Kamala Harris stumbled as VP because she lacked proper 'infrastructure,' allies claim
A new report from The Washington Post detailed how Vice President Kamala Harris has undergone a total political "reinvention," as her and her team have seemingly found a way to make her more confident and palatable to mainstream Americans.
Washington Post White House reporter Cleve R. Wootson Jr. wrote on how members from Harris’ team and top Biden aides have been able to "reshape" Harris from awkward and tentative, to becoming a compelling political force.
"Now Harris is barnstorming the country, electrifying rally audiences with one energetic speech after another," the reporter noted, saying it represents "one of the most spectacular turnarounds in recent political history."
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Harris’ "remake is unmistakable, and it is no accident," Wootson wrote, pointing to this being the result of Biden/Harris staffers apparently giving her proper support.
The reporter cited Biden former senior advisor Anita Dunn, who provided her perspective on why the vice president was previously unpopular, saying it largely came down to her team and its lack of allies.
"I did not feel that we served her as well as we could have at the beginning — and not through any malice, not because people didn’t want her to succeed. There wasn’t the level of understanding that she’s getting judged differently, she’s getting covered differently," she claimed.
"Most vice presidents don’t get covered the way she did, with the same level of scrutiny," said the former Biden adviser who recently left the White House to join a Democratic super PAC supporting Harris, adding, "And so I don’t feel like we served her as well as we could have there at the beginning."
Former Harris communications director Ashley Etienne, who left her role in 2021 as the vice president’s "path grew rocky," told the Post that Harris' "greatest vulnerability" was "that she had no infrastructure" at the time.
"There’s nobody I can call to help defend her, to help change the narrative. I’ve got to do something to change what is on the television. Who am I going to call?" she said.
Seeing this lack of support, Etienne said that her team helped point Harris to people who would be good allies for her. "Harris’s associates say that as she spoke with people who supported her, focusing on issues she strongly believed in, she began to find her footing," Wootson wrote.
The reporter noted how Harris’ move to focus on issues she cared about, as opposed to issues like the border, "played into her rhetorical strengths."
"Those steps began yielding public appearances that seemed far more confident and assured, whether it were addresses on reproductive rights or a speech in Jacksonville decrying the stance of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Black history," Wootson wrote.
The reporter described how the overturning of Roe V. Wade in 2022 really created an "opening and a moment for Harris," and she took advantage.
"In event after event, Harris sharpened her arguments and developed resonant ways of talking about an issue central to Democrats’ electoral prospects," he wrote, adding she "sought to replicate that nimbleness in other areas."