When Kamala Harris ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, she tapped her sister, Maya, to run the campaign. Harris’s bid collapsed early; she quit before a single primary vote was cast, and the friction between Maya and the campaign’s paid consultants was frequently cited as a reason for its failure.
Four years later, Maya hasn’t commented publicly about Harris’s stunning new adventure (and could not be reached for comment for this story). But when Harris flew to Wisconsin for her first rally as the putative Democratic nominee, she was accompanied by Maya’s husband, Tony West, a former Department of Justice official, who is helping vet possible running mates.
Every sign suggests that the sisters remain close. Yet Maya’s lower profile underscores the complex, high-stakes grafting of the vice president’s small political operation onto President Joe Biden’s 1,300-person campaign infrastructure. One concern is whether Harris will get fresh, independent advice; another is whether the legacy campaign operation can reorient itself fast enough to best serve the new, very different top of the ticket. “She basically has Biden’s team right now,” a Democratic strategist who knows and likes Harris says. “And the conversation among people who care about her is, she needs some people in that room who are her people, who are there for her 100%. The problem is, she hasn’t cultivated those people outside of California.”
All of this maneuvering had begun well before Biden made his exit official. As pressure piled onto the president and the endgame looked increasingly inevitable, insider conversation turned to how Harris, his most likely replacement, would assemble the strategic inner circle necessary to run against Donald Trump—especially in light of her recently bumpy political history. Harris’s 2020 run for the Democratic nomination flamed out for multiple reasons; one was disagreement between campaign chair Maya and the campaign’s paid consultants about the campaign’s messaging and tactics. The candidate often oscillated between themes, never gaining traction with voters. Then, in her first year as vice president, Harris reportedly had to contend with hostility from some members of Biden’s inner circle. She also fumbled an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt and was beset by staff turnover.
“One of the reasons Kamala has struggled at times is because she doesn’t have a cohesive or sort of long-standing team of advisers around her,” a top Democratic strategist told me in advance of Biden’s withdrawal, adding that “she doesn’t have a core team or a David Axelrod.” Barack Obama’s former guru is highly unlikely to leave his gig as a CNN commentator and join Team Harris. But two other Obama campaign alumni are being aggressively pushed as possible additions to her brain trust: David Plouffe and Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign managers in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
While Plouffe and Messina might add some big picture vision to the effort, they carry baggage, given their close association with Obama, whom some Biden veterans view as a cold-blooded accomplice in Biden’s downfall. (The Obamas endorsed Harris on Friday.) There’s also something condescending about the notion that a Black female candidate—one who has inherited Biden’s female campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, and Biden’s Latina campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez—is in need of guidance from a wise white man. Then again, the campaign run by O’Malley Dillon and Chavez Rodriguez had been losing ground to Trump in the polls. One thing the next three months may clarify is whether Biden’s trouble was chiefly a result of the man himself—and especially his disastrous debate performance—or of his broader campaign apparatus.
Meanwhile, as Harris arrives on Biden’s literal home turf—the campaign headquarters is staying in Wilmington, Delaware—she can look to some recent allies. “This isn’t 2020,” a senior Democratic consultant says. “She has real people, real talent around her. She has Lorraine Voles, Brian Fallon, Megan Jones, Sheila Nix.” Voles came up through Al Gore’s ranks and has been the vice president’s chief of staff for a little over two years. Fallon was a top aide to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and the executive director of Demand Justice. Jones, Harris’s senior political adviser, was an operative in Harry Reid’s potent Nevada organization. Nix previously worked for Joe Biden, Jill Biden, and Bono before becoming chief of staff for Harris’s vice presidential campaign. “I don’t know how this is going to work, putting these two groups together,” the consultant says. “But a lot depends on it.”
Source link : https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/kamala-harris-joe-biden-campaign-2024
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Publish date : 2024-07-26 10:12:14
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