Seems old Willie Brown, the wizened lizard of California politics, knew what he was talking about when he said his former mistress, Kamala Harris, didn't have what it took to make it to the Democratic Party nomination for president.

That's an understatement, given the slow-motion train wreck that her political campaign has now morphed into.

According to a devastating exposé of the Harris campaign by Christopher Cadelago of Politico:

BALTIMORE — Kamala Harris' campaign is careening toward a crackup.

As the California senator crisscrosses the country trying to revive her sputtering presidential bid, aides at her fast-shrinking headquarters are deep into the finger-pointing stages. And much of the blame is being placed on campaign manager Juan Rodriguez.

...and...

"It's a campaign of id," said one senior Harris official, laying much of the blame on Rodriguez, but also pointing to a leaderless structure at the top that's been allowed to flail without accountability. "What feels right, what impulse you have right now, what emotion, what frustration," the official added. The person described the current state of the campaign in blunt terms: "No discipline. No plan. No strategy."

That would be the same Harris who's currently pulling in 1% in the polls and who, not too long ago, scoffed at fellow candidate Tulsi Gabbard as someone to ignore on the snobbish grounds that she was a "top-tier" candidate.  "Woof," wrote Chris Cillizza in response to that.  "First of all, if you are running for president and you hear the words, "This is going to sound immodest" come out of your mouth, it may be best to recalibrate what you are going to say."

These days, Tulsi's pulling six times Kamala's numbers in New Hampshire and is likely to have a podium in the next Democratic debate.

Kamala just keeps sliding farther and farther downward, and when you're at one percent in the polls, there isn't much left.

It's a fitting ending for the Democratic field's most obnoxiously phony of all candidates. 

And analytically, it makes sense, too. 

The Politico report talks of a passive campaign manager who takes orders from Harris's sister, Maya, and never gets any credit for whatever good he does, shouldering all the responsibility for failures and no power to make decisions.  That's miserable stuff for anyone, of course, which is why Harris's team is leaving in droves, one step ahead of layoffs.

Harris, though, never really has had experience running things, which would tend to validate the Politico picture.  Her career has always been focused on looking upward, finding the next sugar daddy to suck up to.  Remember how she fought to keep prisoners from being released from their completed terms because she wanted them to be on hand to fight California's forest fires?  Obviously, she was looking to please someone above her and too bad about the prisoners.  That whole picture of always looking for someone to suck up to was also evident in this earlier Politico exposé of her early history, and it's certainly clear enough in the famous story of her sleeping her way to the top with Willie Brown.  My own commentary on that is here. 

It's also clear enough in the chaotic way she ran the California attorney general's office.  Remember how she had a big-time sex harasser on her staff and claimed she knew nothing about it?  We wrote that off as a cover-up, but it's also quite possible she literally didn't know what was happening in her own office.

In short, she's never run anything with underlings because she was so busy looking upward, and any time she did, there was chaos.

Now her presidential campaign, in its death throes, is some kind of snake pit.  Obviously, this is a sign of someone who's not presidential material.  No matter how many affirmative action boxes she can check with the Democratic identity politics crowd.

Good riddance, too.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.