Author: M R Dua
Even a casual, cursory glance at the title of this book will raise the reader’s curiosity, impelling him, what the heck occurred in ‘107 Days’ that prompted the former US vice president Kamala Harris to write a 474-page book to tell the reader? However, as the reader cruises through just a couple of pages, the enigmatic secret reveals that America’s former vice president had only 107 days to fight the world’s topmost electoral battle: 47th US presidential race for which her then boss, Joe Biden, was billed to run but dropped at last moment. Thus, though 107 days for the nation’s this hi-fidelity campaign was really a very short period for Kamala Harris to even once visit all 50 states and tell over 174 million American electorates that she will fight it to defeat Donald Trump. But she accepted the challenge, as she says in the book: “I knew I was the candidate with the strongest position to win.’’ The most qualified and ready. Because Kamala Harris was the one who could claim ‘country’s highest name recognition’; a Confident Kamala Harris never looked back… but fought on with all the power and energy she could then muster.
With a view to systematically providing an overall landscape of her 107-day daily presidential campaign schedule to the reader in this book, each chapter has been titled as ‘131 days to the election’; the 131st day being the day when President Joe Biden decided to quit the poll battle until the actual poll day. How highly demanding, uphill and strenuous this task was has been reflected in this book and Kamala Harris tells us thus: “Writing 107 Days felt like living the campaign in reverse - reviewing each moment and experiencing it all over again. Behind every speech I gave, did twenty-seven drafts of my (Democratic Party) Convention speech), hand I shook and the story I told on the road, there were deeper layers, quiet, deep reflections, and lessons learned. This book is not a recap of our race. It’s a candid and personal account of my journey — the shortest presidential campaign (only 107 days) in the U.S. modern history. I cannot wait for you to read it…’’
Harris narrates what she saw, heard and told her voters. She says many Opposition party workers ‘mocked’ her on what unfortunately turned out to be a ‘loser tour.’ Finally, from every account, 107 Days’ is a powerful narration of a leader who has said she’ll not give up and would be there, ready for the next presidential race due around two years to go — 2028. The book offers some valuable lessons for the would-be leaders of all stripes and colors, particularly from America’s Left.
The book amply reveals Harris’s character; what she deeply broods about the nation’s future and the mighty issues that await the USA, the widely touted, the most powerful nation on the planet.’ She ended the book with a fervent hope that the November 2026 mid-term elections win will and ‘I will be with the people, in towns and communities where I can listen to their ideas on how we rebuild trust, empathy, and a government worthy of the ideals of this country… One hundred and seven days were not, in the end, long enough to accomplish the task of winning the presidency. But we accomplished other things, as I learn every day.’ One hopes that Kamala Harris would have learned enough to make it to the world’s highest seat of power, the U.S. White House as she has averred, she will contest the next presidential race.
The writer was a professor and head of print journalism in Delhi’s Indian Institute of Mass Communication, ex-head-founder, journalism-communication department University of Calicut, kerala; Views presented are personal.