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For more information, see our Privacy Policy. It was enough. That was the optimistic take. But the Selma visit was a mess. Instead of anyone organizing the four presidential candidates and thousands of people in attendance ready to re-create the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, there was just a man shouting half-directions into a megaphone and another standing in front of those waiting to march doing an uncanny impersonation of Martin Luther King Jr.
Biden had left, Sanders was never scheduled to come, and Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar were jammed together halfway down the block where they were supposed to be.
But Warren and Klobuchar held on to each other, pulling through the crowd at one point. Buttigieg attached himself to Sharpton.
The billionaire in the suit with the thread count so high you could see it was left without his fellow presidential contenders once again, accompanied by people who had joined him in church, including Columbia, South Carolina, Mayor Steve Benjamin. A top aide assessed the chaos, the way Bloomberg was getting bumped around, and offered to pull him out and take him to his waiting plane.
The candidate dismissed that immediately. His staff pulled him forward. He was gearing up to run as an independent. Moderates and independents were having visions of a candidate who could appeal across the usual political divisions, and of an unlimited spending bonanza. Read: The Bloomberg whisperer. Despite the humbling comedown, the events of the past few days leave Bloomberg in a position to exert influence over what comes next. He has the resources to play an important role in the campaign to unseat Trump, which he says he plans to continue pursuing.
Although the Sanders campaign stated that it would not accept any financial assistance from Bloomberg, the former mayor has said that he will support Sanders if he ends up becoming the Democratic nominee. When confronted with serious questions about discriminatory policing policies that he promoted as the mayor of New York City, and allegations of sexism and harassment at his company, he behaved as if he could half-apologize and change the subject. His lack of empathy for certain people was too obvious.
But, during a town-hall event hosted by Fox News, at George Mason University, on Monday night, another side of him came into view. Three other men jumped out of their seats holding up white signs, interrupting the gun advocates, and surrounded the stage.
The moderators cut to a commercial break, and the protesters were escorted out, although the gun advocates and their hecklers soon began shouting at each other again. Presidents and vice presidents and their staffs often clash. Barack Obama's West Wing tended to be dismissive of Biden's staffers a number of whom are now with him in the West Wing , and Biden himself had a number of stumbles early in that job.
Republicans and right-wing media turned Harris into a political target from the moment she was picked for the ticket. And implicit racism and sexism have been constant. It's a conundrum unique to her. People are expecting their historic vice president to make history every day when in fact she's trying to carry the duties of a secondary role.
Harris is being judged not just by how she's doing in the traditional duties of a vice president, said Minyon Moore, a longtime Democratic operative who has become Harris' most important outside adviser. Moore said Harris' approach is to be constantly asking, "Should we be doing more on an issue?
Are we communicating with the people whose lives are impacted? Are we missing any key constituency groups? Even some who have been asked for advice lament Harris' overly cautious tendencies and staff problems, which have been a feature of every office she's held, from San Francisco district attorney to US Senate. He arranged weekly lunches, just as he'd held with Obama, and invited Harris to join him for his morning classified intelligence briefing.
Harris, meanwhile, threw herself into proving her commitment to the President and the administration, using his relationship with Obama as her guide. Even then, some White House aides questioned whether Biden's experience as vice president would easily translate to someone with far different qualifications and skills -- and to a much different moment. After Harris became known in the first few months for often standing by Biden's side in the frame as he made big speeches, even after she'd introduced him herself, the West Wing appears to have overcorrected so she has been with the President noticeably less.
Not just in public. A week and a half ago, as Biden and his aides and multiple outside allies rattled through calls all day trying to lock down wavering lawmakers ahead of the House infrastructure vote, Harris spent the afternoon touring a NASA space flight center in suburban Maryland.
That night, Harris was part of the small group Biden invited upstairs to the White House residence for the war room making the last hours of calls. The next morning, celebrating the bill's passage, Biden singled her out, saying, "A lot of this has to do with this lady right here, the vice president.
While she had attended some meetings Biden hosted with key lawmakers, there were many more that she didn't attend -- to the point that it was noteworthy that she made an unscheduled drop-by one session in the final stretch.
Harris had only been in Washington four years, and to the White House just one time before being sworn in as vice president. Missing out on those main meetings deprived her of an important aspect of presidential apprenticeship from a self-styled master of how to actually get deals through Congress. Aides to the vice president point to "engagements" with members of the House and Senate since March, accounting for every conversation she had with lawmakers about the subject of infrastructure.
They call this "quiet Hill diplomacy," and it includes inviting lawmakers to join her when she's visiting their home states or holding events in Washington, many of which have touted actual elements of the infrastructure bill beyond the price tag.
Harris has helped to detect concerns from outside the Beltway and has attempted to give political cover to members worried about losing their seats after voting for the legislation. There's always a larger strategic purpose," Harris spokeswoman Symone Sanders said.
One of those roundtables was in late September, when Harris invited Rep. The congresswoman was hesitant to support all of the compromises on progressive initiatives in the infrastructure bill. Several aides to the vice president highlighted this as a key example of her under-the-radar influence. Harris' aides cite how much of what's in the infrastructure bill connects back to legislation she worked on while in the Senate, including accessible broadband, wildfire defense, water clean-up and clean energy school buses.
And in 30 events over seven months touting the bill in local media markets, they believe she's played an integral role in selling the administration's efforts.
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