In a book written by a progressive about progressives that slammed Harris at a time when political commentators were speculating she might replace Joe Biden as vice president, White House aides outlined her inability to define a political agenda and her reliance entirely on personality.
The book is now attracting attention again eight months after its release, as Harris is currently in a fierce presidential race against President Donald Trump.
As recently as the summer of 2023, Democratic superstars like California Gov. Gavin Newsom touted their leadership qualities amid growing calls for Biden to step aside. As that period passed, whispers from the left turned to Harris and her historically dismal approval ratings numbers.
input “Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party“I resigned in January,” he said. That was just enough time for the left to replace Kamala Harris, and it also gave them plenty of ammunition to do so.
“It was rotten from the start,” said a key aide to the 2020 campaign. “A lot of us, at least the people I was friends with on the campaign, realized, 'Yeah, this guy shouldn't be president of the United States,'” the aide told us.
This book isThe book was written and published long before Harris was crowned as the Democratic presidential nominee's successor.
The scathing comments from officials in the failed 2020 campaign painted a picture of Harris as a hollow and incompetent leader who hasn't offered a clear picture of who she is politically or how she would govern as president.
Some staffers said the rifts were the result of tensions between Harris' family and a large consulting firm she hired to advise them.
Staff said there was serious dysfunction, centered around relationships between Ms Harris' sister, Maya, who served as her campaign chair, and Juan Rodriguez, the campaign manager for Bear Stars Strategies.
The rift between Rodriguez and Maya Harris has become so severe that the two have moved to opposite wings of campaign headquarters and started holding separate staff meetings.
“It was the most awkward day of my life,” one senior staffer told the authors. “Members literally had a 30-minute audit meeting with Juan to discuss how the campaign was going, then walked across the hallway to the same meeting with Maya…I remember Juan stopping by my office and asking how my meeting with Maya went.”
The campaign's dysfunction wasn't just limited to family issues; poor financial management was a common theme, staffers told the authors.
“She cared. I didn't really care how much money I was raising for her. And what were you doing to make it better? “An inclusive work environment” was needed, the consultant told the authors. When Harris dropped out of the primary race in December 2019, she cited a lack of funds as the primary motivator for her decision.
But money management is only one aspect of an overall “toxic environment,” the authors write.
In November 2019, Kelly Mellenbacher, the campaign's state operations director, Leaked To the New York Times.
“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its employees so poorly,” she wrote.
Kelly Merenbacher: “This is my third presidential campaign and I've never seen an organization treat its employees so badly…With less than 90 days until the Iowa election, there's still no real plan to win (NYT)”
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) August 25, 2024
“…we refuse to face our faults, to foster an environment of critical thinking and honest feedback, or to trust the expertise of our talented staff, so we continue to make the same self-defeating mistakes over and over again,” Mellenbacher wrote.
The book's authors say this was not an isolated incident specific to her presidential campaign, but that there were reports of harmful behavior from staff who worked with her in San Francisco, in the Senate, on her presidential campaign and as vice president.
The complaints “came from people who had contracted to work for her and who, at least at one time, wanted her to succeed. It is impossible to dismiss all of their criticisms as the result of prejudice,” they wrote.
One staff member, who asked not to be named, said working for her was like “Game of Thrones.”
As vice president, she witnessed a shocking staff turnover rate of 91.5%. According to Notable departures include “chiefs of staff, communications directors, domestic policy advisers and national security advisers,” according to an Open the Books review. According to To the Atlantic.
Her fundraising woes were briefly alleviated during her campaign, when she received a fundraising benefit after attacking front-runner Joe Biden with racist language during a June 2019 debate.
Ms Harris, the only black candidate in the audience of 10, criticised Mr Biden for praising racists and spoke about being bused to school during California's desegregation efforts in the 1970s.
It's time for another high-profile debate for Kamala Harris, as she recalls the time she attacked the man she's currently campaigning with for working with racists who oppose school busing.
“That girl was me.” #VPDebate
pic.twitter.com/d5DDiBi7m5— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 7, 2020
This line of attack was a “show-stopper,” according to the authors, and helped raise a lot of money for the campaign — “For about a week, everything we did made money,” a campaign staffer said — but the honeymoon was soon over.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has called on Harris to clarify her position on school busing.
“If you're going to attack someone for their policy positions, the obvious question is, 'What are your policy positions?'” said Biden campaign manager Greg Schultz.
On the night of the debate, Harris supported federal busing, but a week later she blurred the line: While campaigning in Iowa, she told reporters, “In the 1970s, I would have supported federal busing, but not in modern America,” the authors wrote.
The authors noted that this is roughly the same as Biden's position on the issue.
Her ambivalence on the bus is just one of her notable behavioral shifts highlighted by the authors.
More than a year before announcing her presidential candidacy, Harris signed onto Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' “Medicare for All” bill, which would put all Americans on a single-payer health care system, a position far to the left of mainstream Democrats.
But after initially defending her plan, she began backtracking, arguing that her plan would still give private insurers a larger role.
Her refusal to fully commit to a single-payer plan “has hurt us,” a staffer on her digital team told the authors.
“It's hurt our fundraising numbers. It's hurt our relationships with Democratic activists. It's a problem. We don't want to be seen as indecisive or fickle,” the staffer said.
This problem underpinned her overall inability to meaningfully define herself or set the tone for her campaign.
“Harris appeared to be straddling both the left and the center, but ultimately faltered,” the authors write. (Related: Democrats release policy platform for Biden's second term as Harris struggles to escape her boss' shadow)
Though Harris' campaign was unsuccessful (she dropped out of the primary in December 2019 without winning a single delegate), she still entered the presidential running tally, but her selection did little to ease staff concerns.
“While Harris' campaign was undoubtedly successful in elevating her to the second-highest office in the country, those closest to the campaign had deep-seated doubts about her ability to lead.”
Many Democrats had a hard time imagining that Ms. Harris could win the White House.
““There was concern that Kamala Harris would not be able to win the election against Donald Trump, or perhaps any Republican,” the authors write.
In fact, she is so unpopular that left-leaning commentators Suggested Biden is running in her place.
“Biden could push for a more open vice presidential selection process, which could produce a stronger running mate,” Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said. Written September 2023.
At the time, her favorability rating was fluctuating between 39 and 40 percent. According to Go to the voting site fivethirtyeight.com.
Others, like Eric Levitz of New York Magazine, Suggested Biden plans to replace her with figures like Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.
Her lack of policy positions meant she relied heavily on charisma, something that was questioned by those close to her.
“Harris struggled to decide what she had to offer voters beyond her magnetic personality,” the authors write.
“That's a big part of why people supported her,” the senior staffer said, “but you have to back that up with, 'What are you going to do?'”
The staffer's prophetic remarks have proven remarkably prescient, as even now, just over five weeks after Biden withdrew and endorsed Kamala, Kamala has barely made clear her policy positions. (Related: Kamala Harris concludes DNC without releasing policy platform)
The only policy she advocates is Personally voiced There are plans to implement price controls to curb price gouging at grocery stores, and tax proposals that include expanding the earned income tax credit and child tax credit.
Moreover, nearly all of the information about her presidential plans came from anonymous staffers who leaked information trickle-down to the press.
Her lack of concrete proposals and her continued reliance on charisma and presence continues a pattern that has led her aides to say she is unfit to be president.
“Kamala is not a prime-time personality,” a senior White House staffer told us. “She's not the right person for this role.”
