On Monday night during a series of televised CNN town halls with several of the Democratic candidates for president, Sens. Kamala Harris (CA) and Bernie Sanders (VT) both made startling statements about the rights of violent felons to vote.

Sanders, whose home state of Vermont is one of only two in the nation to allow imprisoned felons to vote, stated unequivocally that he supported the right to vote for “even for terrible people” who were in prison. When Harris was asked the same question in her town hall, she hedged a bit but ultimately ended up saying “I think we should have that conversation.”

Just a day later, she’s singing a different tune:

“I’m running for President of the United States, I’m going to be very thoughtful and serious about the issues I weigh in on,” Harris told reporters. “I’m going to think about it, and I’m going to talk to experts, and I’m gonna make a decision and I’ll let you know. I will tell you this: One, it’s a complex issue, I’m fully aware of that. Two, we right now have got a lot of work to do with the people in our country who have served their time and have been prohibited from voting.

[…]

“But, do I think people who commit murder, or people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights?” Harris asked. “Yeah, I do. I’m a prosecutor, I believe in terms of, there has to be serious consequences for the most extreme types of crimes.”

Watch video of her Monday town hall remarks and her Tuesday press gaggle answers below:

Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris changes her tune about letting convicted terrorists vote in U.S. elections less than 24 hours after being asked about it during a CNN town hall. pic.twitter.com/XMqeVNkgUm

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 24, 2019

You know, as someone who has had a change of heart on a number of issues over the years (I used to be a liberal), I understand that people’s minds can change on things over time. But this was, like, less than 24 hours. Clearly the bad press she and Sanders received in the aftermath of their answers on the question of allowing Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the right to vote in prison made Harris less eager to have that “conversation” she said we should have.

So was she really being “thoughtful” about the issue, as she told the reporters on Tuesday? No, says Hot Air‘s Ed Morrissey:

Ahem. This flip-flop proves that Harris isn’t being “thoughtful” at all. The original question got explicitly framed around the example of a murdering terrorist, the surviving Boston Marathon bomber. Tsarnaev placed his bomb next to an eight-year-old little boy, for heaven’s sake, and then led police on a murderous spree until he got cornered and finally surrendered like the coward he is.

Yet on Monday night, Tsarnaev’s ability to vote was worth a national “conversation,” mainly because Bernie Sanders startled her into reacting rather than thinking. Now Harris wants to backtrack, helped along by media outlets like SFGate in this case, describing this reversal as “Harris clarified her position.” No, Harris didn’t “clarify” her position — she outright changed it as the ridiculousness of arguing for Tsarnaev’s voting rights belatedly dented her consciousness long after everyone else realized how nutty Harris sounded.

Exactly.

It shouldn’t take anyone, much less a former state attorney general, nearly 24 hours to figure out that no debate is needed on voting rights for murderers and rapists who will spend the rest of their lives in jail.

Harris blew it on her answer big time in front of a large TV audience, and no amount of her “clarifying” her stance on the issue will change that.

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—Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–