Kamala Harris: Watch this space
Photo Credit: The White House
Issue #502 The Choice: Kamala Harris Thursday, February 15, 2024
If you Google Vice President Kamala Harris, a central pundit question seems to emerge as you scan the headlines: Did President Joe Biden pick the right person to be his running mate? For the most part, the answers presented to that question are somewhat mixed, but overall it’s not great.
But to underestimate Vice President Kamala Harris - or President Joe Biden’s decision to choose her - would be a mistake. As is too often the case, the majority of press attention focused on her missteps - especially early on - and relatively little on what she was accomplishing against near insurmountable odds. Obviously, no one should expect the media to overlook the Veep’s mistakes, and an intense spotlight on her performance is something she had to expect and that should come as no surprise.
But is it so hard to give at least comparable time to the positive versus the negative without seeming overly partisan? It took a while, but at least a few observers are beginning to try and balance the narrative. Most recently, on February 4, the Los Angeles Times published a column entitled, How Kamala Harris found her groove. And why being vice president is still tough.
She’s become a top fundraiser for Democrats, an emissary to groups that are lukewarm toward President Biden — in particular Black and younger voters — and emerged as the administration’s most forceful voice on abortion, women’s health and, as Harris frames it, the threat Trump poses to freedom and individual choice.
Months earlier, in the HBCU Pulse, an even stronger and more supportive piece appeared on March 3 of last year, entitled, straightforwardly, Kamala Harris’s Accomplishments As The 49th Vice President Of The United States.
Ever since President Joe Biden & Vice President Kamala Harris took office in January 2021, they’ve endured attacks about their fitness for the job. Vice President Harris has taken the brunt of these attacks. There’s been a coordinated effort these past two years to make it seem as if the first female vice president is invisible and inept at the scope of her job. It first surfaced on social media and conservative radio & TV airwaves. Now, it’s a talking point even echoed by Democrats and Biden supporters who are lobbying that VP Harris should be removed from the 2024 reelection ticket. It’s unfair how narratives become so powerful and take on a life of their own. These lies threaten to affect the discourse around the 2024 Presidential Race and even Vice President Harris’s political future as she remains a key contender for the Democratic Nomination for President in the future.
I really couldn’t have said it any better, which is why I didn’t bother trying. When somebody else does it better than you, step aside. This ain’t about ego, it’s about getting the truth out there. But for the trained journalists out there like myself, I do realize that were this a column submitted for a mainstream news organization, there’s no way a quote this long would have been allowed.
Understood. OK. Acknowledged.
Now go back and re-read that quote.
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