—————– current events through a historical lens——————————-

At the time of writing this column, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is currently leading in most polls to win the Presidency of the United States.

With only three weeks before the election, the worst thing that could happen for the Harris campaign is a snide, off-the-cuff remark that could sway voters against her. Historically speaking, we have seen this before and it has derailed a candidate.

So, on Oct. 17, when the vice president responded to the shout of “Jesus is Lord” with “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” it felt like one of those moments where a small statement could have major effects. What was seen as a funny moment at the time, as the crowd broke into laughter, has changed some as the clip of Harris’ comment has gone viral. Whether she meant what she was saying or even if she was responding to other chants as her handlers are claiming, the clip looks bad.

Will it hurt her as much as other candidates? We do not know.

What I do know is that trying to be funny has hurt past candidates. In 1884, there was a similar attempt at humor that cost the Republican candidate a chance at the White House. That year Republicans had held the White House for 24 years and there was no reason to guess that would end any time soon. The problem was that the current Republican president was Chester Arthur, who took over the presidency when James Garfield died. Arthur was made vice president as a political compromise within the party and was never expected to actually be president.

So, in 1884 instead of running Arthur again, James Blaine, the leading Republican in Congress, decided to run himself. I have discussed this election recently. Blaine was accused of corruption while Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland was accused of immorality. In the end, personal corruption was seen as less an offense than public corruption and Cleveland won the day.

While Cleveland may have won either way, it did not help the Republican cause when the month before the election Blaine referred to the Democrats as a bunch of drunken Irishmen. What surely got a laugh from the audience quickly turned sour as Irishmen were a rather large voting bloc in the nation and this slightly turned the Irish against the GOP.

Later in 1920 the Democrats were coming off the 8-year stint of Woodrow Wilson in the White House and were hoping their new candidate, James Cox, could follow him.

As for VP, they went with a little-known navy man named Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Democrats had an uphill battle as Wilson left office, pushing the very unpopular League of Nations, and seemed to have little concern for the current recession.

The only thing that gave Democrats any chance was Cox’s personality. He was a great campaigner but did have the one flaw: offthe- cuff remarks that upset voters. During one speech he called the very respected Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge the “arch conspirator of the ages” and later he said, “every traitor in America will vote tomorrow for Harding.” It was these statements that caught up with him and hurt his chances of beating the charismatic Republican candidate Warren G. Harding.

There are two examples that are much more recent. In 2012 President Barack Obama was seeking a second term and was up against Republican candidate Mitt Romney. It was a tight election as Obama only won 51% of the popular vote. Romney was successful in attacking Obama on the economy and showcasing his own gains as governor of Massachusetts.

One thing that hurt Romney was a secret recording of him saying, “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-nameit – that that’s an entitlement.”

Romney had already been battling that his wealth made him out of touch with the general public and his off-thecuff remark made him come off as a rich elitist who did not care about the struggling poor.

While Romney and the Republicans probably believed the statement it was not a good look going into the election, four years later there was another remark meant to be funny that this time hurt the Democrats. This was the infamous 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Again, the polls were remarkably close, with most giving the nod to Clinton. There were a few things that hurt Clinton close to the election. One was the FBI dropped a bomb that they were reviewing a new batch of emails from the Democratic candidate that she might have mishandled classified material.

The other incident came from Clinton herself in a speech where she called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables,” labeling them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.”

While again Democrats probably believed it, the comment was seen as divisive and dismissive of a large segment of voters. It too made Clinton look out of touch with voters and hurt her in the coming election.

With major news networks not giving the rally much attention, I don’t see Harris’ comment moving the needle much. It may be like 2016 where the networks are calling for a narrow win for Harris the way they did for Clinton. But it was only after the election that the talking heads looked back and tried to figure out how Clinton had lost that they saw how much her statement had cost.

James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeakingl 776@gmail.com.