VP Kamala Harris: This has not been the sort of party-and-public-pleasing spotlight expected from a sharp, history-making, black female vice president. That’s been the upshot of leaks about her seeming mismanagement of a frustrated senior staff amid rumors of not doing her homework.
One way of addressing the issue—in addition to a come-to-Jesus meeting with President Joe Biden—is to make sure she has important portfolios that can benefit from her communication skills, which are superior to those of a president past his prime. She needs to play up her advocacy for Roe, and her recent call with the Honduran president-elect should morph into spokeswoman status on the matter of a Marshall Plan for Central America. And her tie-breaking role—and leverage–in the Senate would be advanced with filibuster reform.
For those on the right side of the media spectrum who have labeled her as “out of her depth,” a little context please. Dan Quayle was a bona fide light-weight; Mike Pence was an enabling, hypocritical, evangelical accomplice to an existential-threat president; and Dick Cheney was a war-hawk disaster still negatively impacting foreign policy. And let’s not forget John McCain’s GOP-approved choice of a running mate: Sarah Palin. Kamala Harris never looked so (vice) presidential.