By Ande Jacobson
107 Days by Kamala Harris reads like a combination of a thoughtful diary, a comprehensive memoir of the crushingly short campaign, and a message of hope and determination from a woman who has made it her life’s work to serve the public good to the best of her ability. The book is brutally honest, but not in an inflammatory way. This isn’t a Hollywood tell-all, shovel the dirt reveal. Instead it is a look inside not only what makes Kamala Harris tick, but how her decisions, actions, hopes, and dreams affect those around her and beyond. It’s clear that Harris takes her work seriously. She sets an example not to gain notoriety, but because it’s the right thing to do. She owns up to her mistakes, learns from them, and moves forward. That’s the mark of intelligence and understanding. She’s honest about the monumental task that was thrust upon her noting that she didn’t expect anybody to vote for her because she said so. She worked very hard to earn everyone’s votes. She recognizes the reality that only about a third of voters actually voted for her opponent, Donald J. Trump. She also recognizes that of the two thirds who did not vote for him, about a third voted for her. The rest either stayed home or voted for somebody else. In that, she regrets not having reached them with the urgency of the task at hand. The race was extremely close, and Trump only won his plurality (not a mandate) by 1.5% of the popular vote. In a country of 340 million, that’s a minuscule margin of public approval and not anywhere close to a mandate. The Electoral College told a different story, but that has been badly skewed for decades and truly has lost its usefulness. Still, it unfortunately is how U.S. presidential elections are currently determined.
What Harris accomplished in 107 days, the shortest campaign in modern times, was remarkable. Her book takes readers inside the intense workings of the campaign making them feel the pressure that never stopped. Staffers and principles alike kept saying that they could rest after Election Day. Until then, it was all hands on deck. Turning from being the vice presidential running mate to the top of the ticket was enough to cause most people whiplash, but Harris ran with it with a lot of help from those around her. She and her team almost accomplished the impossible in record time. As it was, she was one of very few who ran for president from the position of a sitting vice president. The others who have done so had more time to develop their campaigns. That also meant that even though the campaign took more than the most demanding full time job, she was still the sitting Vice President. As such, she had duties to perform along the way.
Harris also had a delicate line to walk. On the one hand, as Vice President, she supported the administration and carried out its priorities. As a presidential candidate, she differed from the Biden administration on some policies. She also had ground to make up. Part of the Vice President’s job is to not overshadow the president and in many ways be invisible while doing critical work on domestic and international policies. Although Harris had accomplished a great deal as Vice President, it wasn’t fully reported, so much of the American public really didn’t know her despite her impressive resume.
She wrote about how President Biden was essentially pushed out when he withdrew from the race and then threw his support behind her with only 107 days left in the race. She shared a wide range of responses from the party leaders and members ranging from enthusiastic support from the start to complete lack of responses even when contacted. She included several direct quotes from the many calls, emails, and texts she received from them.
Harris talked about choosing a running mate and how carefully the team protected the process. The three finalists all were strong supporters and each promised to do all they could to help her campaign whether or not they were the final choice. It really came down to rapport and current position. Tim Walz had a positive vibe the others didn’t, and even though he and Harris came from different places, they had core values and priorities in common that made him the best choice. He wasn’t the strongest debater or interviewee, but he had a charisma and authenticity that couldn’t be denied. What you saw was who he truly was.
The bulk of the book was a day by day description of what happened, the team’s priorities, Harris’ state of mind, and finally the outcome we all witnessed despite the heroic efforts put forward during the campaign. In discussing Election Day, Harris said that was probably the most nerve racking of the entire process because by then there was nothing more that could be done, and the waiting was brutal particularly given the outcome.
She talked candidly about her feelings and responsibility on Certification Day. As the Vice President and President of the Senate, it was her job to certify the vote, which she did as the Constitution requires. She did her duty with honor and dignity despite hurting on the inside. Throughout the campaign, she was well-aware of what a second Trump term would mean, and she did everything she could to warn us all about it while presenting her contrasting vision of a positive change in America were she to become president. Nonetheless, once she lost the race, it was also her job to work with the administration to ensure a peaceful transfer of power to the next administration, something that didn’t happen in 2021 as we all know too well.
Harris provides readers with what happened next in her life, and for the country. When the new administration took office, she and Doug were to return home, but that was during the wildfires that devastated her state. For a time, their house was in the evacuation area, but by the time they were to return, they found out that their neighborhood had been spared. Still, she was heartbroken by the tragedy and did what she could to help her home region volunteering to help those who had lost everything. Quite the welcome home.
The Biden administration was out, Trump’s was in, and the country was bracing for the most tumultuous time the U.S. has seen in modern times. While she’s not publicly saying that she told us so, she predicted much of what we are seeing, but she admits that one thing surprised her. She didn’t foresee the level of capitulation we have seen beyond the Republican lawmakers and administration members climbing over themselves to curry favor with Trump. She didn’t expect the big media companies, major law firms, universities, and billionaires to be groveling for the president’s favor the way they have. She expected more integrity from them, and that’s been a huge disappointment and threat to the country.
Even with all of that, Harris remains hopeful that the American people will survive, and after a time will thrive. She encourages us to stay engaged, to vote, to volunteer, to help our local communities, and together she’s sure that we can again move forward to make a better America with opportunities for all. She insists that this isn’t going to happen by looking backward to an imagined better time, but by moving forward and embracing change. It won’t be easy, but she’s sure we’ll do it. Her vision relies heavily on Gen Z. This generation is bigger than the previous ones even including the Baby Boomers. This is a young generation currently ranging in age from thirteen to twenty-eight. They have lived through the pandemic, economic upheaval, and governmental chaos many of us would never have imagined and are still moving forward. Their time is coming, and they won’t settle for capitulation and compliance. They’ll demand more, but we have to do our part to help make that happen.
Kamala Harris didn’t win the presidency, but she still accomplished a great deal in helping America waking up as a result.
Reference:
107 Days, by Kamala Harris
A Good Reed Review 
[…] Kamala Harris wrote a book about the 2024 election and the fallout from it that is very much worth reading. In it she tells her story without restraint, and one thing that she emphasizes is something that none of us saw coming this year. In efforts to pacify the new president, there has been an unprecedented level of capitulation to his erratic and unhinged demands. It was clear that the traditional news media was willing to sacrifice its journalistic ethics to pacify his ego, but the lengths to which corporate America and even universities and law firms have capitulated has been shocking and extremely damaging to the country as a whole. The GOP members of Congress have also completely abdicated their responsibilities to represent their constituents, and whether out of fear for their personal safety or an actual belief in the regime’s cruel policies, they’ve ceded much of their authority to the executive branch going against the checks and balances that the Constitution enshrined as guardrails against any one person assuming too much power. Even the GOP members of the Senate have ceded their authority by rubber stamping nominations for cabinet positions despite the nominees being wholly unqualified for their positions. As the year ends, some GOP members of Congress are trying to get some of their congressional responsibility back, but time will tell whether it’s too little, too late. […]
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