Review the Kamala Harris book: “107 days” offers a vision, but we do not hope

Without a doubt, it is important to capture the repercussions of the vice president who found herself in an unprecedented position after pressuring the president to withdraw from the 2024 elections. And “107 days”, a tight account, often open-written with the help of Geraldine Brooks-takes you into the rooms in which it happened, as well as what led to the operation of the wonderful Kamala Harris.

On the one hand, it is clear that Lawrence Odonel of MSNBC gave Harris for the first time an idea that she should seek the presidency in 2020. Harris and her husband, Doug Emahof, had breakfast at a restaurant near their home in Brentwood when Odonel wandered at our table to talk about severe consequences in the Trump II term. “Harris, then in her first term, as an American staff, tells that Odonil suggested frankly:” “You You must run for the presidency. Frankly, I did not think about it until that moment, “she writes in” 107 days “.

Later, Harris also reveals that Tim Walz was not her first choice for Matti Mati: It was a Beit Potter, although she finally concluded that the country was not ready for a gay man in this role.

“We were already asking a lot of America: accepting a woman, a black woman, a black woman married to a Jewish man,” she wrote. It assumes that Buttigieg felt the same, but they never discussed it.

We do not go more than we already knew or assumed about President Biden’s phone call that changed life for 2024 and that put Harris on this path. Biden’s appeals to step down may be adopted after his catastrophic performance in the discussion less than five months before the elections, but by that time Harris abandoned the idea that he would withdraw from the race. But on Sunday, July 21, Harris had just finished making pancakes for its grandchildren at the vice president’s residence and was settling to watch a cooking offer with them when she appeared “no caller identifier” on her safe phone.

“I need to talk to you,” Biden Rasus, then fighting Kovid 19. Without a fuss, he told her: “I decided to leave.” “Are you sure?” “I’m sure. I will announce in a few minutes,” said Harris, who replies Biden. In a oblique line, we are familiar with what Harris thinks during his short phone call: “truly?” Give me more time. The whole world is about to change. I am here in Sweatpants. “

If we want to get strong feelings that must revolve within each of them during such an exchange, or gesture to the tone of the current time – we do not respond. The conversation turned into the timing of Biden’s support for Harris, whom Biden employees wanted to delay and immediately wanted. Politics, not feelings, prevailing.

It is clear that the excerpts of the Atlantic Book published earlier this month are accurately represented the total tone of “107 days”. The thread that works all the time is one of the bitterness towards the Biden inner circle, which Harris felt that it had been poisoning the well since it took office for the first time: “general data, powerful campaigns, and speculation have led to a world of damage,” and perhaps she listened, and perhaps she laid the foundation to defeat it. While she had a warm relationship with the president himself, Harris believes that she did not trust her, the first lady or the closest adviser to the president, and they did not meet their full weight as a democratic candidate.

At the same time, you never suspected that she was the right person for this position. I wrote: “I knew that I was the candidate in the strongest position to win … the most qualified and ready. The highest recognition of names.” It also calculates that the president and his team thought it was the least bad option to replace him because I was “the only person who would keep his legacy.” “At this stage,” she added.

For those who are political, “107 days” will not change your point of view. After Biden announced his withdrawal, the first lady, Jill Biden, welcomes the second master Emahof in the battle, and to advise: “Be careful with what you wish. You are about to see how wonderful the world is.” Its great advisor, David Bluffy Harris, is encouraged to distract herself from the president’s path, because “people hate Joe Biden.” Over and over again, Harris offers examples of leaving him out of the episode or his inner circle strongly. She writes that her feelings of the president “are based on warmth and loyalty”, but she became “more complicated over time.” She claims that she has never doubted Biden’s efficiency, even when she was concerned about how he appeared to the public.

“On his worst day, I wrote,” He was deeply knowledgeable, more able to exercise judgment, and is much more sympathetic than Donald Trump at his best. “However, his decision on searching for a second term must” should not be left the ego for the individual, the ambition of the individual, “and concluded a note that occupied the headlines when it was published in the Atlantic excerpt.

The joy that the Harris campaign, which was often warned in these early gatherings, was summarized, but these accounts do not embody joy. Some of the details you choose to highlight the occurrence of excitement. For example, in their first gathering together after the governor of Minnesota Tim and Alzal chose to be her colleague in running, Al -Laz, Harris and their families greeting an audience of 10,000 people in Philadelphia. Although Harris wrote: “We installed the top of the crowd that night, she also noticed,” when Tim formed my hands because of her height in the enthusiastic crime of victory, it was so long that the full front part of my jacket rose. “It provides” a mental note to tell him: From now on, when we do it, you should bend your elbow. “

Kamala Harris, whom I saw in the campaign path and vote enthusiastically, is often evidence of the page. It is smart, smart, funny and difficult. As in many of her attractive speeches and media interviews, she tends to read her accomplishments as if she was reading from the CV, which sometimes reads as defensive. But it also cannot be determined: she believes that she should win to save democracy, yet it seems that she bears this tremendous burden without breaking sweat.

“107 days” does an excellent job in transferring the difficulty of searching for the higher office – and the occupation, and suggests that if it wins, it will use it as the flexibility of Harris and its ambition as a leader of the free world. Many of her ideas are smart, although she is sometimes distorted with Rancor. She accepts responsibility for some mistakes, such as when she was asked about “opinion” if she would do something different from Biden if she was responsible. It reflects that her response – “There is nothing that comes to mind” – fell as if it was “withdrawn the pin on a hand grenade.” But she does not attribute her final loss to that or any other miscalculation: she simply needed more time to make her case.

I was looking for a high moment, a crowd cry. I did not find hope or inspiration on these pages – the book felt that it was more famous after death with a really fixed conclusion. If the goal of these notes is to mobilize the forces for Harris in 2028, then “107 days” is no less than the lighting of the fire. The wonderful and caricid woman who is close to breaking the final glass ceiling gave us an essential picture of an unforgettable turning point on her journey, but “107 days” is mainly absent from the perspective and planning to move forward that many of us are hungry. A few years outside, this wisdom may come.

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing specialist. She was the director of the Books Club in Oprah and a written editor in the Oprah magazine.