Rodriguez offered general, tentative answers that didn’t satisfy the room, according to two campaign Online Cigarettes Store USA officials directly familiar with the conversation. Some Harris aides sitting at the table could barely suppress their fury about what they saw as the undoing of a once-promising campaign. Their feelings were reflected days later by Kelly Mehlenbacher, the state operations director, in a blistering resignation letter obtained by The New York Times.
“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly,” Mehlenbacher Newport Cigarettes Shop wrote, assailing Rodriguez and Harris’ sister, Maya, the campaign chairwoman, for laying off aides with no notice. “With less than 90 days until Iowa we still do not have a real plan to win.”
The 2020 Democratic field has been defined by its turbulence, with some contenders rising, others dropping out and two more jumping in just this month. Yet there is only one candidate who rocketed to the top tier and then plummeted in early state polls to the low single digits: Harris.
From those polling results to Harris’ campaign operation, fundraising and debate performances, it has been a remarkable comedown for a senator from the country’s largest state, a politician with star power who was compared to President Barack Obama even before Californians elected her to the Senate in 2016.
Yet, even to some Harris allies, her decline is more predictable than surprising. In one instance after another, Harris and her closest advisers made flawed decisions about which states to focus on, issues to emphasize and opponents to target, all while refusing to make difficult Cheap Newport 100s cigarettes personnel choices to impose order on an unwieldy campaign, according to more than 50 current and former campaign staff members and allies, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations and assessments involving the candidate.