I guess there's only one thing I would disagree with: the early statement that Harris is "an extraordinary and history-making figure" who reached inside herself to find only the ordinary.
I worked in and around California government for almost 25 years, and watched the modest rise of Harris as she fell upwards, being in the right place at the right time, time after time. She was never more than ordinary in any of her elected roles, and was usually less; and her few slim electoral victories showed it. She left no legacy here or in the Senate, except as a run-of-the-mill, bland progressive democrat.
As for making history, the only kind she made was the thin demographic definition of the word the democrats are enamored of, and which leaves most of us cold. Defining "history" down so low is an insult to those who have genuinely achieved it.
Harris was always the person this article describes. Having known and seen her in action for the short time she was on the stage in California, I am grateful (I guess) that the rest of the country was spared more of her. I am just sorry that her failure (and her party's, which I used to belong to) gave us, instead, Donald Trump. It should say everything that when faced with Trump's obvious horror show, voters found they disliked Harris more than they disliked him.
Maybe only in that has she been an extraordinary and historic figure.
That was no rumor, it's pretty much on the record. I worked in the California legislature for a Democratic senator, and the joke was that while, as you say, Harris's forte was falling up, she also knew the value of waking up at the right time in the right place.
Yeah, I was just trying to be polite. It’s easy to accuse women of sleeping their way to the top. Anyway, it was pretty well known when we were there in San Francisco.
I appreciate your review- it reflects your reading of her and of her book. It might be good to have a supporter and enthusiast also review it for Persuasion, to balance the palate. Harris has always come across to me just as you describe her. The quotes you selected do show a person who is devoid of gratitude and humility and shame in the end for her own inability to rise to the occasion. It was an important occasion but it may not have been her calling to have to answer for it.
“But politics is not a nice business. (Otherwise, Mitt Romney would have been president.)”
I don’t get it. Why would Romney have been president if politics were a nice business? His campaign was so notoriously dishonest that, if it hadn’t been followed by ten years of Trump, it might have remained fixed in our consciousness as the very height of political perfidity.
I guess there's only one thing I would disagree with: the early statement that Harris is "an extraordinary and history-making figure" who reached inside herself to find only the ordinary.
I worked in and around California government for almost 25 years, and watched the modest rise of Harris as she fell upwards, being in the right place at the right time, time after time. She was never more than ordinary in any of her elected roles, and was usually less; and her few slim electoral victories showed it. She left no legacy here or in the Senate, except as a run-of-the-mill, bland progressive democrat.
As for making history, the only kind she made was the thin demographic definition of the word the democrats are enamored of, and which leaves most of us cold. Defining "history" down so low is an insult to those who have genuinely achieved it.
Harris was always the person this article describes. Having known and seen her in action for the short time she was on the stage in California, I am grateful (I guess) that the rest of the country was spared more of her. I am just sorry that her failure (and her party's, which I used to belong to) gave us, instead, Donald Trump. It should say everything that when faced with Trump's obvious horror show, voters found they disliked Harris more than they disliked him.
Maybe only in that has she been an extraordinary and historic figure.
I was in CA while she was, too…and falling up was her forte, including help from Willie Brown who was rumored to be romantically involved with her….
That was no rumor, it's pretty much on the record. I worked in the California legislature for a Democratic senator, and the joke was that while, as you say, Harris's forte was falling up, she also knew the value of waking up at the right time in the right place.
Yeah, I was just trying to be polite. It’s easy to accuse women of sleeping their way to the top. Anyway, it was pretty well known when we were there in San Francisco.
That WAS the polite version. It got worse from there...
My hope is that, like Nixon, we won't have Kamala to kick around any more.
Amen. But she doesn’t want to go away.
I appreciate your review- it reflects your reading of her and of her book. It might be good to have a supporter and enthusiast also review it for Persuasion, to balance the palate. Harris has always come across to me just as you describe her. The quotes you selected do show a person who is devoid of gratitude and humility and shame in the end for her own inability to rise to the occasion. It was an important occasion but it may not have been her calling to have to answer for it.
Kamala Harris is and was my favorite candidate of all time. Different strokes....
Men have not done much for our country.
“But politics is not a nice business. (Otherwise, Mitt Romney would have been president.)”
I don’t get it. Why would Romney have been president if politics were a nice business? His campaign was so notoriously dishonest that, if it hadn’t been followed by ten years of Trump, it might have remained fixed in our consciousness as the very height of political perfidity.
" From Adams and Jefferson through FDR, JFK and Reagan, all were vociferous readers."
Voracious, probably. Surely they didn't shout at the books the way Harris shouts at her TV screen.
“As for her judgement on Vance, ‘it begins with an m and ends with ah.’”
I don’t get what word the book is alluding to here. Am I missing something obvious somehow?
Neither do I. But if the "ah" is intended as a substitute for "er", it could be an allusion to Greek tragedy.