Kamala Harris’s appearance in Delaware last night was a coronation with undertones of a first-night audition. Harris could afford to look reassured — a nifty political operation to “clear the field” of competitors had succeeded. This suggested that the Joe Biden drop-out was not wholly a surprise to his Veep. Donors who were withholding favour as President Biden’s campaign foundered turned on the taps with an extraordinary $81 million raised in a day.
The “Biden-Harris” campaign has sharp-turned into “Harris for president” bunting and no one is seriously objecting. A “Democrats Got Talent” floorshow just over 100 days out from an election would play up divisions. Harris nominated Gretchen Whitmer as co-chair of her campaign, which signalled continuity. The punchy Michigan governor was a big cog on the 2020 Biden team and a possible contender, who has now ruled herself out.
“I’m watching you kid,” came the ghostly voice of the president piped into the Delaware gathering. “I love you.” It sounded more paternalistic than supportive and Harris guffawed thankfully and moved on fast.
Very few of the Democratic Party cognoscenti would have pinned her as successor. But Harris is smart and focused with enough history of deploying her legal skills to back liberal causes to reassure a party base hankering to oppose the tide of Trumpism, without veering too sharply into the maw of culture wars and sectarian Left politics.
Her party will be happy to have a figure back at the helm who can throw a verbal punch
She is, however, very far from the finished product and how she deals in the campaign with a fraught international situation and the demands on America will be keenly watched in London and the rest of Europe. Harris has not been an international figure or shown much interest in life beyond the US. She embodies a liberal parochialism not uncommon in America’s elites.
That can lead to some anti-climactic outings. When I interviewed Rishi Sunak during his AI summit, Harris’s security team were preparing for her arrival and Team Sunak were clearly hoping for a “moment” which would flesh out his hopes of having the UK act as a bridge between the US and European regulation.
The result was a speech peculiarly unsuited to an international event, to the horror of Sunakites who hoped for “special AI relationship with knobs on” (as one aide put it). Instead they got a number doubtless copied from a previous outing, with lines like, “When a senior is kicked off his healthcare plan because of a faulty AI algorithm, is that not existential for him?”
Pressed previously on why she had not recently been to the troubled Mexican border, her brush-off was “I haven’t been to Europe either”. Moments of awkwardness are often concealed with bursts of laughter which can veer towards odd clunky rhetorical flourishes. “Unburdened by what has been” is a go-to.
But she has steadily improved her communications, not least by zoning in on matters where her commitment is genuine. Her pinned tweet highlights the erosion of abortion rights in a growing number of states under the influence of many hardline Christian supporters who power the Donald Trump revival. She also polls well with younger and ethnic minority voters who found Biden less than inspiring. That should assist the dynamic Democrats need to counter a blowhard, assertive Trump campaign, fired up by the attempt on his life. “But she doesn’t have what Biden has at his best — a track record of economic thinking that connects to ‘pay check-to-pay check’ America in, say Wisconsin, who are havering between trusting the Democrats to keep them afloat like their fathers did — or moving to the Maga-Trump column,” notes one Milwaukee Democrat.
Harris’s mixed-race background (her late mother was Tamil-Indian, her father from Jamaica) will inevitably feature in the campaign — and that note was hit early by J D Vance, Trump’s running mate, as he attacked her for approaching America’s history “not with appreciation, but condemnation”.
Last night, her condemnation was flowing eloquently Trumpwards, positioning her campaign as ready to repel a sequel to the grandiose, disturbing Maga years. Democrats will be happy to have a figure back at the helm who can throw a verbal punch — she lambasted Trump as a felon, motivated by greed and financial opportunism, and presented her legal career and support for good causes as an ethical distinction.
“We’re not going back” was her most resonant line which roused the loyalists, thrilled that the wait for a functioning candidate is over. The question now will be how Kamala, accidental bidder for power in America’s election brawl, intends to go forward — unburdened by Joe Biden.
