That Ms Harris is stuck in a political role is troubling to anyone concerned about the stability and continuity of the executive branch. No US president has celebrated his 80th birthday while in office, as Mr. Biden will do on November 20. He is, thankfully, experiencing “very mild symptoms” of the coronavirus, but it’s still hard to comprehend the actuarial reality and it’s clear he appears weaker than a man or woman of 60 (or, for that matter, his 57-year-old). year-old vice president).
Of the 15 vice presidents who became president, eight took office after the death of a president. (Four were later only elected.) That gives the vice presidency a sober weightiness, even when presidential candidate and running mate are images of middle-aged vitality, as, say, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were in 1976, or Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992.
A penumbra of vulnerability has eclipsed the modern presidency. By the end of its third term, however, it clung to Roosevelt, but because it was wartime, it was rarely discussed publicly. It hit 70-year-old Ronald Reagan, shot and injured by a would-be hit man in March 1981, and Eisenhower, in September 1955, when the 64-year-old president suffered a massive heart attack. Death was often in Eisenhower’s mind. In 1954, while contemplating a second term in office, he referred in his diary to “the greater likelihood that a 70-year-old man will succumb to a load than a 50-year-old man,” and especially the “increasing severity and complexity of problems facing the world.” the president rests for a solution.”
Ms. Harris is not responsible for her relative lack of national and international experience: She had been in the Senate for less than four years when Mr. Biden elected her, and he did so in the knowledge that she had never held an executive role. But in the nearly two years since Mr. Biden tapped Ms. Harris as his running mate in August 2020, we’ve learned that her ties to Mr. Biden and key government officials are relatively thin. Not unimportantly, she’s only had a handful of private lunches with Mr. Biden this year. And after her first lunch with Secretary of State Blinken, in February 2021, she reportedly expected their lunches to continue, as they had for then-Vice President Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Such interaction had been common; for example, in the late 1950s, Vice President Nixon formed an almost childlike relationship with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. However, regular Harris-Blinken lunches did not take place (although the two met, spoke on the phone, and had what a State Department official has had “regular appointments…regular interaction”).
An in-depth new book by two Times reporters, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, titled “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future,” paints an authoritative portrait of Biden’s relationship with Harris—or the absence of a . It describes how Mr. Biden’s advisers were willing to overlook Ms. Harris’ weaknesses in favor of Mr. Biden’s immediate political interests and saw that her main value came from helping to win the 2020 election. She was a historic choice, destined to become the first woman, the first African American, and the first South Asian American to serve as vice president. As for presidential readiness, Mr. Biden was more focused on assembling a multiracial coalition, to reflect the country’s diversity in his administration.
Ms. Harris has been the frequent target of negative stories — about staff disorder and departures, or her annoyance that White House staff didn’t get up when she entered a room, or even her discomfort in some media interviews. She’s also faced double standards in how she’s seen and judged, like many women and people of color, including when they’re “firsts” in jobs.