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. Continue reading →