[ad_1]
Vice President Kamala Harris has the potential to become one of the most powerful people on Earth. At the same time, because her rapid ascent to the Democratic presidential nomination did not garner sustained public attention during a long presidential primary campaign, she remains more of a mystery to many Americans than the major party presidential candidates. So who is Kamala Harris? In this video, we turn that story over to four journalists who have covered her at different points in her career.
Kamala Harris first entered the public eye as the district attorney of San Francisco. She tried to distinguish herself from her predecessor, who was known for taking a progressive approach to fighting crime, by calling herself a “smart fighter.” She spoke more clinically and quantitatively than ideologically; she talked about numbers, not ideas or politics. This approach carried over to her next post as California Attorney General, where she often struggled to hold her own ideologically and was reluctant to take political stands. But the role also made her a household name in California, and six years after serving as attorney general, she won the state’s U.S. Senate race.
Harris quickly became a high-profile senator, but she wasn’t known for her speeches or policies. Instead, she became known as the Democrats’ chief questioner in the Senate, questioning Trump administration officials in standoffs that electrified Democratic voters and sparked her campaign to run for president in 2020. However, the Democratic Party had by then become more ideologically progressive, and her “tough on crime” record was no longer in favor with voters. She had trouble finding her political path in the Democratic primary, and her campaign was short-lived. But when the Democratic Party ultimately chose Joe Biden as its nominee, Biden vowed to choose a woman as his running mate. Harris vaulted to the top of his list after a summer of national reckoning on race sparked by the death of George Floyd and the massive protests that followed.
As vice president, Harris had a hard time finding her place in the administration. Biden assigned her the unenviable job of addressing the “root causes” of illegal immigration into the United States. It was neither her area of expertise nor her ideological strong suit, and after a disastrous TV interview, she withdrew from the public eye. But things began to change after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights. Harris, who had the expertise and authority on reproductive rights that Biden lacked, became the administration’s spokesperson on the topic, once again finding her voice and footing in public life.
In July 2024, unpopular and visibly aging President Joe Biden withdrew from the reelection race in favor of Kamala Harris. Harris, by contrast, is lively and articulate, and she quickly captured the Democratic Party’s heart and gained momentum in her race against former President Donald Trump. Her continued success will depend on her ability to grow into an exciting, inspiring political figure, a role she has struggled to fill in the past.
You can find this video and all Vox YouTube video.
[ad_2]
Source link
