Meet The Phantom Candidate

by Brent E. Zepke, Esq

To my amazement, I watched a very successful executive say to Joe Kernan, on Squawk Box on CNBC, that in November he was voting for a candidate for president of the U.S. that does not exist; i.e., a phantom candidate. He said he was casting his vote for Kamala Harris. When Kernan asked if the executive supported Kamala Harris’s handling of the border, he responded “No, but as the election draws near, she will move to the center.”

When Joe asked if he supported Harris’s program to open the border, he responded “No, but as the election draws near, she will move to the center.”

Same answer when Joe asked if he supported her banning fracking or raising taxes.  

While Joe did not ask if he supported her proposals to eliminate ICE, provide reparations based on race, confiscate guns, empty prisons, eliminate private healthcare for Medicare for all, programs she has supported, he probably would have responded “No, but as the election nears, she will move closed to the center.”

The “Move To The Center” Gambit

Why would Vice-President Harris “move closer to the center?”

Why change when her philosophy in her first 59 years – she turns 60 in October – enabled her to become the District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of California, U.S. Senator from California, and Vice President of the U.S.?

But has Kamala ever won a primary?

No.

Her well-financed presidential campaign in 2019 was such a disaster that she withdrew before the first primary.

Perhaps a future trivia question will be created with her name being the correct answer, of “Has anyone ever been a major political party’s nominee without ever winning a single primary?”

Harris may not “move to the center,” but her campaign will.

The CHNV Program

Kamala Harris’s managing of the border is an example of her campaign “moving to the center.” Shortly after she was crowned the Democrat nominee, Border Czar Harris, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) head, Alejandro Mayorkas, announced they were suspending flights they had been using for years to bring Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV), into the U.S.

The CHNV program has brought in 500,000 “parolees,” of which there were 104,130 Cubans, 194,027 Haitians, 86,101 Nicaraguans, and 110,541 Venezuelans.  

Can anyone identify four worse countries in the western hemisphere than communist Cuba, Haiti (so lawless the U.S. closed its embassy and evacuated personnel), Nicaragua (the State Department has issued a warning not to visit), and Venezuela (the recent election was so corrupt even the White House refuses to accept the announced results)?

An internal review from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) identified tens of thousands of potentially fraudulent CHNV applications called I-134A forms. An audit of these I-134A applications (filled out online by foreign nationals) show that thousands were using the same IP address, Social Security numbers of dead people, fake phone numbers, and nearly 20,000 of them listed the same address.

In the rare occurrences where a few border crossers are deported – perhaps by a judge after committing a crime – Mayorkas created a policy in which, after some countries refuse to accept their citizens being deported back from the U.S., federal agencies are to release them into the U.S. 

I do not see the value of deporting anyone as long as we have an open border.

A coalition of 21 attorneys general, led by Texas, have filed suit to terminate the CHNV program. House Republicans used those stats as evidence for the impeachment of Mayorkas. Democrats, including Congressman Salud Carbajal, voted against it.

Then Kamala Harris seemed to have won the Democrat Party nomination.  

After which, on August 2, 2024, the DHS “temporarily paused” the issuance of advanced travel authorizations and suspended flying the unvetted parolees in so they were not counted in the border numbers, while it undertakes a review of supporter applications.   

Not canceled but “temporality paused” and “suspended.”

Until when? The day after the election?

Are Democrats hoping you will vote for a candidate that does not exist?

The Phantom of Washington, D.C.

The Phantom of the Opera is described as secretive and controlling, and he likes it that way. He rarely interacts with the public, and when he does, he may be reading the words someone else wrote.

Kamala Harris is secretive and controlling and likes it that way. She rarely interacts with the public and when she does, she reads material written by others. She too always wears the same costume while varying the colors. She is not, however, someone who “will move closer to the center” any time soon. Unless you believe that a successful, 60-year-old will completely reverse her beliefs.

A vote for Kamala Harris, in other words, will be a vote for the phantom candidate: a candidate who only exists in fiction.

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