It was supposed to be everything short of a free ad — a panel of women not containing their excitement to welcome Kamala Harris, ready to introduce her to their committed daytime audience of exactly the type of women the vice president’s campaign always hoped were going to be critical to her base, CNN reports.

It was a moment that encapsulated one of the biggest challenges facing her campaign — which, in the end, proved insurmountable.

“What, if anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” co-host of ABC’s ‘The View’ Sunny Hostin asked Harris, looking to give her a set for her to spike over the net. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she said.

Even Harris realized she had a problem, trying to adjust a moment later by saying she would put a Republican in her Cabinet.

The thud fell in a campaign already struggling with a listless October, which had replaced the late summer exuberance and a September debate that nearly everyone political observer other than Donald Trump acknowledged she crushed.

As aides new to the Harris orbit exerted control, she struggled with preparation. She grew hesitant, losing some of the confidence and swagger that had defined the early weeks of her reintroduction to the country. Aides who had successfully pushed her out of her comfort zone earlier in the year felt like they were running into the kind of walls she used to put up.

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