We've been talking a lot about shooting down balloons.  Last week, it was the Chinese balloon that flew over the country.  What's the next balloon to be shot down?  Could it be one named Kamala, as my friend Bill Katz said this week?

The New York Times has an idea via Josh Marcus:

A damning New York Times profile claims Democrats around Washington have "lost hope" in Kamala Harris, raising doubts that she'd be valuable on the 2024 ticket as either a presidential or vice-presidential candidate.

"I can't think of one thing she's done except stay out of the way and stand beside him at certain ceremonies," John Morgan, a prominent fund-raiser for Democrats, told the paper.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton privately expressed the belief that Ms Harris couldn't win a primary race in 2024, though Ms Clinton denied this, according to the profile.

"Even some Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her," read another line from the story.

It's a sentiment that's cropped up in various political circles in recent weeks.

"People are poised to pounce on anything — any misstep, any gaffe, anything she says — and so she's probably not getting the benefit of the doubt," Jacquelyn Bettadapur, leader of Georgia's Cobb County Democrats, told the Washington Post, arguing most Americans "don't know enough about what she's doing" and that "it doesn't help that she's not [that] adept as a communicator".

Vice president Harris has an approval level below 40 per cent, according to FiveThirtyEight, down from 55 at the beginning of the Biden administration, and is less popular than the president.

To be fair, it's tough to be vice president because you are at the mercy of the president.  At the same time, can you blame Democrats for feeling let down by the V.P.'s performance?  She was given the opportunity of a lifetime to work on the border issues and didn't take it seriously.  Her public appearances are awful, or about as bad as her debate performances in 2020.

Some in the Marcus article call her "a work in progress."  Really?  Then what is she doing in the major leagues?

We're living in interesting times.  A president has documents behind a Corvette.  A balloon flies over the country.  So anything is possible, including a balloon named Kamala getting blown up.

PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts, and videos.

Image: Public Domain.