PHILADELPHIA – Vice President Kamala Harris’ debut appearance with her running mate and second pick here Tuesday night clearly illustrated the reasoning behind her choice.
Contrary to the wishes of the left and the sinister claims of the right, Harris did not choose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz because she is beholden to her party’s base or, more absurdly, because she is uncomfortable with a Jewish vice president. She chose Walz because she had chemistry with him as a generational peer and saw him as someone who could be an effective advocate without threatening to overshadow her.
When Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the maid of honor in her own hometown, delivered a fiery speech near the start of the evening, and then Walz concluded it with a straightforward introduction of himself and a not-so-kind critique of the GOP ticket from Minnesota, Harris’s assessment seemed vindicated.
Whether her choice of comfort food will prove not only more suitable for her personally, but also a winner remains to be seen.
But the most significant moment of Harris’s late-night candidacy included signs that she knows she must broaden her appeal to prevail in November.
After spending her career in liberal California, running in the 2020 Democratic primary and appearing before largely liberal constituencies as vice president, Harris is suddenly forced to craft a general election message for an audience she hadn’t given much thought to outside of her three-month Covid lockdown on the 2020 ballot.
How will he present himself? Will he practice the kind of defensive politics that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama mastered, in their own ways and in different decades, to reassure the American middle class that they were not radicals? Or will he adopt a new, Trump-era model of simply swaying diehard supporters and gambling that contempt for the opposition will win out?
She did both on Tuesday, and in front of a partisan audience, it was no surprise that red meat got the most applause. But for a candidate criticized for being a prisoner of prepared remarks (and still hasn’t spoken off the cuff for a long time since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race), her most effective moment may have been when she strayed slightly from the script.
That’s when he hailed “the promise of America” and recounted how “two middle-class kids” from very different places, Oakland, California, and the heart of the country, might be able to make it to the White House together.
“Only in America,” he repeated. Then, as if he were in the pulpit, he repeated it three more times: “Only in America.” The crowd, perhaps inspired by the Olympic Games, understood the signal and began to shout “USA!”
It was the stuff of Republican nightmares.
Harris continued with what can be a boilerplate speech for many candidates, but one that seemed all the more remarkable for someone still defining herself and her message. She pledged to seek out voters of all stripes à la Obama — “from red states to blue states” — but then broadened her appeal rather than limiting it to specific affinity groups.
“We are running a campaign on behalf of all Americans, and when elected, we will govern on behalf of all Americans,” Harris said.
It was not exactly a rebuke to his party’s identity-based fixation, but rather a call for something broader.
As was, to a lesser extent, the fact that he repeatedly called his running mate “coach.” After all, there are Few American unifying institutions remain Besides football.
Walz also sent out not-so-subtle signals of reassurance.
He may not have worn his sergeant’s stripes or a coach’s whistle around his collar, but his comments made clear that he intends to campaign on his biography and his everyday-guy style, not his progressive legacy in St. Paul. He showed off his GI Bill and public-school credentials, peppered his remarks with a bit of “damn” and “hell,” and described the opposition as country-club and traitorous.
Walz’s couch line, in reference to a false Internet rumor about JD Vance, will get the attention – I don’t think it was up to par – but the sharpest blow came when he attacked his Republican rival as an Ivy Leaguer promoted by rich guys who then “wrote a best-seller trashing” his own rural roots. “Come on,” Walz demanded in the style of someone raised in Butte, Nebraska.
In recounting his own career, Walz emphasized his bipartisan work on issues like veterans and agriculture, as he did in the introductory video the campaign released earlier in the day.
Both were clearly impressed, perhaps overwhelmed, by the enthusiastic response. Walz certainly didn’t mean to criticize Biden when, upon taking the microphone, the Minnesota native praised Harris for “bringing back joy,” but he didn’t have to elaborate, either.
It wasn’t surprising to see them together. At a meeting of the Democratic Governors Association last December, I told Walz that if Harris were the Democratic nominee in 2028, he or Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky would be her most logical running mates. (He didn’t disagree, and in fact mentioned some of his credentials that could complement such a candidacy.)
The surprising thing, of course, is that they have forged a partnership now.
It almost didn’t happen. Both served in Congress for two years, but they didn’t know each other. And Walz was surprised — and a little irritated — by how little effort the vice president’s office made to cultivate relationships with governors at the start of the Biden administration. That changed, though, when Harris made several trips to Minnesota and she and Walz finally met.
Few in the Democratic Party were happier to see the ticket speak to love of country, military service and caring for veterans than Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, who since his 2022 campaign has been urging his party to bring back the flag.
“He’s not a person you’re going to lecture on patriotism,” Moore told me after watching a command sergeant major, the essential cohesive force in any military unit, take the stage.
Moore, however, wants more. He believes Harris should adorn her nominating convention later this month, literally and metaphorically, with the Stars and Stripes.
“This should be framed as a celebration of America,” Moore said of the Chicago gathering, urging Harris and Walz “to be unapologetic about talking about their love for the country.”
That means “warts and all,” he added, because “loving your country does not mean lying about it.”
It means conveying to voters, as Harris did on Tuesday, that what makes America great is the possibility it offers to so many people, no matter their circumstances. But she must also demonstrate what the country means to her and that she shares the values that transcend America’s differences.
Obama is the obvious role model for Harris, and Trump’s attacks make her vaccination all the more essential.
The former president’s call for unity in his inaugural address at the Democratic convention 20 years ago this summer, which marked his national debut, is well remembered. What is not so well remembered is the first announcement It aired at the start of the 2008 general election, when Obama was eager to define himself before the Republicans could define him.
Invoking his values, the then-candidate looked into the camera and concluded the commercial with this assurance: “If I am honored to be sworn in as president, it will be with a deep and abiding faith in the country I love.”