On Tuesday, President Joe Biden officially launched his 2024 reelection campaign with a video that was reminiscent of the one his campaign put out in 2019, where so-called “MAGA extremists” a.k.a. Trump supporters were featured heavily in what Biden has called the “battle” for “our nation’s soul.”
Someone else who also featured prominently in the new campaign video but for different reasons was Vice President Kamala Harris, who has caused one headache after another for the Biden administration almost since Day One. Harris taking on a starring role in the opening ad for their 2024 run was by design because a frustrated Joe Biden is reportedly seeking to “repair” her image ahead of what is expected to be an uphill battle where Republicans will no doubt emphasize Biden’s age and the questions about his mental acuity:
Top White House officials are rushing to the aid of Vice President Kamala Harris to try to shore up her underwhelming poll numbers heading into 2024.
Why it matters: Harris’ numbers are even worse than President Biden’s (approval in the high 30%s versus low 40%s). Officials believe that could make her a drag on the ticket as Biden begins a reelection campaign that likely will boil down to a few tight states.
[…]
The backstory: This is a huge shift from much of Biden’s first two years, when there was mutual distrust and anonymous sniping between the vice president’s team and the West Wing.
Between the lines: Harris, initially saddled by Biden with no-win issues such as immigration and a stalled voting-rights bill, has frustrated many of his top aides. She has suffered frequent staff turnover, and rarely has been entrusted with high-profile assignments.
Harris’ allies point out she has faced sexism and racism, and argue that the White House has not helped her enough. But detractors say her approval ratings are self-inflicted, and include some missteps in high-profile interviews.
Her detractors are right, and one only needs to look at cringe video clips like the one below from a speech she gave on “abortion rights” at Howard University on Tuesday to understand why:
“So I think it’s very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders for us at every moment in time and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future,” Harris said in video shared by the Republican National Committee and others on Twitter.
Watch:
KAMALA HARRIS: "I think it's very important…for us, at every moment in time and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present." pic.twitter.com/1myWsM4Nz9
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 26, 2023
There are, of course, plenty more where that came from:
FLASHBACK:
“When you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time” pic.twitter.com/jUsnyNiSpB
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 26, 2023
And it’s not just her infamous word salads that have caused some Democrats to begin the uncomfortable second-guessing over Kamala Harris. In the support role she’s in as Biden’s veep, Harris has been a miserable failure, with the ongoing border crisis and her continued embarrassment of this country on a world stage being two notable examples.
Further, Harris is said to be such a pain to work for going back to her days as California’s attorney general that she cannot keep quality comms people on staff, a vitally necessary component to any successful political operation. As the Axios story also noted, she “hasn’t had a communications director since Jamal Simmons left in December,” and is still struggling months later to find a replacement in a position that has seen high turnover rates in a little over two years.
The bottom line here, as I’ve said before, is that Harris is her own worst enemy and she always will be. Because of that, Biden’s aides are having to do the heavy lifting here in attempting to gloss over her two years of failures as his second in command.
To state again for the record, these problems are what happens when one’s career starts off the way Harris’ did. You begin to expect to be given preferential treatment as you climb the ladder and treated to fawning interviews in the press because of “who you are” and what you supposedly represent from a “historical” perspective.
But then it all begins to fall apart when people learn that most of your image is smoke and mirrors.
Being the historical “first” whatever really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to the average voter, especially if you keep demonstrating that not only are you really, really bad at what you do (which Harris often does) but also that you’re about as genuine as a $3 bill.
The vast majority of Harris’s problems are self-inflicted, something other Democrats including the Biden team apparently realize as well even though most are undoubtedly mentally gearing themselves up to fall in line as the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign officially gets underway.
Flashback ->> Report: Joe Biden Realized His Mistake With Kamala Harris Very Early On
