XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.obama, free.giggling.   
   yena.kamala.harris   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: total_failures@yahoo.com   
      
   WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris was frustrated. The text of a speech she had   
   been given to deliver in Chicago to the nation’s biggest teachers’ union   
   was just another dreary, scripted talk that said little of any   
   consequence.   
      
   As Air Force Two made its way to the Midwest over the summer, the vice   
   president told her staff she wanted to say something more significant,   
   more direct. She brandished a Rolling Stone magazine article about the   
   backlash against Florida school officials after new legislation barring   
   the discussion of gender identity in the classroom.   
      
   The teachers she was about to address were on the front lines of the   
   nation’s culture wars, Harris told her staff. They were the same ones on   
   the front lines of school shootings. Just blandly ticking through federal   
   funding for education would not be enough. The plane was just an hour out   
   from Chicago, but she said they needed to start over.   
      
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   By the time she landed, she had a more spirited version of the speech in   
   hand, accusing “extremist so-called leaders” in the Republican Party of   
   taking away rights and freedoms.   
      
   Harris’ small airborne rebellion that day encapsulated the trap that she   
   finds herself in. She has made history as the first woman, the first   
   African American and the first Asian American ever to serve as vice   
   president, but she has still struggled to define her role much beyond that   
   legacy.   
      
   Her staff notes that she has made strides, emerging as a strong voice in   
   the administration on abortion rights. She has positioned herself as a   
   more visible advocate for the administration, giving a speech last week at   
   the funeral for Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old who was beaten by Memphis   
   police officers. And her critics and detractors alike acknowledge that the   
   vice presidency is intended to be a supporting role, and many of her   
   predecessors have labored to make themselves relevant, as well.   
      
   But the painful reality for Harris is that in private conversations over   
   the past few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol   
   Hill and around the nation — including some who helped put her on the   
   party’s 2020 ticket — said she had not risen to the challenge of proving   
   herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country. Even some   
   Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive   
   quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her.   
      
   Through much of the fall, a quiet panic set in among key Democrats about   
   what would happen if President Joe Biden opted not to run for a second   
   term. Most Democrats interviewed, who insisted on anonymity to avoid   
   alienating the White House, said flatly that they did not think Harris   
   could win the presidency in 2024. Some said the party’s biggest challenge   
   would be finding a way to sideline her without inflaming key Democratic   
   constituencies that would take offense.   
      
   Now with Biden appearing all but certain to run again, the concern over   
   Harris has shifted to whether she will be a political liability for the   
   ticket. Given that Biden at 80 is the oldest president in American   
   history, Republicans would most likely make Harris, who is 58, a prime   
   attack line, arguing that a vote for Biden may in fact be a vote to put   
   her in the Oval Office.   
      
   “That will be in my opinion one of the most hard-hitting arguments against   
   Biden,” said John Morgan, a prominent fundraiser for Democrats, including   
   Biden, and a former Florida finance chair for President Bill Clinton. “It   
   doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘Look, with his age, we have to really think   
   about this.’”   
      
   So far, he said, she has not distinguished herself.   
      
   “I can’t think of one thing she’s done except stay out of the way and   
   stand beside him at certain ceremonies,” he said.   
      
   Some 39% of Americans approve of Harris’ job performance, according to a   
   recent aggregate of surveys compiled by the polling site FiveThirtyEight.   
   This puts her below Biden’s approval rating, which has hovered around 42%   
   for the past month.   
      
   Harris’ allies said she was trapped in a damned-if-she-does, damned-if-   
   she-doesn’t conundrum — she is expected to not do anything to overshadow   
      
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