Is Kamala Harris the next Richard Nixon?

Don’t laugh.

There are parallels.

Nixon served less that a full-term in the US Senate (1950-1953) representing California before he was tapped to run as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice presidential running mate in the 1952 election.

Harris also served a partial term (2017-2021) as the US Senator from California until she was elected by Joe Biden as his running mate in the 2020 presidential election.

Nixon ran for President when Eisenhower termed out.

He won the Republican nomination in 1960, but lost to John F. Kennedy in the presidential election.

Harris ran for President in 2020, dropped out after a dismal showing in Iowa, and then went on to become Vice President as part of the Democratic ticket in 2020.

After Biden dropped out she became her party’s nominee, but was defeated by Donald Trump last month.

Nixon’s defeat in 1960 wasn’t the end of his political career.

He resurfaced in California in 1962 to run for governor.

The fact he had been the Republican party’s nominee “cleared the field” in the primary but it didn’t translate into a general election victory when Edmund G. “Pat” Brown — future California Governor Jerry Brown — won re-election-election to a second term.

Nixon four years later became the first — and last so far — to enjoy success on a second run as a party’s standard bearer to win election as president.

He followed his 1968 victory with a landslide re-election in 1972.

Harris isn’t exactly Nixon. She’s from Oakland and Nixon was from Whittier.

But there were a lot of people who wrote off Nixon as being dead politically when he was beaten by Brown in 1962.

After all, he lost to the Democratic incumbent in what was then a California that was Republican haven just two years after he was his party’s candidate for the White House.

There, of course, was Nixon’s infamous remarks on Nov. 7, 1962 before 100 members of the media at the Beverly Hills.

It was when Nixon announced to the media, “you don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

Six years later, he was on the campaign trail where he punched his ticket to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Never say never.

Writing Harris’ political obituary, as some believe, is justified by her defeat against Trump is wildly premature.

There is a gubernatorial election in two years.

And even if she lost in 2026, she’d be 68 years old if she ran for president in 2032.

Nixon was 56 when he ran for president in 1968.

All of this is nice political candy for those that believe being President of the United States is “the” brass ring.

But what about California?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in Sacramento that will be paying 100 percent of their attention to California for four or eight years without scheming to abandon the Sacramento River for the Potomac River?

Should Harris run for governor, there are plenty of Democratic Party animals — including those who are already announced they’re running or are making all the prerequisite moves — that contend her entry would clear the field.

It would leave more than a sour taste if she treated California like a doormat If she ran and won in 2026 them immediately started positioning herself for a race for President in 2028.

From a what-is-best-for-California perspective — if there is such a thing most can agree on, her running and losing for governor could also effectively block the best candidate to be elected.

To be clear, if you think the next governor that will follow Gavin Newsom — who is clearly dreaming about DC in 2028 — will be anyone other than a Democrat, you might want to stop living in the fifth dimension.

Not the debated fifth dimension of physics, but the abstract fifth dimension of consciousness.

That brings us to La-La Land.

And we’re not referencing crazy LA ideas.

Instead, it is where the last big city mayor in California ruled as a moderate with more than moderate success.

Antonio Villaraigosa, who served as LA mayor from 2005 to 2013, is one of the candidates for governor that Harris’ entry into the race would supposedly “clear the field.”

He got aced out in the 2018 race for governor because Newsom, whose political savvy is laser focused except when’s he’s rubbing elbows with the elite at fancy restaurants like the French Laundry in Napa Valley during the depths of a pandemic, correctly viewed him as his biggest threat.

Instead of running per se against Republican John Cox in the primary, he spent dollars on campaigning designed to help Cox finish second.

The reason was simple.

In a three-way open primary race there was a good chance Villaraigosa would do more than peel off moderate Democratic voters but moderate Republicans as well,

Newsom correctly assumed a two-race race with a more moderate Villaraigosa compared his progressive politics might not end will for him.

Villaraigosa, as mayor of LA, expanded the police force that led to a subsequent drop in crime.

He successfully pushed ending the Purple Line — the so-called “Subway to the Sea.”

Besides stepping up public transit in a city that killed it in the 1930s, Villaraigosa instituted a series of traffic management initiatives that eased LA’s notorious commute.

When his bid to address underperforming schools in LA via help of special legislation in Sacramento was declared unconstitutional, he literally took matters into his own hands.

Villaraigosa founded the non-profit Mayor’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

Using corporate funding, the non-profit — operating under the auspices of the teachers’ agreement with Los Angeles Unified — ended up managing 21 schools that were the lowest performing.

The schools eventually made the largest gains in state testing scores. They are now among the best performing urban schools in California.

Not only is the non-profit still going strong but it includes the “Partnership’s Parent College.”

More than 10,000 of the 16,000 parents involved graduated from Parent College.

It should be noted that when Jerry Brown served as mayor of Oakland for eight years between his two eight year stretches as governor (1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019), his second time around running California was much more fiscally prudent.

It was also more down to earth.

As Brown pointed out, a mayor has to make such things like garbage is collected, police are patrolling the streets, toilets flush, and potholes fixed. It helped Brown bring a somewhat more practical mindset to the governor’s office the second time round.

There are also other gubernatorial hopefuls in the Democratic Party, such as Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who are 100 percent focused on California.

With all due respect to Harris, California might get to a better place without her using the 2026 governor’s race to try and replicate Nixon’s political feat.