MADAME PRESIDENT
Kamala Harris is not a liability. She may be Democrats’ best weaponREPUBLICANS REAL FEAR
Opinion by Basil Smikle
Wed, December 27, 2023
CNN Opinion
In a more normal world, our national split screen displaying a fractious and fragmented Republican conference, with Democrats fairly united by comparison, might have elevated President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election prospects.
Instead, he faces downward spiraling poll numbers amid a fixation over a handful of issues that I consider relatively ancillary, among them, the public hand-wringing over his age.
Discussions about whether at 81, Biden is too old to be president, have fed a rancorous debate about the qualifications of his vice president and 2024 running mate Kamala Harris. Biden’s second-in-command, a former US senator and California attorney general, is being dragged down by a barrage of tropes, the kinds of chatter that many women and racial minorities frequently confront in politics.
Much of the tiresome chatter within the Washington beltway in recent months has tried to raise doubts about Harris’ readiness to lead, should she ever be called upon to step in for Biden.
Sadly, some Democrats may be culpable in allowing those narratives to gather steam. That’s especially unfortunate because the nitpicky critiques have only served to obscure the public’s appreciation of what has been a highly successful administration.
Some within the party have complained that Harris is endangering the odds for victory at the ballot box next year. As some Republican trolls suggest that a vote for Biden could be a vote for Harris, who is 59, opponents of the president think they can attack him by aiming barbs at her.
In reality, Democrats have no reason to soft-peddle their support for Harris. In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll put Harris out front and center during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Not only is she not a drag on the ticket, but Harris may prove hugely instrumental in helping clinch a victory in next year’s presidential race. Happily, the Biden campaign seems to finally be coming around and embracing smart ways to make the best use of Harris’ talents and impressive resume. She might just be the party’s secret weapon heading into the 2024 election.
Yes, it’s true that Harris is underwater broadly with voters, as is Biden. A Los Angeles Times average released this month showed that 39% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Harris and 55% had an unfavorable opinion, roughly in line with the president’s numbers.
But a New York Times/Siena College polls of battleground states released in November showed that Harris was considerably more popular than Biden among nonwhite voters and voters under the age of 30, segments of the American public whose support is indispensable if the president is to win reelection.
The campaign seems to be fully aware of that: The White House announced this week that Harris will be taking the lead in the administration’s messaging on abortion, which many see as one of the issues most likely to motivate women, young people and progressives to the polls.
And a lot has been said about Biden’s flagging support among Black and brown voters in recent polling. With Harris campaigning by his side, and out on the stump on her own, Biden will have a somewhat easier challenge getting Black voters and voters of color to come home on election day. At a time when the support of people of color is softer than it has been in some time, Harris’ value cannot be overstated.
Her appeal to non-White voters, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, may in fact be her greatest value to the party’s 2024 prospects. Harris is a woman with Indian and Jamaican parentage who intentionally rooted herself in the Black community by attending Howard University and joining the first black Greek-letter sorority in the nation. Many voters of color are only too aware of that background — and celebrate it.
In contrast to pundits who seem determined to see her as a liability, I’ve been saying for some time that she should be given a stronger public platform as a way of highlighting her successes. After all, a veep who is seen as competent, capable and ready to lead can only be a good thing for any presidential ticket.
But it’s not just about the competence that she exudes: More Americans than ever view themselves with an intersectionality that will soon no longer need the validation of a White male leader to succeed. Harris has changed the permission structure within her party and among the electorate. Her outreach will be particularly important among young voters.
Biden won 60% of voters under 30 in the 2020 election and this group will be critically important again to clinching a victory in 2024. In addition to next month’s push on abortion, the campaign is ramping up its outreach to Gen Z voters on various fronts.
In September and October, Harris’ “Fight for Our Freedoms” tour took her to college campuses across eight states, in a bid to continue the administration’s outreach to this vitally important group. Harris’ portfolio of reproductive rights, voting rights and discrimination in education is tailor-made to appeal to this cadre of voters.
Another issue in her portfolio that young people care deeply about is immigration — a historically thorny topic, but one she can address firsthand. In fact, when confronted at a college campus in Flagstaff, Arizona about America’s immigration policies, Harris cited her own “lived experience” as the daughter of an immigrant mother for how she approaches the issue.
Here’s another reason for Democrats to celebrate Kamala: She is the very embodiment of what the party aspires to be — the kind of figure who inspired millions of people like me to enter the political arena. Jesse Jackson’s prime time exhortation at the 1988 Democratic National Convention for the party to embrace the country’s diversity inspired countless GenXers like me to become politically active.
Jackson’s speech also gave us a front row seat to a highly impactful phenomenon: the explosion of women candidates and candidates of color running for seats at multiple levels of government accompanied by the coded language and spurious metrics used to judge their qualifications.
The echoes of the kinds of criticism Harris is facing is all too familiar to me. Similar threads go back to Shirley Chisholm’s race for the White House in 1972, and should have been excised from our national discourse decades ago. It’s the kind of pushback that is vexing and unfortunately not all that unusual when a Black woman reaches the pinnacle of political power.
For leaders of color in the public and private sectors, everything from their speech, clothing and mannerisms are scrutinized. Women in particular navigate a male dominated construct of leadership and stereotypical views of femininity. These pressures also force many Black leaders to decide between race-conscious and race-neutral policymaking with a tendency toward incrementalism that drives more skepticism of motives. For Kamala Harris to have risen to historic heights in our nation, any notion of weak political and substantive bona fides should be outright dismissed.
Given what a potentially important asset she is, one can only ask why she has been so underappreciated and underrated? Criticism of Harris by detractors who question her value on the Democratic 2024 ticket has not abated, despite the increasingly prominent role she has played in the Biden re-election campaign in recent months.
Republicans, only too happy to exploit this opening, can cause irreparable and long-lasting damage — and that wouldn’t just hurt Harris. The Democratic party, and its election prospects in 2024, will suffer if the party doesn’t defend her more forcefully.
Even as Harris ramps up her outreach to Gen Z voters, it seems more than likely that she will face an enormous challenge: unhappiness from some young voters about the administration’s position on Israel. The issue thus far has proven to be a divisive one for the party, as she works to help unify fractious elements of her party, the president’s change of tone on the war notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, the vice president can offer an aspirational economic message to these young voters whose enthusiasm is blunted by an inability to financially plan for their future. It’s not a panacea, but it is an important overture and a lot is riding on her success.
The 2020 ticket of Biden and Harris stemmed the reclamation and retribution movement of Trumpism. The president may be equally important as a transitional leader bridging an old and new electoral coalition. And his administration can tout achievements from investments in infrastructure to increased funding for transportation to reductions in prescription drug costs. These have been bolstered in no small part by the vice president’s contributions.
Democrats must embrace what Republicans have long feared: that this vice presidency is not just about advancing Washington’s parochial policymaking interests. It is also about a bridge to the party’s future, helmed by one of the most unfailing party leaders there is — a Black woman.
Editor’s Note: Basil A. Smikle Jr., PhD, is a professor and director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute of Hunter College – City University of New York. He is also a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
Is Dubai Harris the Kamala everyone has been waiting for? Will she convince doubters?
Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY
Wed, December 27, 2023
WASHINGTON — When a temporary cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war collapsed, Vice President Kamala Harris found herself in United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, pulling aside sheiks, generals and powerful Middle Eastern leaders.
When she was done, she emphasized the Biden administration’s staunch support for Israel’s right to defend itself after the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage. But she also made clear Washington’s mood had shifted as the civilian death toll surged.
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating,” Harris said, raising her right index finger as she delivered the sternest U.S. warning yet to Israel about the Gaza offensive.
"As Israel defends itself," she said. "It matters how."
For more than a century, the one cardinal rule for America's vice presidents has been: Don't get in front of the boss. Had Harris? No, instead, this was the moment the White House united behind her, listened to her concerns about Gaza’s body count as the war roiled global opinion and the Democratic base.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is sworn in during the 2021 presidential inauguration of Joe Biden at the U.S. Capitol.
Harris’ remarks that day, her command of the room, were a glimpse of the politician whose potential seemed unlimited just four years ago but whose image and presidential prospects have together dimmed under the intense scrutiny that followed her ascent to the second-highest office in the land.
Her supporters chalk it up to sexism, racism and unfair media coverage of the first Black woman to serve as vice president. Harris’ detractors point to her tendency to laugh through uncomfortable situations and sidestep direct questions with rambling answers. Others can’t seem to get a read on who she is.
Whatever the case, on this aspect, much of America seems to agree: Harris has an uneven record and is not ready to claim the mantle of party leader. More worrisome, are the criticisms that she lacks foreign policy experience and isn’t fit to step into the Oval Office if Joe Biden’s presidency takes an unexpected turn.
At her October stop at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, sophomore Andrew Baxley, who chairs the school’s College Democrats of America chapter, asked about steps the administration is taking to secure reproductive rights − low-hanging fruit for the former California attorney general.
Baxley actually wanted to ask Harris about knottier topics such as Biden’s decision to allow construction to move ahead on a section of border wall. That did not fly.
The White House advertised the campus appearances as moderated conversations; it didn’t disclose the extent to which the events were scripted. Students were asked to submit questions on abortion, gun violence, climate change, voting and LGBTQ rights. They held a Zoom prior and rehearsed the rundown.
On the day of the event, Harris answered Baxley’s question. Her response drew applause, but Baxley was unsatisfied as he watched Harris handled, scripted and managed in ways that undercut her image as a leader. It was not the same Harris – the unfettered Harris – that wowed a global audience in the UAE. With the election 11 months away, and the presidency on the line, the deciding factor could be whether voters think Harris could really do Biden's job. Sending Dubai Harris to American swing states could be exactly what the ailing campaign needs.
Backstage at the college event, Baxley tried asking Harris his other question. An aide shooed him along.
Baxley felt shortchanged, unable to walk away with a positive opinion of Harris. “And I feel as though, had I been able to really have a more personal connection with her, and possibly speak more in depth with her, that could have been possible.”
The role of the VP ‘sucks most of the time’
Harris' allies have been warning the White House about the severity of her image problems for years.
Part of the issue stems from being number two when she was always a number one, used to accumulating a series of firsts as a Black woman and of South Asian descent: district attorney of San Francisco, California attorney general and U.S. senator. Harris blazed trails, forging her own path and making up her own mind.
Early on, she had to get in line with Biden’s agenda, a quirk of the job that has caused her remarks to frequently come across as stilted. Harris’ positions as a candidate were to the left of Biden's on many issues, and she was not helped by White House assignments that were a poor fit for her skill set.
Biden’s tasking of Harris to solve the root causes of mass migration to the southern border in 2021 was especially egregious. The most experience that Harris had dealing with Central America prior to the arrangement was arresting and prosecuting human and drug traffickers. She would inevitably be compared to Biden, who, perhaps unfairly, had himself been charged with playing migration 'bad cop' by former President Barack Obama.
The test led to a major setback. So, Harris allies pushed for more public appearances in places like South Carolina, in front of voting blocs that are prone to like her.
In early December, Beaufort County Democrats gathered for a gala on St. Helena Island. The function’s speaker was Congressional Black Caucus Chair emerita Joyce Beatty, on behalf of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign.
Beatty pushed aside remarks that Biden’s aides had given her to read and began to riff about the duo’s record with gusto. The Ohio congresswoman told attendees she had recently challenged one of Harris' Democratic detractors to name the last 20 people who’d held her job.
“The vice president’s job sucks most of the time,” Beatty told the crowd to laughter.
President Barack Obama walks with California Attorney General Kamala Harris, center, and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, after arriving at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, on Feb. 16, 2012.
Vice presidents run the risk of being too good at their jobs and getting accused of trying to outshine their bosses, she explained. “The role of the vice president is to do what the president tells them to do,” Beatty said.
It was not always this way with Harris. Obama complimented her as brilliant, dedicated and tough. She won a U.S. Senate seat in 2016 on the same night the country elected Donald Trump.
Harris’ supporters are still in awe of how she hammered future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Among Harris’ die-hard fans are John Glover. A retired IT manager from St. Helena Island, he spent nearly five decades in Berkeley, California, where Harris was raised.
Glover, who turns 80 in January, has a photo of himself standing with Harris as his cellphone background. The picture was taken when she was campaigning for president in 2019.
“I fell in love with her the first time I met her,” he said.
Authentic Harris appears behind closed doors
Riding an adrenaline high after three days of meetings with Asian-Pacific leaders, a more authentic version of Harris was on display at a campaign reception in Piedmont, California, in November.
Her comfort was palpable in a room filled with dear friends and top donors. Together they laughed. They clapped. Harris’ amiable husband, Doug Emhoff, introduced her.
Harris turned her gaze to a small group of reporters standing at the back of the room.
“When people want to talk about the polls, on and on about the polls, let me tell you: Everything we have accomplished is highly, highly popular with the American people,” she said.
Biden and Harris had been hit with a wave of negative surveys that showed them losing to Trump and saying that they were in trouble.
Even now, as her vice presidency has stabilized, she has not entirely restored her credibility, although she has done a better job at making the role her own.
Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California, with Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, present Rules Committee report, during the Democratic National Convention Sept. 4, 2012 in Charlotte, N.C.
In South Carolina, Lynn Lotz, a Hilton Head Island resident, said Harris “was given tasks that she should not have been given early on, because I think that put her a step back instead of moving her forward.”
“I don’t think she had the support behind her that she needed,” said Lotz, who met Harris at a Democratic convention in 2019.
The vice president's political opponents, such as GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, have turned Harris’ failures into campaign attacks, deriding her more incoherent comments as word salads.
“Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to know where up is. And we’re there. The one thing I don’t think we can survive is a President Kamala Harris,” Haley told a Bluffton, South Carolina, crowd in late November.
Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota who is challenging Biden for president, came under scrutiny last month for repeating critiques he said had been shared with him that Harris is incompetent. He later apologized and suggested that Harris should be running instead of Biden.
Anne Moncure, 67, a retired health care facility administrator from Beaufort County who hoped Democrats would come up with an alternative to Biden this year, doesn’t think Harris is up to the task of commander-in-chief. The role of the vice presidency, she says, should be a mentored one.
“How is Biden preparing her for the role?” she asked.
Harris was unavailable for an interview for this article.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement the president views the vice president as a "critical partner" in the successes of the administration including the restoration of America's alliances around the world.
"The President deeply values her counsel, which he seeks often, and her leadership on a wide range of issues from reproductive freedom, to artificial intelligence" Bates said.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California speaks as she accepts the nomination for Vice President of the United States, during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.
Is Harris turning it around?
For the first time in months, Biden and Harris met for a private lunch on Dec. 15. It’s a tradition that Biden began when he was vice president to Obama to help the men of different ages and lived experiences bond.
But the dynamics of the relationship between Biden, 81, and Harris, 59, are starkly different. As vice president, Biden was seen as the adult in the room to a younger president, who possessed far less experience. Harris was chosen as vice president in large measure to excite the party’s progressive base.
In recent months, she has demonstrated a keen understanding of the politics of the Israel-Hamas war and of the political peril that she and Biden face as they head into an election year in which they believe American democracy is truly on the line.
The criticisms of Harris have lessened as the White House has gotten better at utilizing her on issues that fire up progressives and on which she and Biden largely agree.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris was responsible for making abortion rights a centerpiece of her and Biden’s midterm elections platform. Supporters had pushed for her to be the one to rally Democrats, effectively marking a turning point for Harris.
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, react as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presents lawmakers with a Ukrainian flag autographed by front-line troops in Bakhmut, in Ukraine's contested Donetsk province, as he addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022.
Vice President Kamala Harris enters Michie Stadium for the 2023 Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony on the campus of U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday, May 27, 2023.
In January, Harris will embark on a nationwide tour to promote the abortion rights message. Her first stop? The battleground state of Wisconsin.
National tours have helped Harris reach a critical constituency: voters who are unfamiliar with work she did that took place during the pandemic and behind closed doors.
“I’m always wondering, why am I not hearing about her?” said Julie Raino, a 66-year-old grief counselor who lives on Hilton Head Island. “The fact that I have to look for her is really strange.”
Raino says she admired the way Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, challenged Biden during a heated Democratic primary debate, telling him she was bused to elementary school during an exchange over integration. Raino says she wants to see more of Harris.
“I really loved her when she was running for office,” Raino said. “And I thought in that debate she was amazing and she could stand up to even Biden.”
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris greets supporters at a election night rally Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 in Los Angeles.
Harris lays groundwork in South Carolina
When it was time for Biden’s team to file paperwork to appear on the ballot in South Carolina this year, it turned to campaign co-chair and former Democratic majority leader Jim Clyburn. Harris joined Clyburn in Columbia, the state capital.
Appearing before a small group of supporters, Harris called the influential Democrat a friend. “It was South Carolina that created the path to the White House for Joe Biden and me,” she told them.
Clyburn and Harris were both members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He endorsed Biden for the presidency after Harris left the race at the request of his wife, Emily. It was her dying wish.
He has since become one of Harris’ most vocal defenders. “People walk around and find reasons to criticize, and then every time she has been called to step up to the plate, she's hit a home run,” Clyburn said.
Harris has been paying more frequent visits to the state that will hold the first, sanctioned Democratic presidential primary. She has traveled there twice since mid-October. Harris made a stop at Benedict College, a historically Black university in Columbia, on another trip last February. And she has a trip planned for Jan. 6.
It's only natural she'd want to deepen her relationships in the state with an eye toward a 2028 presidential bid, activists say.
“I think that she gets it. She knows that you have to be here in South Carolina the same way Vice President Biden got it,” says Christale Spain, who chairs the state’s Democratic Party.
Harris’ own political operation in South Carolina was never tested. She shut down her financially struggling campaign on Dec. 3, 2019, a day before the conclusion of the state’s filing period.
“She still has a lot of relationships that she can still tap into when she's going back to South Carolina on the campaign trail,” said Jalisa Washington Price, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign in South Carolina and Harris’ former deputy political director.
One of Harris’ campaign stops at the time was Royal Missionary Baptist Church. Biden later came to the church in the primary. A photo of him with the Rev. Isaac Holt Jr. still hangs on the minister’s wall.
Holt says much of Harris’ political future, her ability to put together a winning coalition in 2028 to land the party’s nomination, will depend on the rest of Biden’s tenure.
“It’s going to be a tough one. I don't think it's going to be a gimme. I don't think it'd be automatic,” said Holt, 70. “But she's in a better position right now than anybody else.”
Potential rivals, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are already signaling they might challenge her. She must convince voters that she's uniquely suited for the job.
Baxley, the college Democrat, said he’s leaning toward Newsom but hasn’t counted out Harris – yet.
Losing to any of the Republican candidates in this election could be a dealbreaker.
“I'm looking for a strong Democratic candidate, and if she loses in 2024, that's kind of my statement on President Harris,” Baxley said.
It’s a heavy burden for a vice president who would face more far-reaching political damage if the Biden-Harris ticket fails.
But as Harris herself has said, now is not the moment for that conversation.
Vice President Kamala Harris takes a photo with supporters after speaking during a vaccine mobilization event at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit on Monday, July 12, 2021.
In a more normal world, our national split screen displaying a fractious and fragmented Republican conference, with Democrats fairly united by comparison, might have elevated President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election prospects.
Instead, he faces downward spiraling poll numbers amid a fixation over a handful of issues that I consider relatively ancillary, among them, the public hand-wringing over his age.
Discussions about whether at 81, Biden is too old to be president, have fed a rancorous debate about the qualifications of his vice president and 2024 running mate Kamala Harris. Biden’s second-in-command, a former US senator and California attorney general, is being dragged down by a barrage of tropes, the kinds of chatter that many women and racial minorities frequently confront in politics.
Much of the tiresome chatter within the Washington beltway in recent months has tried to raise doubts about Harris’ readiness to lead, should she ever be called upon to step in for Biden.
Sadly, some Democrats may be culpable in allowing those narratives to gather steam. That’s especially unfortunate because the nitpicky critiques have only served to obscure the public’s appreciation of what has been a highly successful administration.
Some within the party have complained that Harris is endangering the odds for victory at the ballot box next year. As some Republican trolls suggest that a vote for Biden could be a vote for Harris, who is 59, opponents of the president think they can attack him by aiming barbs at her.
In reality, Democrats have no reason to soft-peddle their support for Harris. In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll put Harris out front and center during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Not only is she not a drag on the ticket, but Harris may prove hugely instrumental in helping clinch a victory in next year’s presidential race. Happily, the Biden campaign seems to finally be coming around and embracing smart ways to make the best use of Harris’ talents and impressive resume. She might just be the party’s secret weapon heading into the 2024 election.
Yes, it’s true that Harris is underwater broadly with voters, as is Biden. A Los Angeles Times average released this month showed that 39% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Harris and 55% had an unfavorable opinion, roughly in line with the president’s numbers.
But a New York Times/Siena College polls of battleground states released in November showed that Harris was considerably more popular than Biden among nonwhite voters and voters under the age of 30, segments of the American public whose support is indispensable if the president is to win reelection.
The campaign seems to be fully aware of that: The White House announced this week that Harris will be taking the lead in the administration’s messaging on abortion, which many see as one of the issues most likely to motivate women, young people and progressives to the polls.
And a lot has been said about Biden’s flagging support among Black and brown voters in recent polling. With Harris campaigning by his side, and out on the stump on her own, Biden will have a somewhat easier challenge getting Black voters and voters of color to come home on election day. At a time when the support of people of color is softer than it has been in some time, Harris’ value cannot be overstated.
Her appeal to non-White voters, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, may in fact be her greatest value to the party’s 2024 prospects. Harris is a woman with Indian and Jamaican parentage who intentionally rooted herself in the Black community by attending Howard University and joining the first black Greek-letter sorority in the nation. Many voters of color are only too aware of that background — and celebrate it.
In contrast to pundits who seem determined to see her as a liability, I’ve been saying for some time that she should be given a stronger public platform as a way of highlighting her successes. After all, a veep who is seen as competent, capable and ready to lead can only be a good thing for any presidential ticket.
But it’s not just about the competence that she exudes: More Americans than ever view themselves with an intersectionality that will soon no longer need the validation of a White male leader to succeed. Harris has changed the permission structure within her party and among the electorate. Her outreach will be particularly important among young voters.
Biden won 60% of voters under 30 in the 2020 election and this group will be critically important again to clinching a victory in 2024. In addition to next month’s push on abortion, the campaign is ramping up its outreach to Gen Z voters on various fronts.
In September and October, Harris’ “Fight for Our Freedoms” tour took her to college campuses across eight states, in a bid to continue the administration’s outreach to this vitally important group. Harris’ portfolio of reproductive rights, voting rights and discrimination in education is tailor-made to appeal to this cadre of voters.
Another issue in her portfolio that young people care deeply about is immigration — a historically thorny topic, but one she can address firsthand. In fact, when confronted at a college campus in Flagstaff, Arizona about America’s immigration policies, Harris cited her own “lived experience” as the daughter of an immigrant mother for how she approaches the issue.
Here’s another reason for Democrats to celebrate Kamala: She is the very embodiment of what the party aspires to be — the kind of figure who inspired millions of people like me to enter the political arena. Jesse Jackson’s prime time exhortation at the 1988 Democratic National Convention for the party to embrace the country’s diversity inspired countless GenXers like me to become politically active.
Jackson’s speech also gave us a front row seat to a highly impactful phenomenon: the explosion of women candidates and candidates of color running for seats at multiple levels of government accompanied by the coded language and spurious metrics used to judge their qualifications.
The echoes of the kinds of criticism Harris is facing is all too familiar to me. Similar threads go back to Shirley Chisholm’s race for the White House in 1972, and should have been excised from our national discourse decades ago. It’s the kind of pushback that is vexing and unfortunately not all that unusual when a Black woman reaches the pinnacle of political power.
For leaders of color in the public and private sectors, everything from their speech, clothing and mannerisms are scrutinized. Women in particular navigate a male dominated construct of leadership and stereotypical views of femininity. These pressures also force many Black leaders to decide between race-conscious and race-neutral policymaking with a tendency toward incrementalism that drives more skepticism of motives. For Kamala Harris to have risen to historic heights in our nation, any notion of weak political and substantive bona fides should be outright dismissed.
Given what a potentially important asset she is, one can only ask why she has been so underappreciated and underrated? Criticism of Harris by detractors who question her value on the Democratic 2024 ticket has not abated, despite the increasingly prominent role she has played in the Biden re-election campaign in recent months.
Republicans, only too happy to exploit this opening, can cause irreparable and long-lasting damage — and that wouldn’t just hurt Harris. The Democratic party, and its election prospects in 2024, will suffer if the party doesn’t defend her more forcefully.
Even as Harris ramps up her outreach to Gen Z voters, it seems more than likely that she will face an enormous challenge: unhappiness from some young voters about the administration’s position on Israel. The issue thus far has proven to be a divisive one for the party, as she works to help unify fractious elements of her party, the president’s change of tone on the war notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, the vice president can offer an aspirational economic message to these young voters whose enthusiasm is blunted by an inability to financially plan for their future. It’s not a panacea, but it is an important overture and a lot is riding on her success.
The 2020 ticket of Biden and Harris stemmed the reclamation and retribution movement of Trumpism. The president may be equally important as a transitional leader bridging an old and new electoral coalition. And his administration can tout achievements from investments in infrastructure to increased funding for transportation to reductions in prescription drug costs. These have been bolstered in no small part by the vice president’s contributions.
Democrats must embrace what Republicans have long feared: that this vice presidency is not just about advancing Washington’s parochial policymaking interests. It is also about a bridge to the party’s future, helmed by one of the most unfailing party leaders there is — a Black woman.
Editor’s Note: Basil A. Smikle Jr., PhD, is a professor and director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute of Hunter College – City University of New York. He is also a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
Is Dubai Harris the Kamala everyone has been waiting for? Will she convince doubters?
Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY
Wed, December 27, 2023
WASHINGTON — When a temporary cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war collapsed, Vice President Kamala Harris found herself in United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, pulling aside sheiks, generals and powerful Middle Eastern leaders.
When she was done, she emphasized the Biden administration’s staunch support for Israel’s right to defend itself after the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage. But she also made clear Washington’s mood had shifted as the civilian death toll surged.
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating,” Harris said, raising her right index finger as she delivered the sternest U.S. warning yet to Israel about the Gaza offensive.
"As Israel defends itself," she said. "It matters how."
For more than a century, the one cardinal rule for America's vice presidents has been: Don't get in front of the boss. Had Harris? No, instead, this was the moment the White House united behind her, listened to her concerns about Gaza’s body count as the war roiled global opinion and the Democratic base.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is sworn in during the 2021 presidential inauguration of Joe Biden at the U.S. Capitol.
Harris’ remarks that day, her command of the room, were a glimpse of the politician whose potential seemed unlimited just four years ago but whose image and presidential prospects have together dimmed under the intense scrutiny that followed her ascent to the second-highest office in the land.
Her supporters chalk it up to sexism, racism and unfair media coverage of the first Black woman to serve as vice president. Harris’ detractors point to her tendency to laugh through uncomfortable situations and sidestep direct questions with rambling answers. Others can’t seem to get a read on who she is.
Whatever the case, on this aspect, much of America seems to agree: Harris has an uneven record and is not ready to claim the mantle of party leader. More worrisome, are the criticisms that she lacks foreign policy experience and isn’t fit to step into the Oval Office if Joe Biden’s presidency takes an unexpected turn.
At her October stop at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, sophomore Andrew Baxley, who chairs the school’s College Democrats of America chapter, asked about steps the administration is taking to secure reproductive rights − low-hanging fruit for the former California attorney general.
Baxley actually wanted to ask Harris about knottier topics such as Biden’s decision to allow construction to move ahead on a section of border wall. That did not fly.
The White House advertised the campus appearances as moderated conversations; it didn’t disclose the extent to which the events were scripted. Students were asked to submit questions on abortion, gun violence, climate change, voting and LGBTQ rights. They held a Zoom prior and rehearsed the rundown.
On the day of the event, Harris answered Baxley’s question. Her response drew applause, but Baxley was unsatisfied as he watched Harris handled, scripted and managed in ways that undercut her image as a leader. It was not the same Harris – the unfettered Harris – that wowed a global audience in the UAE. With the election 11 months away, and the presidency on the line, the deciding factor could be whether voters think Harris could really do Biden's job. Sending Dubai Harris to American swing states could be exactly what the ailing campaign needs.
Backstage at the college event, Baxley tried asking Harris his other question. An aide shooed him along.
Baxley felt shortchanged, unable to walk away with a positive opinion of Harris. “And I feel as though, had I been able to really have a more personal connection with her, and possibly speak more in depth with her, that could have been possible.”
The role of the VP ‘sucks most of the time’
Harris' allies have been warning the White House about the severity of her image problems for years.
Part of the issue stems from being number two when she was always a number one, used to accumulating a series of firsts as a Black woman and of South Asian descent: district attorney of San Francisco, California attorney general and U.S. senator. Harris blazed trails, forging her own path and making up her own mind.
Early on, she had to get in line with Biden’s agenda, a quirk of the job that has caused her remarks to frequently come across as stilted. Harris’ positions as a candidate were to the left of Biden's on many issues, and she was not helped by White House assignments that were a poor fit for her skill set.
Biden’s tasking of Harris to solve the root causes of mass migration to the southern border in 2021 was especially egregious. The most experience that Harris had dealing with Central America prior to the arrangement was arresting and prosecuting human and drug traffickers. She would inevitably be compared to Biden, who, perhaps unfairly, had himself been charged with playing migration 'bad cop' by former President Barack Obama.
The test led to a major setback. So, Harris allies pushed for more public appearances in places like South Carolina, in front of voting blocs that are prone to like her.
In early December, Beaufort County Democrats gathered for a gala on St. Helena Island. The function’s speaker was Congressional Black Caucus Chair emerita Joyce Beatty, on behalf of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign.
Beatty pushed aside remarks that Biden’s aides had given her to read and began to riff about the duo’s record with gusto. The Ohio congresswoman told attendees she had recently challenged one of Harris' Democratic detractors to name the last 20 people who’d held her job.
“The vice president’s job sucks most of the time,” Beatty told the crowd to laughter.
President Barack Obama walks with California Attorney General Kamala Harris, center, and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, after arriving at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, on Feb. 16, 2012.
Vice presidents run the risk of being too good at their jobs and getting accused of trying to outshine their bosses, she explained. “The role of the vice president is to do what the president tells them to do,” Beatty said.
It was not always this way with Harris. Obama complimented her as brilliant, dedicated and tough. She won a U.S. Senate seat in 2016 on the same night the country elected Donald Trump.
Harris’ supporters are still in awe of how she hammered future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Among Harris’ die-hard fans are John Glover. A retired IT manager from St. Helena Island, he spent nearly five decades in Berkeley, California, where Harris was raised.
Glover, who turns 80 in January, has a photo of himself standing with Harris as his cellphone background. The picture was taken when she was campaigning for president in 2019.
“I fell in love with her the first time I met her,” he said.
Authentic Harris appears behind closed doors
Riding an adrenaline high after three days of meetings with Asian-Pacific leaders, a more authentic version of Harris was on display at a campaign reception in Piedmont, California, in November.
Her comfort was palpable in a room filled with dear friends and top donors. Together they laughed. They clapped. Harris’ amiable husband, Doug Emhoff, introduced her.
Harris turned her gaze to a small group of reporters standing at the back of the room.
“When people want to talk about the polls, on and on about the polls, let me tell you: Everything we have accomplished is highly, highly popular with the American people,” she said.
Biden and Harris had been hit with a wave of negative surveys that showed them losing to Trump and saying that they were in trouble.
Even now, as her vice presidency has stabilized, she has not entirely restored her credibility, although she has done a better job at making the role her own.
Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California, with Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, present Rules Committee report, during the Democratic National Convention Sept. 4, 2012 in Charlotte, N.C.
In South Carolina, Lynn Lotz, a Hilton Head Island resident, said Harris “was given tasks that she should not have been given early on, because I think that put her a step back instead of moving her forward.”
“I don’t think she had the support behind her that she needed,” said Lotz, who met Harris at a Democratic convention in 2019.
The vice president's political opponents, such as GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, have turned Harris’ failures into campaign attacks, deriding her more incoherent comments as word salads.
“Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to know where up is. And we’re there. The one thing I don’t think we can survive is a President Kamala Harris,” Haley told a Bluffton, South Carolina, crowd in late November.
Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota who is challenging Biden for president, came under scrutiny last month for repeating critiques he said had been shared with him that Harris is incompetent. He later apologized and suggested that Harris should be running instead of Biden.
Anne Moncure, 67, a retired health care facility administrator from Beaufort County who hoped Democrats would come up with an alternative to Biden this year, doesn’t think Harris is up to the task of commander-in-chief. The role of the vice presidency, she says, should be a mentored one.
“How is Biden preparing her for the role?” she asked.
Harris was unavailable for an interview for this article.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement the president views the vice president as a "critical partner" in the successes of the administration including the restoration of America's alliances around the world.
"The President deeply values her counsel, which he seeks often, and her leadership on a wide range of issues from reproductive freedom, to artificial intelligence" Bates said.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California speaks as she accepts the nomination for Vice President of the United States, during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.
Is Harris turning it around?
For the first time in months, Biden and Harris met for a private lunch on Dec. 15. It’s a tradition that Biden began when he was vice president to Obama to help the men of different ages and lived experiences bond.
But the dynamics of the relationship between Biden, 81, and Harris, 59, are starkly different. As vice president, Biden was seen as the adult in the room to a younger president, who possessed far less experience. Harris was chosen as vice president in large measure to excite the party’s progressive base.
In recent months, she has demonstrated a keen understanding of the politics of the Israel-Hamas war and of the political peril that she and Biden face as they head into an election year in which they believe American democracy is truly on the line.
The criticisms of Harris have lessened as the White House has gotten better at utilizing her on issues that fire up progressives and on which she and Biden largely agree.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris was responsible for making abortion rights a centerpiece of her and Biden’s midterm elections platform. Supporters had pushed for her to be the one to rally Democrats, effectively marking a turning point for Harris.
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, react as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presents lawmakers with a Ukrainian flag autographed by front-line troops in Bakhmut, in Ukraine's contested Donetsk province, as he addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022.
Vice President Kamala Harris enters Michie Stadium for the 2023 Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony on the campus of U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday, May 27, 2023.
In January, Harris will embark on a nationwide tour to promote the abortion rights message. Her first stop? The battleground state of Wisconsin.
National tours have helped Harris reach a critical constituency: voters who are unfamiliar with work she did that took place during the pandemic and behind closed doors.
“I’m always wondering, why am I not hearing about her?” said Julie Raino, a 66-year-old grief counselor who lives on Hilton Head Island. “The fact that I have to look for her is really strange.”
Raino says she admired the way Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, challenged Biden during a heated Democratic primary debate, telling him she was bused to elementary school during an exchange over integration. Raino says she wants to see more of Harris.
“I really loved her when she was running for office,” Raino said. “And I thought in that debate she was amazing and she could stand up to even Biden.”
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris greets supporters at a election night rally Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 in Los Angeles.
Harris lays groundwork in South Carolina
When it was time for Biden’s team to file paperwork to appear on the ballot in South Carolina this year, it turned to campaign co-chair and former Democratic majority leader Jim Clyburn. Harris joined Clyburn in Columbia, the state capital.
Appearing before a small group of supporters, Harris called the influential Democrat a friend. “It was South Carolina that created the path to the White House for Joe Biden and me,” she told them.
Clyburn and Harris were both members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He endorsed Biden for the presidency after Harris left the race at the request of his wife, Emily. It was her dying wish.
He has since become one of Harris’ most vocal defenders. “People walk around and find reasons to criticize, and then every time she has been called to step up to the plate, she's hit a home run,” Clyburn said.
Harris has been paying more frequent visits to the state that will hold the first, sanctioned Democratic presidential primary. She has traveled there twice since mid-October. Harris made a stop at Benedict College, a historically Black university in Columbia, on another trip last February. And she has a trip planned for Jan. 6.
It's only natural she'd want to deepen her relationships in the state with an eye toward a 2028 presidential bid, activists say.
“I think that she gets it. She knows that you have to be here in South Carolina the same way Vice President Biden got it,” says Christale Spain, who chairs the state’s Democratic Party.
Harris’ own political operation in South Carolina was never tested. She shut down her financially struggling campaign on Dec. 3, 2019, a day before the conclusion of the state’s filing period.
“She still has a lot of relationships that she can still tap into when she's going back to South Carolina on the campaign trail,” said Jalisa Washington Price, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign in South Carolina and Harris’ former deputy political director.
One of Harris’ campaign stops at the time was Royal Missionary Baptist Church. Biden later came to the church in the primary. A photo of him with the Rev. Isaac Holt Jr. still hangs on the minister’s wall.
Holt says much of Harris’ political future, her ability to put together a winning coalition in 2028 to land the party’s nomination, will depend on the rest of Biden’s tenure.
“It’s going to be a tough one. I don't think it's going to be a gimme. I don't think it'd be automatic,” said Holt, 70. “But she's in a better position right now than anybody else.”
Potential rivals, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are already signaling they might challenge her. She must convince voters that she's uniquely suited for the job.
Baxley, the college Democrat, said he’s leaning toward Newsom but hasn’t counted out Harris – yet.
Losing to any of the Republican candidates in this election could be a dealbreaker.
“I'm looking for a strong Democratic candidate, and if she loses in 2024, that's kind of my statement on President Harris,” Baxley said.
It’s a heavy burden for a vice president who would face more far-reaching political damage if the Biden-Harris ticket fails.
But as Harris herself has said, now is not the moment for that conversation.
Vice President Kamala Harris takes a photo with supporters after speaking during a vaccine mobilization event at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit on Monday, July 12, 2021.
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