John Adams, the second president of the United States, described the vice presidency as the “most insignificant office,” and Republicans believe that Democrat Kamala Harris’ time in it has been completely wasted. But Harris (Oakland, California, 59), the first woman, the first Black and the first South Asian American to hold the office in 2021, now has a historic opportunity to turn back the attacks on the Trumpists. Never before in the history of the United States has a vice president taken over the baton to run for president at such an advanced stage in the campaign.
Before he became president, Adams was George Washington’s vice president, so he knew what he was talking about. He set the precedent for transitioning from one position to another, and since then, at the end of the 18th century, three sitting vice presidents have been elected president, as well as two former vice presidents, including Joe Biden. A kind of sudoku of ambitions and setbacks, like the one that brought Kamala Harris’s leader to the White House in 2020 and finally ousted him from her this Sunday.
Since the era of Adams and the Founding Fathers, the office of vice president has gained substantial weight: he is no longer solely responsible for succeeding the president in the event of his death, resignation or removal, nor for presiding over the Senate and conducting domestic relations. votes (With the slim Democratic majority, Harris broke the record for runoff elections in a single term, 32 as of last December). The successful California lawyer – too Californian, that is, liberal, for Republicans – has also taken on some of the Biden administration’s immigration policy since 2021, to the point that he has been ridiculed by the opposition as an “immigration czarina.” Since the Supreme Court’s repeal of the doctrine in June 2022 Roe vs. Wade, who enshrined constitutional protections for abortion rights, also became a standard-bearer for sexual and reproductive health among his colleagues, a political asset that allowed Democrats to save the furniture and even the decorations during the November midterm elections. A self-proclaimed feminist, her gesture of wearing white on the night of the Democratic victory celebration in Wilmington, Delaware remembered the struggle of the suffragettes.
Kamala Harris, a pure Democratic elite, was the first to arrive at the White House number two Biden after challenging him in the primaries. She was bolstered by a term in the House of Representatives (2017-2021) and six years of experience as California Attorney General (2011-2017). Attorney General and Senate, in that order: the planned ladder to power in the United States; the successful culmination of years of training as an assistant district attorney (1990-98) in Oakland, where he earned a reputation for toughness on gang violence, drug trafficking and sexual abuse cases; and district attorney (2004), the springboard to the District Attorney's Office.
Those were the days of the democrat Barack Obamaand the hangover from the great crisis of 2008, with its history of bankruptcies, and Harris demonstrated his political independence, for example by rejecting government pressure to settle a national lawsuit against mortgage lenders for unfair practices (the junk mortgage hole subprime had not yet been closed). Persistent and tough, Harris stuck to California's example and in 2012 received a sentence five times longer than the one Washington had asked her to end. His notable achievement was the 2013 annulment of Proposition 8 (2008), which banned same-sex marriage in the state of California. Your book Smart against crime, published in 2009 was considered a model for addressing the problem of criminal recidivism.
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In addition to being the most natural and above all automatic replacement, Biden, in the absence of party endorsement, now seems to be returning the favor to Harris. The one who seemed a solid contender for the Democratic nomination in the previous election, in particularly crowded primaries, threw in the towel in December 2019 when she failed to take advantage of the galley. Three months later, at the beginning of the pandemic, she endorsed Biden, the sixth of all candidates for the position. The Democratic competition was then reduced to a duel between Biden and the left-wing Bernie Sanders, but Harris' support for the current president was decisive in bringing him to the White House.
“I have decided that I am going to enthusiastically support Joe Biden for president of the United States,” the senator said in a video shared on Twitter at the time. “I believe in Joe. I really believe in him and I have known him for a long time.” At that time, his name was already appearing with some regularity in the pools of vice-presidentialjust as it is now, since the fateful June 27 debate that revealed Biden’s decline, among the presidential candidates. Republicans, who this week joked about the traditional debate pitting the two vice presidential candidates against each other by refusing to set a date for “not knowing the identity of the vice president” that Kamala Harris might hypothetically choose, were not wrong.
Mixed marriage
The possible Democratic candidate for the US presidency has roots in Jamaica and India. His father, a professor at Stanford University, came from the Caribbean island; his mother, the daughter of an Indian diplomat, was an oncology researcher. Her sister Maya, to whom she has a close relationship, is an expert in public policy. The presidential candidate graduated in politics and economics from Howard University in 1986 and three years later in law from Hasting College. His origins are therefore those of a wealthy family, too intellectual for the standards of the new Republican populism.
Her professional career also placed her in the elite, as did her late marriage, on the verge of 50, to lawyer Douglas Emhoff, whom she met on a blind date and who in 2021 became the first. second knight from the United States, who is Jewish, has practically suspended his career to exercise this official function full-time, which entails public representation (in his case, participation in debates and events against anti-Semitism, a debate on the fight against anti-Semitism). rise in the United States after the Gaza war and in which he cannot hide his condition). When they got married ten years ago, Emhoff stepped with his right foot on a crystal cup, as indicated in Jewish tradition, and Harris placed a floral wreath on the groom in Indian style.
Kamala Harris has never been Biden's dolphin, not even a subordinate. She has a charisma that Trump, who renamed her, has reduced to a caricature Laffin' Kamala (Kamala the Smiling) for her open laugh and her spontaneity, despite her memes. Her appearances on the social microvideo network TikTok, in improvised dances with members of her team, have also led the opposition to insult her or at least ridicule her. But Kamala Harris has more experience and political history than Donald Trump. Years before the magnate considered entering politics, the current vice president gave a memorable speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention that catapulted her national profile. She is considered a rising star within the party and was recruited to run for the Senate seat left by the retirement of Barbara Boxer. In early 2015, months before the Republican entered the White House, Harris presented a program based on immigration and criminal justice reform, increases in the minimum wage and protections for women's reproductive rights. He won the seat easily.
Republicans prefer her to any other White House candidate, certain that Trump will eat her in two bites. But the tenacity and determination of the vice president and potential candidate to become the first president of the United States after Hillary Clinton’s failed bid in 2016 could produce some surprises and shake up the most convulsive campaign in decades.
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