I’d like to take credit for the moniker but frankly it is my husband’s. Mr.Davis is about as apolitical as they come. Like most Black Americans he is conservative by nature, however he really has no interest in politics beyond the typical “big ticket” items. It’s how our marriage thrives, frankly. There can only be one loud and passionately opinionated spouse. Someone has to be the one to smile and nod or there will be an imbalance in The Force.

However, last year in a rare moment of curiosity my husband sat in on a few minutes of a Democrat debate. It was one of the early debates when there were still about 380 candidates and we were all pretending there was a chance Biden wasn’t going to be the nominee. As he stood in front of the television watching Harris rebut some thing or another, he asked, “Is that Kamala Harris?” and I told him it was. He let out a perturbed grunt.

“I can’t listen to this woman until election day. She sounds like a high school vice-principal.”

I was stunned. The man who couldn’t have named three of the 380 candidates had just dropped the most accurate description of Kamala Harris I’d ever heard. She does indeed have the appeal of a high school vice-principal.

You know the one…you’ve met her at school. She was old enough to be your mom but young enough that she didn’t seem to be from a completely different planet. She had a concerted “cool stepmom” vibe about her. She liked to think she was connecting with the kids, cracking jokes in the hallways and injecting herself into private conversations around lockers and cafeteria trays. She probably had a loud laugh…that’s how people know she’s FUN and she’s HAVING FUN and you can HAVE FUN around her. She’s “fun vice-principal” but the underlying truth is that she is the scariest combination of qualities – a desperate need for approval combined with a position that has power in name but not really in action. Few things are more dangerous than an ego-driven personality with just enough power to make a random person’s life miserable.

Think meter maid. Think the clerk at the post office. Think the DMV.

Harris has the demeanor of an administrator who really believes she deserves the top job but is resentful about being stuck having to win favor from the unwashed masses outside of the science lab to get it. There is something so off-putting and manufactured about her “jovial” front.

I don’t want to spend much time criticizing Harris for her demeanor or things about herself that are beyond her control. Goodness knows the political industry isn’t for the fragile but she doesn’t deserve to have her entire candidacy distilled to insults about her personality and latest beautifying tactics. There is plenty in which to criticize the former California prosecutor and we’ll get to that, most certainly.

Today I just wanted to reflect a bit on the choice, and how my husband’s one-off remark has since colored every aspect of how I view Kamala Harris. I still find the choice perplexing. Oh, I know Biden backed himself into a corner by declaring ahead of time that he’d be racially profiling for his VP pick, but there were other candidates on that list. Why Harris? Unless internal polling has given them a surprise it is clear California will vote blue, Harris has a prosecutorial record that will surely anger BLM voters, and she has a huge likability chasm to cross.

We’ll parse all that out in the coming days and weeks. For now, as we wade through the inevitable flood of fluff and hit pieces, let’s just take a few minutes to picture a President Joe Biden, incapacitated and forced to acquiesce his office to the woman who flamed out so horribly in the primaries that she dropped from the top-tier to single-digit polling almost overnight. Then imagine America on the world stage, being represented by President Vice Principal until 2024.