Kamala Harris' past is going under a microscope. PA shows how MAGA may target her | Kelly

The past can be a sturdy anchor. It can also be a nettlesome drag. Like it or not, as F. Scott Fitzgerald surmised a century ago in "The Great Gatsby," we’re “borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

So it is now with Kamala Harris and J.D. Vance.

For Harris, the past is just 4 years old — her ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign, which veered into a ditch before the first primaries but left behind a string of progressive stances that she probably wants to forget now.

For Vance, the problems are like outtakes from a blooper reel about a bad spring break movie. They include his “Hitler” reference about his would-be boss in the White House, Donald Trump, and his “cat ladies” description of women who are not mothers. To name just a few.

Harris has yet to face the same blowback as Vance, who has been sputtering, meandering and digging deeper political holes as he tries to explain himself — especially to suburban women, who are considered a key voting bloc in the November presidential election. Still, it’s worth noting that Harris’ 2020 statements on defunding police, decriminalizing illegal immigration, granting health care to undocumented immigrants and having “a conversation” about whether to give voting rights to inmates on death row are exactly the kind of drag that politicians like to avoid as they start a race for the White House.

What's interesting now is how the past has affected Harris and Vance so differently.

How long will the Harris honeymoon last?

Harris has been experiencing a honeymoon of sorts in the two weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed her to replace him as the Democrats' presidential nominee. When that honeymoon ends is anyone’s guess.

MSNBC, the uber-lib cable channel that is as recklessly partisan as those uber-MAGA cable folks at Fox News, described Democrats on a “sugar high” over Harris’ breakout introduction to America as the party’s new standard bearer. Polls are looking better for Harris. Campaign cash is flowing in. As if that’s not enough, New York magazine’s cover story this week proclaims “Welcome to Kamalot” — with Harris crowned as the “future” of the Democratic Party and a variety of party luminaries, from Barack Obama to George Clooney and Chuck Schumer, caught in what seems to be a dance of joy.

Trump, meanwhile, seems to be searching for a punch to throw -- with the latest and perhaps most outrageous taking place on Wednesday, when Trump falsely raised a concern that Harris was not authentically Black. The statement, which came in answer to a question at a conference of African-American journalists echoed similar false statements by Trump a decade ago that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and, therefore, ineligible to be president. So far, the Trump campaign has also tried to paint Harris as a radical liberal with an irritating laugh that is a window into her mental state.

“You can tell a lot by a laugh,” Trump told an audience at one of his recent rallies. “She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”

Needless to say, the laugh label has fallen flat. And the question about whether Harris is really Black touched off a storm of criticism. But Trump is apparently undeterred. During a recent interview on Fox News with Laura Ingraham, Trump referred to the Harris campaign as a “con job” — another line that fell flat.

Undeterred, Trump then said of Harris: “She’s plain weird. She’s a weird person. Look at her past. Look at what she does.”

It needs to be said here that Trump seems incapable of stopping himself from junior high name-calling as his weapon of choice or just embracing falsehoods. In that same conversation with Ingraham, Trump also detoured into his own version of sports commentary, declaring, for no apparent reason, that President Joe Biden is “a terrible golfer.”

This is classic Trump. After all these years in the public spotlight, he still can’t seem to find a way to turn off his need to go off-script into a meaningless “riff.”

Democrats should not get too cocky, however. Buried in that silly reference about Harris being “weird” and the put-down of Biden’s alleged golfing abilities, Trump also blurted what just might be the most effective strategy for Republicans to strip away the “sugar high” from Harris: “Look at her past.”

More Mike Kelly: Political insults — from MAGA and Democrats — need to stop. We deserve debate

What is the GOP strategy to skewer Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania?

Actually, the Republican effort to “look at her past” has already started, in a seemingly strange place.

Welcome to Pennsylvania. In the Democrats' blue bubbles of New York, New Jersey and other party fiefdoms along the Eastern Seaboard, we haven’t seen political ads on TV that are critical of Harris — not yet, anyway.

But Pennsylvania is different. It’s neither Democratic blue or Republican red. Color Pennsylvania purple — meaning that its voters can flip one way or the other. To say that the state’s 19 Electoral College votes — one fewer than in 2020 — are key to Trump or Harris winning the presidency in November is an understatement.

So consider what is taking place in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania between Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr. and the Republican challenger David McCormick, a West Point graduate and former Treasury undersecretary in the George W. Bush administration.

This week, McCormick’s campaign posted a new campaign video advertisement that is so focused on Harris that voters can be forgiven if they wonder whether McCormick is running for president.

Yes, the ad mentions Casey — but only with him praising Harris as "inspiring." The ad then switches gears and ticks off a litany of statements by Harris in 2020 that presumably place her on the left side of Pennsylvania’s purplish swing voters.

For example, Harris in 2020 wanted to ban “fracking,” the controversial but lucrative technology for extracting oil from shale deposits that was widely popular in western Pennsylvania. The ad also touched on Harris’ support for efforts, largely by progressive Democrats, to decriminalize illegal immigration and expand health care coverage to undocumented immigrants. As a finishing touch and important to Pennsylvania, the ad also drew attention to Harris’ efforts to pass a “Green New Deal,” to impose regulations on consumption of red meat and to ban offshore oil drilling.

Memo to Democrats: Pay attention to this. You may be imaging a new “Kamalot” at the White House. But the road to the White House for Harris is about to get rough. She definitely has a past that can't be sugarcoated all that easily.

Just look at the road J.D. Vance is now trying to navigate as he tries to avoid his own past and its potholes.

Vance’s past has caught up with him. The question now is whether Harris can outrun hers.

Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, as well as the author of three critically acclaimed nonfiction books and a podcast and documentary film producer. A paperback edition with an updated epilogue of his 1995 book, "Color Lines," which chronicles race relations in a small New Jersey town after a police shooting and was called "American journalism at its best" by the Washington Post, was released last year. To get unlimited access to his insightful thoughts on how we live life in the Northeast, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: JD Vance past caught up with him. Can Kamala Harris outrun hers?