala Harris is not funny.
The main objective of any Al Smith Dinner speaker is to get laughs, and most politicians can achieve that with a decent joke writer, but can Kamala Harris? It’s true that many of her incomprehensible ramblings are unintentionally funny, but when she actually tries to be funny, she usually starts laughing at her own jokes while saying “Really? Really?” to a confused and obviously not laughing audience. This is just another side of the Vice President that the Hyden Harris campaign wants to keep secret.
Click here to get the FOX News app
Traditions are important to society. So is the ability to set it all aside, even in the midst of the most heated political climate, and remember that we are all human beings first. But unfortunately, such old-fashioned ideals don’t fit with Harris’ policies.
Harris not only wants us to hate each other for political reasons, she needs us to, because if Trump is a human being, a decent, pleasant person who simply has different political opinions, Harris has no reason to argue, so tradition, church, and basic decency be damned.
To read more articles by David Marcus click here
