Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina For months, KAMALA HARRIS’ allies have insisted her office is not in crisis. So why did she hire a veteran crisis communications expert last month? LORRAINE VOLES was one of two hires, along with former Obama speechwriter ADAM FRANKEL , reported by both the Washington Post and CNN over the weekend. Both worked for the vice president during the transition, and “offered to be of assistance,” an official from the White House said. A Harris aide said Voles and Frankel began their new roles in August. Although the White House official didn’t use the word “crisis,” Voles is well known as a public relations and crisis communications expert. She most recently led crisis communications at George Washington University and at Fannie Mae, after serving as a strategist and adviser to HILLARY CLINTON’s 2006 Senate reelection race and 2008 presidential bid. In the late ‘90s, she helped AL GORE craft his message as vice president. Now she’ll help Harris with long-term planning, her policy agenda and with “organizational development” and strategic communications, according to a White House official. The assignment is “temporary,” the official said, although Harris’ office declined to say how long either she or Frankel planned to advise the vice president. A Harris aide disputed the CNN report that initially said the pair would serve between three and six months; the story was updated on Monday afternoon to say “several months.” The aide also wouldn’t confirm the duration of their tenure. A Democratic source close to the administration said it’s not uncommon to bolster teams with temporary staffers, while noting of Harris: “She’s one of the first VP’s to have a dedicated pool covering all things.” Still, Voles is a notable add to a team that’s seen its share of bad headlines just eight months into the administration — from the criticism around her first foreign trip, to Mexico and Guatemala, to a late June POLITICO story that detailed “low morale , porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials” in the VP office. Adding to her challenges, Harris has become the face of some of the administration’s thorniest and most intractable issues, including immigration and voting rights. To some Democratic strategists close to the White House, Voles’ hiring is a clear indication that the vice president and her top aides recognize they need to course correct. Voles is a well-respected and experienced hand who can help fill in some of those “gaps,” a Democratic strategist with close ties to the Biden administration told us. “This is an important moment,” the strategist said. “We have the first woman as vice president and of course first women of color as vice president, and if we mess up this moment, that will set us back for a long time.” “This is not only for her political future. But it’s also to make sure that she’s getting the most and maximizing the most of the role as being vice president for the entire administration,” the strategist added. CHRIS LEHANE, a “master of disaster” who helped former President BILL CLINTON weather various scandals and later served as Gore’s press secretary, heaped praise on Voles. “Before doing anything, the VP [Gore] would inevitably ask — ‘have you checked in with Lorraine?’ And I learned really quickly that the Vice President’s confidence was well founded as she ‘gets it,’ including the press piece, navigating the internal dynamics that exists within the building and as someone who always brought a sense of calmness to a challenge,” Lehane told West Wing Playbook. Lehane said the challenge for a veep is there is a “tension” to how they communicate, intentionally or not. “Everything you say is analyzed at multiple levels like medieval scholars attempting to decipher the Voynich Codex and reading in all sorts of hidden meanings, even when no hidden meaning was meant,” Lehane said. MARLA ROMASH, Gore’s former communications director and a longtime friend of Voles, agreed: “You want her in the middle of a crisis. You want her when you have something complicated to communicate. You want her when you need to capture the real core of someone’s story.” Except, there is no crisis, right? Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you ASMA MIRZA, chief of staff for the Covid-19 response? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. | 
