How can Vice President kamala-harris” target=”_blank”>Kamala Harris< Peggy Noonan offered some suggestions this week.
Noonan wrote a withering op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday where she urged the Democrat to “get serious.”
In the piece aptly titled “Kamala Harris Needs to Get Serious,” Noonan mused on the vice president’s current predicament.
Harris seemed “unprepared, unfocused—unserious” during her visit to world-regions in June as part of her role as executive border czar, Noonan wrote, adding she believes the VP loves the “politics of politics too much” rather than any actual issue.
“She came from a generation of California electionswho never even had to meet a Republican, so great was their electoral dominance,” Noonan wrote. “It was too easy for them. She only had to speak Democrat, only had to know how they think and put together party coalitions. But half or more of the country is conservative or Republican. She never had to develop the broad political talents to talk to them too.”
“She came from a generation of California Democrats who never even had to meet a Republican, so great was their electoral dominance. It was too easy for them. She only had to speak Democrat.”
— Peggy Noonan
Noonan also brushed off Harris defenders who say she is under the microscope because of her gender and race.
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“She doesn’t seem strong in public; she seems scattered and unprepared,” Noonan argued of supporters who say strong female politicians often take it on the chin.
Vice President Kamala Harris looks over documents during a meeting at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021.
(Associated Press)
She also noted that prejudice is baked into the game and a “competent” politician “doesn’t blame bigotry but beats it.”
“The reason people watch Ms. Harris so closely isn’t that she’s a woman of color or a breakthrough figure, but that she could become president at any moment the next three years,” Noonan reasoned.
“The reason people watch Ms. Harris so closely isn’t that she’s a woman of color or a breakthrough figure, but that she could become president at any moment the next three years.”
— Peggy Noonan
She advised that the VP should make herself “useful” to the president through the skills she has that he lacks.
“To do this Ms. Harris would have to decide to become serious—to inform and immerse herself, meet with party thinkers, study her briefing books,” she wrote. “Her current strategy, to the extent it exists, appears to rely on her sense of her own personal charisma—delighted laughter, attempts to connect personally, to convey zest.”
Noonan added that Harris would also need to speak with “sincerity and depth” and try to be more “earnest.”
“Get your mind off yourself, give America a break, get this thing turned around,” the columnist urged in closing.
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Reaction to the piece on Twitter was swift, mostly falling along party lines.
While Fox News’ Brit Hume tweeted “Peggy Noonan urges Kamala Harris to become the kind of person she is not and never has been,” a more liberal-leaning Twitterer claimed Noonan is “consistently awful & offensive on the VP.”
“Congratulations to Peggy Noonan for being the 190 millionth person in the history of the United States to tell a Black person to be more humble,” another person wrote.
