While top N.C. Democratic officials hung out with Vice President Kamala Harris Monday in Raleigh, national media outlets continued to raise questions about her work. Jim Geraghty of National Review Online offers details.
Two years into Joe Biden’s presidency, we now know that there are two types of major mainstream-media pieces written about Vice President Kamala Harris: the first type is a profile piece that concludes, “Harris is in trouble,” and the second type is, “Harris has turned the corner.”
Today is “Harris is in trouble” day at the Washington Post, where Cleve Wootson writes:
“Concerns about Harris’s political strength were repeated often by more than a dozen Democratic leaders in key states interviewed for this story, some speaking on the condition of anonymity to convey candid thoughts. Harris’s tenure has been underwhelming, they said, marked by struggles as a communicator and at times near-invisibility, leaving many rank-and-file Democrats unpersuaded that she has the force, charisma and skill to mount a winning presidential campaign.”
Time has demonstrated that the “Harris has turned the corner” pieces were mostly wishful thinking. Harris’s approval and disapproval ratings over the past year are basically two flat lines. She is almost always approved by about 40 percent, and she is almost always disapproved by more than 50 percent. At this point, the cement has dried around the perception of the vice president.
Her interview answers and off-the-cuff remarks aren’t going to get any better. No, there is not going to be an expansion of her “KHive” fan base. There is no new Kamala Harris waiting to be discovered. Her supporters can quibble here and there about how the Biden administration has used her, but she’s been on the job for two years, she’s given hundreds of speeches and interviews, been on plenty of foreign trips, run plenty of meetings. What you see is what you get.