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“She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country – Kamala Harris is here,” Barack Obama announced at a fundraiser. “It’s true! C’mon.”

Progressives were not very happy with Obama. Neither was Michelle. Barack Obama ended up having to apologize to both women, one privately and one publicly, but it was also the closest that Kamala, the ‘other woman’, would ever get to her role model during her political career.

“She wants to live the life of someone in the White House,” a strategist would describe her a few years later. “Her hanging around the president and first lady, it’s gotten her hooked.”

But the ‘hooking’ was strictly one way.

Michelle Obama had never liked Kamala and their awkward relationship would be on full display during the 2024 presidential campaign, while Barack Obama, as his slip at the fundraiser revealed, never took Kamala seriously and refused to support her political ambitions.

Kamala’s relationship with the Obamas was very much an unrequited one. On paper, Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, the children of radical foreign grad students raised outside America, had much in common, but both politicians were insecure narcissists skating by on their personalities and biographies, and while Kamala’s narcissism led her to see herself in Obama, the object of her affection saw her as good looking but dumb, and not good enough to be him.

Obama’s “best-looking” jab was more than the sexist misstep the media had made it out to be. It was a reference to how Kamala had gotten her career started by ‘hooking’ San Francisco’s political boss Willie Brown, becoming his girlfriend, scoring a BMW and helping secure her position as San Francisco DA before moving on to becoming the Attorney General of California.

The jab annoyed Kamala because it mocked her professional credibility and annoyed Michelle for a whole other reason, but it foreshadowed Obama’s obstructionism of her career. What made it worse was Kamala’s habit of acting like a lovesick schoolgirl when he came around.

In 2007, Kamala had not only taken a risk by becoming one of the first California politicians to endorse Obama over Hillary in the primaries at a time when many Democrats were sticking with the Clintons, but the California girl had even flown out to Iowa in the middle of the winter to put on a show of knocking on doors for him while gushing about her excitement over Obama.

But even as Kamala chased Obama, she couldn’t even get in his door. Literally.

When Obama flew into LA to do a fundraiser, the security at the door wouldn’t let her in. Kamala had to plead with the police and tell them that she was the San Francisco DA to get inside.

The whole thing came to a humiliating crescendo on Election Day when Kamala tried and failed to get access to Barrack and Michelle at a private tent. As ‘Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House’ revealed, Kamala “tried to force herself into one reserved for Obama’s friends and family”, but she “was turned away because she was neither family nor friend.”

And no matter how much Kamala wanted to be, she wasn’t and would never be one.

After endorsing Obama, Kamala had been hoping for a White House position, but it didn’t happen. Instead she continued her upward climb with no assistance from Barack Obama.

Kamala Harris had taken a significant political risk by endorsing Obama during a primary, but over and over again he proved unwilling to do the same thing for her. Even though there were no other Democrats running for California’s attorney general, Obama withheld his endorsement until after the primary and “even after winning, she had to ask for the endorsement.”

When Obama finally showed up at an event with her, she had to grit her teeth as he mocked the tawdry start of her political career. The alleged “best-looking attorney general” played hard to get by refusing to say if she accepted his apology. It won her a phone call from Obama, but nothing else from the most powerful Democrat in the country who could make her career.

When Kamala ran for Senate, once again Obama waited until she won her primary to endorse her, and when she decided to run for president in 2020, he wasn’t there for her either. Instead he invested in a covert effort to maneuver in his own dark horse candidate. Finally, in 2024, there seemed to be no one else, she was the vice president, and he just had to support her.

But he still didn’t.

Kamala desperately wanted Obama’s blessing. Biden had been forced to drop out by Obama’s maneuverings, but the first black president refused to endorse her dream of becoming the second black president. Obama had been Kamala’s third phone call after Biden dropped out, but once again, Obama played it cool, refusing to endorse her and left her waiting on him.

Obama had made Kamala wait in every race and at his events, and there were always reasons, but this time everyone knew the reason. Even though Obama avoided making any public statements, he was privately calling Democratic Party power brokers and warning them that she would be a disaster and urging a ‘mini-primary’ to pick someone, anyone, other than Kamala.

‘Doesn’t he see what’s happening?’ Kamala reportedly agonized. “Harris felt hurt that he thought so little of her. That pain turned to anger. What’s holding him back?” What was holding him back was the same thing that had kept her out of his Friends and Family tent, led him to mock her and then to block her path to the White House, telling donors she would be a train wreck.

“There’s this need, and she’s not unique in this, a need for people to be loved by the Obamas, to be blessed by them,” a Kamala strategist suggested. But the need for Kamala was especially vital because she wanted to be Obama. After pursuing him for over a decade and a half, she was still stuck on the outside of the VIP tent, still being dismissed by her idol and role model.

Kamala wants to be the next Obama, but he keeps rejecting her as his successor. Kamala built her career on pretending to be the next Obama, but if Obama won’t let her be the next Obama, who is she anyway? That’s a question that Kamala wasn’t able to answer in 2020 or 2024 and it ended up costing her the White House twice. As she gears up to launch a new presidential campaign in 2028, the one thing she knows is that she won’t be able to count on Obama.

Or, after chasing Barack Obama for 18 years, perhaps Kamala has yet to figure it out.