https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/opinion/kamala-harris-joe-biden.html
This is an odd column about an inept politician. If, as the article’s title suggests, Kamala Harris is stuck, then whose fault is that?
The author asserts that “She has… faced double standards in how she is seen and judged….” Really? Does she face double standards or does she simply face standards that don’t give VPs breaks because of their race and gender? As I recall, Vice President Spiro Agnew was savaged by the media, as was Vice President Dan Quayle. But I guess that was okay, because they were white males and, besides, they were Republicans!
Jeffrey Frank acknowledges that “Ms. Harris was a newbie when it came to foreign policy….” Yet, after a year and a half as VP and with a fair bit of globe-trotting under her belt, she still seems like a neophyte whenever she speaks out on foreign policy issues.
The real question about Kamala Harris may be less about why she continues to be a largely inconsequential, lack-luster vice president after a year and a half in office, and more about what Joe Biden saw in her in the first place. Her presidential campaign went nowhere and quickly petered out. Jeffrey Frank admits as much, writing that Kamala Harris’s “poor performance as a presidential candidate in 2019 led her to drop out before the Iowa caucuses.” So why, after she flopped as a national candidate in her own right, did Biden pick her as his running mate? Was it solely because of her gender and her color? Jeffrey Frank claims that “She was a historic choice, becoming the first woman, the first African American and the first South Asian American to serve as vice president.”
So, history has been made! But might it not be counter-productive for the future of women in presidential politics if the “first woman” VP never becomes a competent VP? If “the first African American and the first South Asian American to serve as vice president” fails to receive widespread acclaim for her performance in that role, then doesn’t the “historic” nature of her selection become a hollow claim?