UPDATED: The Atlantic Doesn't Seem To Think Much Of Harris
Not to be outdone by the NYT's recent skewering of the current occupant of the White House, another very liberal outlet, The Atlantic , offers a frank view of the vice-occupant. They don't sound overly impressed, which places them well with the rest of America. If you're a Dem, do you want Zhou to hang on or to be replaced? Quite the dilemma, as you watch things go to sh*t.
Sample:
The vice president and her team tend to dismiss reporters. Trying to get her to take a few questions after events is treated as an act of impish aggression. And Harris herself tracks political players and reporters whom she thinks don’t fully understand her or appreciate her life experience. (She often mentions an episode in which a Washington Post reporter mistook the cheer of the historic Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha for “screeches ,” I was told.) She particularly doesn’t like the word cautious , and aides look out for synonyms too. Careful , guarded , and hesitant don’t go over well. But she continues to retreat behind talking points and platitudes in public, and declines many interview requests and opportunities to speak for herself (including for this article). At times, she comes off as so uninteresting that television producers have started to wonder whether spending thousands of dollars to send people on trips with her is worthwhile, given how little usable material they get out of it. ...
Harris has been an elected official for 18 years straight, but she has only a few senior aides on staff who have worked for her for more than a few months.Turf battles have been a recurring feature of Harris offices over the years, but her newest circle believes it is finally getting her on track after years of past staffers not serving her well. Some have been surprised at how much work there is to be done, whether that’s briefing her on certain policy issues or helping her improve her sparring-with-journalists skills.
UPDATE: The latest YouGov poll quantifies the poor impression that Kama Sutra makes, everywhere she goes. She's underwater: +41 versus -48. Extremely unimpressive, even for a vice-occupant. It seems that the problem isn't that people don't know that much about her. It's that the things they do know lead them to dislike her with an unusual degree of intensity, considering her lack of profile.