Ouch: It seems Kamala Harris is so afraid of having to be spontaneous in public, she’s skipping this year’s Al Smith dinner on Oct. 17.
A charity event that raises millions for the city’s unfortunate, the dinner has hosted the major-party rivals every four years (with just two exceptions) since 1960, when Richard Nixon dared to join John Kennedy, the first Catholic presidential nominee since Al Smith himself, on Catholic “turf.”
The candidates are supposed to deliver light jabs at each other in their dueling addresses, which plainly can be written in advance — but the program apparently has too many risks of being called upon for spontaneous reactions for Harris to agree.
The Democratic nominee has done vastly fewer non-Teleprompter events than any past major-party candidate; one of her allies claims Harris is just too busy — though that’s never stopped a sitting president from attending.
Kamala says she will do the Smith dinner in the future — if she wins in November. (Is that a carrot or a stick?)
As for those exceptions: One came in 1996, when the then-cardinal opted to invite neither nominee, presumably because President Bill Clinton had vetoed a bill that banned “abortions” of babies already partly out of the mother.
That could be Harris’ concern now, since she and running mate Tim Walz support unlimited abortion rights all the way through the ninth month of pregnancy. (Walz even signed a bill ensuring that babies born despite an attempted abortion would have no protections.)
But more likely, it’s just her fear of having to be spontaneous: After all, she just bungled a friendly conversation with Oprah Winfrey, who’s endorsed her.
That phobia must be pretty crippling: Harris has to know that the other exception came when Walter Mondale declined the invite in 1984 — and went on to lose 49 states in November.