Kamala Harris has always been known for her lean and hungry, pushy, grabby, ambition, which includes a willingness to sleep her way to the top to get what she wants. Her political start began as a social mountaineer with San Francisco's old-money Pacific Heights set dating from her 20s and then just moved onward and upward.

That's not sitting well with California's lizardy old-money senior Senator, Dianne Feinstein, who knows that establishment well.

And so, she's taking some action, as Fox News reports:

According to reports, Feinstein, the senior senator from the Golden State, will throw a fundraiser next month for Democratic 2020 presidential frontrunner Joe Biden -- and not for Harris, another White House contender whose poll numbers suggest she could probably use some high-profile help.

Feinstein and husband Richard Blum will co-host the Biden event Oct. 3 in San Francisco, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by CNBC. Feinstein first gave her backing to Biden in January, months before the former vice president made his campaign official in April.

 

“My candidate would be Joe Biden,” Feinstein told CNBC back then. “I watched him as vice president. I’ve seen him operate. I’ve seen him perform and I think he brings a level of experience and seniority, which I think is really important.”

 

The early evening reception will be the first that Feinstein hosts for Biden in the 2020 election, CNBC reported. Her husband has already participated in several fundraising events for Biden, who campaigned for Feinstein in 2018, when she was re-elected by a landslide.

Oh, spare us. Feinstein knows as well as anyone that old Joe is addled and gaffe-tastic. This is more likely about putting Kamala back in her place.

Fox News speculated that this fundraiser among the fatcat donors might just have been payback for Harris's nasty first-debate attack all but accusing Biden of being a Bull Conner racist. Remember Harris's phony earnestness in: "That little girl was me"?

Sure, it's possible. But it's also been known for close to a year that Feinstein considers Harris a wretched parvenu who hasn't paid her dues.

Remember this?

“I’m a big fan of Sen. Harris, and I work with her. But she’s brand-new here, so it takes a little bit of time to get to know somebody,” Feinstein said of the junior senator, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Her press secretary told CNN that Feinstein later added that she certainly likes her California colleague, saying, “Oh, I love Kamala.”

Translation in a plummy accent: Do we know her?

The lagniappe of 'Oh, I love Kamala,' straight from The Sloane Ranger Handbook, is a nice touch.

Hard to get a better old-money passive-aggressive remark than that one. People are either known or unknown in Feinstein's rich circles and it's pretty obvious to Feinstein that Kamala doesn't cut it.

What's more, Feinstein is a 'get off my lawn, whippersnappers' non-ideological sort of small-c conservative, or, as Fox News put it, she pulls rank. Remember this?

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein pulled rank Friday when a group of kids tried to school her on climate change.

After the group sought her support for the Green New Deal, the 85-year-old senior senator from California let them know she wasn't about to be bossed around by a bunch of youngsters.

"You know what’s interesting about this group?," Feinstein said, in an interaction that was captured on video. "I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing.

“You come in here, and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that,” Feinstein continued. “I’ve gotten elected, I just ran. I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality. And I know what I’m doing. So you know, maybe people should listen a little bit.

So just the fundraiser in Harris's home state of California was a shiv in the side to Kamala.

Why is that? 

Well, for one thing, the Democratic political set widely believes that to win the presidency, one must win California. Harris is from California, so that stacks things in her favor. 

Now Feinstein is marshalling money from California Biden's way? So that they give their money to him and feel 'donor fatigue' when Kamala comes calling?

The matter is compounded by the fact that the California Democratic campaign fatcats weren't impressed with Harris's performance in the third debate, as this CNBC report here indicates. Feinstein knows those people and may very well be egging them toward Biden, or at least piling on.

Here's another thing: Money from fatcats over little-people donations is Kamala's vulnerable spot. The queen of fake Twitter followers is also highly reliant on big dollar donors over the little guys, even as the New York Times tries to claim she's changing that. Well, maybe she is, but if she is, it would be in the infant stage and in any case, they're taking her word for it. More likely, she still relies on the big boys, because that's what she knows.

Which would mean that Feinstein's bid to separate Harris from that cash lifeline is like that of General Grant at Vicksburg, targeting Confederate supply lines. The California dinosaur strategizes.

The Feinstein fundraiser, which will channel and suction big money toward Biden, can't help but come at a cost to Harris. And Feinstein, right in the middle of the Pacific Heights crowd, is lobbing her cannon ball where the funds are richest and Kamala's ties are tightest.

It almost looks like a concerted chess move to checkmate the upstart. And given the evidence of Feinstein's antipathy toward Harris, one can't help but think it's all intentional.

Image credit: California National Guard, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0