Five Ways to Elevate Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris’s net favorability has hit a new low, on a ticket that also is below water with public favorability.
We need to talk about the Vice President. Kamala Harris’s net favorability has hit a new low, on a ticket that also is below water with public favorability. “49% of registered voters have a negative view of Vice President Kamala Harris, compared to 32% with a positive view,” according to the latest NBC News poll. Less than 500 days to the ‘24 general election, there is no way around this issue. Of course, we can definitely take race and gender into account when looking at these numbers. "‘[It] shouldn't surprise anyone that there is going to be a different filter and a different focus put on the first woman to ever be Vice President of the United States, particularly a woman of color,’ Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher said to Axios. Race and gender notwithstanding, however, Houston, we appear to have a problem …
President Joe Biden, it should be noted, is also not buoying the ticket. And therein lies the drag. A new AP poll shows us that the President’s handling of the economy continues to be a problem. Also, at 80, the “sleepy Joe” moniker has, unfortunately, stuck. Further, it has become a legitimate concern in the campaign. His every gaffe, his every trip-and-fall will be recounted, with ghoulish delight, on social media and even the international news. This, in addition to the President’s not insignificant unfavorables, is a subject that needs to be addressed now and out in the open, before summer’s end, when campaign season begins in earnest and final primary appeals are made.
What is to be done?
Here are five ways in which to elevate the Vice President:
Give the Vice President a Substantial Portfolio
Whatever happened to making Vice President Harris the administration’s point person on immigration? Earlier this year, efforts in that direction all but appear to have evaporated. But those hopes ended even earlier, around October 2022, just before the midterms. Imagine if for two years continuously the Vice President visited — every couple of weeks — a border city, doing a listening tour with local officials? Or if she had become became an expert on and defender of John McCain’s last pleas for immigration reform? Harris could have become the administration’s point person, delivering the Democrat rapid-response to border populists. But, alas, this was not to be, for whatever reasons. From Priscilla Alvarez at CNN:
In March 2021, during an influx of unaccompanied migrant children, President Joe Biden tasked Harris with overseeing diplomatic efforts with the Northern Triangle. At the time, most minors apprehended on the US southern border were from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras – a region where major hurricanes and the coronavirus pandemic took a devastating toll.
Republicans seized on the assignment, dubbing Harris the “border czar” – a title the White House rejected, arguing that her focus was on long-term fixes. And last year, as an affront to Harris, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, began busing migrants to her residence at the Naval Observatory.
When last I checked, Governor Abbott just did this again, as early as last week, scoring political points against her — at will — by sending buses filled with migrants to the Vice President’s official residence near Naval Observatory in DC.
The Veep needs a substantial and significant portfolio, particularly considering she is a heartbeat away from Commander-in-Chief. This is how things have been with the modern Vice Presidency, since Al Gore, who was Bill Clinton’s point man on NAFTA (not a good look, in retrospect). After Gore, Cheney became something of a “Grown Up” to Bush the Younger’s Presidency. And then there was Biden, who, like Cheney, served as a Senior Advisor to Obama, the fastest rising one-term Senator in American history.
But, What is Kamala Harris to President Biden?
Of late, she has emerged as the point person on a woman’s right to choose and on African-American voter turnout. Of (very) late. And those are roles that are, quite frankly, tied to her identity. It is late in the game, but the Vice President needs some serious policy issues to bring to the campaign, ones that require mastery of a difficult subjects that affects the lives of most Americans; issues like: Crime (She is a former prosecutor), Fentanyl, Latin America and AI. Any two of these issues would be value-adds for the Biden campaign in 2024.
The Vice President is also, we cannot fail to note, African-American and of the Asian community. She went to an historically black college. She has a law degree. There is probably no one in American government better qualified to speak on the controversial affirmative action decision that was issued today and will be the subject of every talking head show this weekend. This is a perfect subject with which to reboot, right on the cup of Independence Day.
Will she?
Enough with the Big Dollar Fundraisers
The Vice President has appeared in an inordinate amount of big dollar photo ops, draped in bling, rocking the Christian Sariano. As a former California Senator, she is well versed in courting Hollywood. And Silicon Valley as well. But can’t the Second husband host some of these swishy events solo? This, in the Democrat party, is quite frankly not a net-plus for the Veep. The conversation surrounding her “sleeves” threatens to annihilate the Vice President’s accumulated gravitas (more of which, later). The association with the overclass is already anathema to progressives and decidedly not a way to fire up the base for a close ‘24. As glamorous as it is to throw down at a Lauren Santo Domingo-Anna Wintour affair, this is not the stuff of Democrat tickets.
Energize the Youth, Black, Asian-American and Latino Vote
Let’s face it — the Black vote is showing symptoms of decline. Turnout was down among communities of color. The black vote has been dropping, significantly, since the 2020 midterms. “During the 2020 election, the Biden campaign was criticized for its flawed outreach to Hispanic voters, and key segments of this group, including Hispanic voters living in Miami and the Rio Grande Valley, went on to support former President Donald Trump in surprisingly high numbers,” writes Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux of 538.com. “Hispanic Americans now may be even less supportive of Biden than Black Americans, exposing another vulnerability for the president as he heads into his reelection campaign.”
The Vice-President’s job is to do what the 80-year old at the top of the ticket cannot do. Namely: Energize four staples of the party: Black, Latino, Asian-American and Youth voters. As a member of the AAPI community, Harris already energizes that corner of the electorate, but could do more. Biden, to his credit, delivered a rousing Commencement address at Howard. And Harris went to Tennessee State in May. But we need more of this; much more of this — on steroids. At HBCUs and state universities around the country. And mobilizing the Latino vote.
Accentuate the GOP “Woman Problem”
Trump has a woman problem but, true to character, he doesn’t give a damn. If Trump wins the Republican nomination for President, it is unlikely that he will pick Nikki Haley as his running mate. She has been — how does one put it kindly? — less than obsequious to her former boss this election cycle and “loyalty” is all he cares about. And looks. And we all know what Trump thinks of uppity women.
Nikki Haley would be the best and most logical choice for running mate for Trump, should he get the nomination. She is a former Governor and UN Ambassador, so she has skills at international affairs and local politics. She is also attractive and a seasoned speaker on the stump. Haley, like Kamala Harris, is of Asian descent and might cut significantly into that Biden-Harris fundraising spigot. But Trump ultimately does not care about the wise choice. Instead, he will possibly go with a white woman (Lake; Noem; MTG) — or maybe even a Kennedy (my guess), to double-down on the QAnon freakshow vote.
All of this works to the advantage of Kamala Harris. It accentuates the GOP problem with women, especially if Trump goes with RFK, Jr., who brings huge anti-vaxxer vibes to the debate stage with him. Not a good look, one would imagine, with suburban soccer moms in PA and OH.
Project Gravitas
The Vice President has done a good job at projecting American soft power and likeability, domestically and internationally. But this Presidential election, like the last, is going to be something of a squeaker. If it involves a younger candidate than Trump on the GOP side, it will be even closer than that. And now is not the time for stylish puff pieces on what the Veep is wearing. The time for cosmetic adjustments to her image on the campaign trail has long since passed. Now is the time for the Vice President to project the ability to take over the office of the Presidency, the most powerful and difficult job in the world, should her 80-year old running mate succumb to the maladies of old age. Now is the time for the Vice President to make her argument that she is a loyal partner to POTUS and she is able, at a moments notice, to continue enacting his legacy (and hers) for the betterment of a more perfect union of the United States of America.
The Supreme Court is poised to reverse affirmative action: Here’s what you need to know (Richard Lempert/Brookings)
"Prigozhin exploited the last remaining uncensored political space in Russia—the social media app Telegram—to address the Russian public. For months, he had been openly plotting a coup: carrying out public spats with the leadership of Russia’s military forces, offering populist critiques of the war effort, and casting doubt on Putin’s official justifications for the war that Putin himself has articulated.” (Foreign Affairs/ Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage)
“Legacy preferences are a key way for many colleges to maintain favor with deep-pocketed alumni, and early decision allows them to manage the admissions process with more predictability, and to lock in certain coveted applicants — often wealthy athletic recruits, who play sports like squash and lacrosse and whose parents can be expected to pay full price.” (Ben Adler/Washington Monthly)
“(Jesse) Watters, who has a history of making offensive remarks on Fox News, made a crude comment questioning the gender of Vice President Kamala Harris, the people said. The gross attempt at humor prompted some laughs, but also outrage.” (Reliable Sources)
“Which is why it is particularly rich that Lance Armstrong — of all freaking people — now appears to be attempting to claim ‘canceled’ status.” (NYMag)