Hillary Clinton is reportedly helping Kamala Harris save her sinking poll numbers by advising the Democrat vice president on how to be more popular among American voters.
Clinton says she understands Harris’s spiralling unpopularity as she claims they are both victims of similar vast right-wing conspiracies.
“There is a double standard; it’s sadly alive and well,” Clinton said.
“A lot of what is being used to judge her, just like it was to judge me, or the women who ran in 2020, or everybody else, is really colored by that.”
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) defended Harris from her critics on the left and the right and took a swipe at Joe Biden’s White House in the process:
“What the White House could’ve done is been clearer with the expectations of what was supposed to happen under her watch.”
From The New York Times:
Faced with declining approval ratings, a series of staff departures and a drumbeat of criticism from Republicans and the conservative news media, she has turned to powerful confidantes, including Hillary Clinton, to help plot a path forward.
Ms. Harris has privately told her allies that the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, whom she has described as all white and male. (Charles Curtis, who served as vice president under Hoover, spoke proudly of his Native American ancestry.)
She also has confided in them about the difficulties she is facing with the intractable issues in her portfolio, such as voting rights and the root causes of migration. The White House has pushed back against scathing criticism on both fronts, for what activists say is a lack of attention.
From The Daily Mail:
Harris is the first black woman to ever fill the vice presidential role, which has long been derided as a difficult job – although in recent years vice presidents have become key advisors and powers in their own right.
She has also reached out to former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice, as well as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The article begins with an anecdote about a summer meeting where Biden was cranking up his efforts to get the support of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
Instead of asking for her strategy assessment – Harris served alongside Manchin in the Senate – Biden asked her to come by and say a ‘quick hello’ before exiting, it says. Biden himself served 36 years in the Senate and served two terms as vice president, when he helped steer Obama legislation through the Senate.
“Faced with declining approval ratings, a series of staff departures and a drumbeat of criticism from Republicans and the conservative news media, she has turned to powerful confidantes, including Hillary Clinton, to help plot a path forward.”
NYT on VP https://t.co/YbeVlFOYYQ
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 24, 2021
