Can Kamala Harris be the symbol of a new political era?

A new day, and not just for Democrats.
Photo: Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

When Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed his vice president as his successor, Kamala Harris enjoyed as swift and complete a coronation to become the party’s nominee as anyone could have imagined. All talk of an “open convention” or “blitz primary” that would find an ideal candidate without Harris’ perceived shortcomings disappeared almost instantly as every faction of the party and every interest group and constituency dutifully embraced, and soon enough with joy, for a long time. heir apparent. All comparisons between Biden’s situation and that of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 collapsed with the realization that, unlike LBJ’s veep Hubert Humphrey, Harris would be in an untouchable position in the convention her party. And in addition to a united party, she inherited Biden’s formidable campaign organization and a sizable treasury.

But it got even better than that for Harris: As Biden’s age and deteriorating vigor and communication skills became an even bigger issue than dissatisfaction with his record or policy platform, replacing Harris with the 78-year-old president years felt like the arrival of a breath of fresh air, and not just for Democrats worried about losing to Donald Trump. A grim rematch between two unpopular old white men that much of the country seemed to fear was revived overnight by this relatively young, multiracial woman who offers a very different option.

Or her? Harris is not an AOC or a Pete Buttigieg, signaling a millennial wave that is finally sweeping away boomer pathologies. She’s 59 and this is her seventh run for public office (she’s risen from district attorney to state attorney general to U.S. senator to vice president). Her refreshing partner, Tim Walz, is another boomer, a year older than her and often described as everyone’s favorite grandpa. Neither Harris nor Walz was an overt dissenter from any of Biden’s policy decisions or positions; indeed, Harris was universally praised for the intense loyalty she showed to Biden as he slowly came to recognize the need to include him.

So potentially the Harris-Walz ticket can enjoy the best of both worlds, running a united party without all the baggage of the incumbent. More importantly, Harris can offer something Biden obviously couldn’t: a way out of the political era symbolized by both Trump and Biden, for which there was a sizable constituency waiting to be mobilized. It was an absolutely poisonous symptom of Biden’s underlying problem that, for the first time in living memory, Democrats they were hoping for a low-turnout election while trying to unleash non-major-party options, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy, to which voters disaffected by the Biden-Trump pick could fall. And just as Kennedy’s claim that Democrats and Republicans are an indistinguishable “one party” is completely absurd and dangerous, there is little doubt that voters are equally fed up with the octogenarian leadership of both major parties. It is probably no coincidence that the emergence of Harris was accompanied by a decline in support for Kennedy.

Republicans may grumble that Harris cannot avoid responsibility for the unpopular aspects of Biden’s record, particularly on issues like immigration and inflation, where voters mistakenly but clearly believe Trump has had a more successful presidency. But the sudden emergence of Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket presents them with a real dilemma: simply treat her as Biden 2.0 and continue the 2024 campaign as originally planned (minus all the references to a senile opponent or puppets) or do they not recognize Harris’ distinct personality by focusing on the politically vulnerable positions she took during her short 2020 presidential campaign, or in the Senate, or as a state official in bad California? It looks more and more like they’ll take the bait and paint Harris as far more radical left than Biden if they can get their own candidate to drop the blatant racism and sexism and care stupid grievances long enough to show. to Harris and shouts, “Communist!“

Perhaps this old-school McCarthyism will work again to distract impressionable voters from the extremism of Trump and the GOP. But it could also help free Harris from Biden’s shadow and allow her to support a political future full of possibilities that Trump would instantly destroy in a second term dominated by revenge himself. It certainly seems like the Harris-Walz campaign sees a big opportunity here:

If we hear more and more about “the future” in Harris’ communications, it will be clear that she is targeting voters who are less interested in “making America great again” than in putting the past firmly in the rearview mirror. Her novelty as a presidential candidate has already turned around a Democratic campaign teetering on the edge of viability. If he can take shrewd steps to avoid McCarthyism (which will be free given his party’s unified determination to oust Trump) and take advantage of the new beginning he has come to represent, then he can win over voters who they wrote Joe Biden in full. And what appeared to be a teeth-gritting effort to convince the country that whoever was preferable to a vindicated 45th president could remain cheerful and upbeat until after November 5th.