Harris Aces Her Second Chance to Make a First Impression
As she accepted the Democrats’ nomination for president on the last night of the DNC, Kamala Harris showed a newfound confidence in her record.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at her keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(Jack Boczarski / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Chicago—“We were underestimated at practically every turn,” Vice President Kamala Harris told a jubilant crowd as she accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday night.
Indeed.
For days, reporters have trotted out the notion that the most important thing Harris needed to accomplish tonight was introducing herself to American voters. That was underestimating her again, and overestimating their own competence. If voters don’t know the real Kamala Harris, it’s the fault of a lazy media that seized on gossip about staffing issues and campaign intrigue going back to her admittedly flawed 2020 presidential campaign.
But Harris has been hiding in plain sight, guys. You just didn’t see her. And over this week in Chicago, as viewers have gotten to know her family, lifelong friends, colleagues, and those she has served and inspired, her life and record have come into sharp focus. Lately, she looks far more competent and presidential than the addled former president, poor sad felon Donald Trump.
Still, Harris seized her second chance to make a good first impression here in Chicago. And she crushed it. There’s so much to write about, but I must note that she got her most overwhelming applause when she made comparatively brave remarks about the conflict in Gaza. I didn’t see that coming, so I have my blind spots too. Here’s what she said:
“Now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire done.
“Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on October 7th. Including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.
“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.
“President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity. Security. Freedom. And self-determination.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me because Harris has been a bit ahead of President Joe Biden when it comes to compassionate rhetoric about the suffering of Palestinians—and Americans overwhelmingly support a ceasefire. But it came across as brave, not safe—when convention speeches are generally supposed to be safe, and do no (potential) harm.
Harris dedicated her speech to her mother, but she talked about her Jamaican Marxist economist father, Donald Harris, more than I’ve personally heard before, and I found it moving.
“I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys,” she said early.
“My mother, Shyamala Harris, had one of her own. I miss her every day. Especially now. And I know she’s looking down tonight. And smiling.
“My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California, with an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer.
“When she finished school, she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage.
“But, as fate would have it, she met my father, Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and got married, and that act of self-determination made my sister Maya and me.
“My early memories of my parents together are joyful ones. A home filled with laughter and music. Aretha. Coltrane. And Miles.
“At the park, my mother would tell us to stay close. But my father would just smile, and say, ‘Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.’
“From my earliest years, he taught me to be fearless.”
I hope Donald Harris was watching.
We met victims of gun violence Thursday night. We also met the “Exonerated Five,” the men accused of a brutal Central Park rape who Donald Trump said deserved the death penalty. Harris has figured out how to play her prosecutor background perfectly, relying on the story of her high school friend Wanda Kagan, who was being sexually abused by her father, to explain what turned her into a prosecutor. A video also showed her busts of drug rings and gun runners, images we didn’t see (as I recall?) in her 2020 campaign. She didn’t know how to wear her background in law enforcement back in the day of (justified) unrest about police violence. Harris has more confidence now. She’s running against a felon, after all.
It’s been a wild week. I got invited to events where I just happened to meet people who testify to Harris and Biden’s impact. Tonight, I sat next to Marvis Kennedy at a reception. She had $100,000 in student loan debt forgiven by the administration in January. Kennedy found she had been charged for tuition at for-profit colleges she actually never attended.
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“I applied to them, but I called at the time, and told them I was not attending those schools. But I couldn’t make it go away,” Kennedy told me. “So I couldn’t buy a house. I couldn’t buy a car.” When she got a letter from the administration saying her debt had been forgiven, “I burst into tears.” Now she’s living in Los Angeles and working to become a registered nurse.
I found my way into a Harris alums happy hour at United Center (my daughter is one of them). Deidre DeJear was chair of Harris’s 2020 Iowa campaign. After that rather huge disappointment, she couldn’t miss tonight.
“For so long, I have been fighting to be an American,” says the Black leader from an overwhelmingly white state. “I got a job. I started a family. I bought a house. I stand by my community. I stand by my family. All this, never seemed like enough… until today.
“Today my citizenship as an American has been legitimized by the fortitude of Kamala Devi Harris. I am and I’ve always been proud to be an American, and I hopeful that now the country sees me as such.”
I ran into Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer at a Planned Parenthood/Everytown event, and got five minutes with her. I got to ask how it felt back when so many pundits were saying Harris couldn’t win and Whitmer—or California Governor Gavin Newsom, or Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, or Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro should be leapfrogged ahead of her. (You all know how I felt.)
“Well it was annoying, frankly,” she answered immediately, “If you just look at navigating 50 different statutes to get on the ballot! It was such a waste of energy for people to have those fantasy football conversations.”
Yes, they were fantasy football. Almost exclusively a game for white men.
“[Harris is] an incredible leader,” Whitmer continued, “and she’s never gotten enough credit for it, and it’s maddening. But by the same token, it’s an advantage, and she gets it. To be underestimated and to be able to over-perform is always an incredible advantage. And I think she’s showing exactly why that’s the case right now.”
Harris has certainly been underestimated, and so far in her month as the presumptive candidate, she has over-performed. Let’s see what she can do in the 75 days to the election.
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