Kamala’s Joy and Hope
I’ve been in and around political campaigns for 50 years, and I’m impressed by Kamala Harris’ operation.
(Note to punctuation purists: AP uses Harris’ as the possessive, not Harris’s.)
She smoothly took over the ship when President Biden stepped aside. She united our fractious party. She picked an all-star running mate in Coach Tim Walz. She put together a strong campaign team. She’s a far better candidate than she was in 2020, and she’s showing how much she’s grown and learned as Vice President.
Above all, she looks like she’s having fun.
The enthusiasm at Harris-Walz rallies is as telling this year as the excitement was at Trump’s rallies in 2016. That energy can’t be manufactured. You’ve got it or you don’t.
And Trump doesn’t. His rallies are noticeably smaller; his campaign pays people to come. He has lost his edge and energy level. His speeches ramble and reel from nonsense to non-sequitur. He’s grim and angry. His audiences melt away.
Harris’ communications team does an epic job trolling Trump. Convention signs in Chicago yesterday read: “Trump-Vance: Weird as Hell” and “Harris-Walz: Joy and Hope.”
In Raleigh last Friday, Harris introduced a new slogan, “A New Way Forward,” and delivered a solid and substantive speech on the economy and cost of living. Read the transcript here.
She proposed action: help for first-time homeowners, tax credits for families, lower prescription-drug costs, relief from medical debt and a crackdown on price-gouging.
She said what Democrats have long needed to say: Corporate greed and supply-chain disruptions from the pandemic, which Trump did nothing to fix, caused inflation.
I must confess: Harris has surprised me. I stood behind Biden because I feared she wasn’t ready to take on Trump.
She was ready, and now she has momentum.
Momentum is a mysterious thing in campaigns. You can’t always figure out where it comes from or where it goes. But you know when you have it, and when you don’t. You can feel it inside the campaign. Everything clicks, or nothing does.
Harris is clicking. Polls show it. The shifts of 4, 5 and 6 points in her direction are huge in today’s polarized, all-but-frozen politics.
If she and the Democrats have a good convention this week, they’ll go into the last 11 weeks leading the race.
She, Walz, her campaign and the party look ready for that last, long sprint.
Kamala’s Joy and Hope
I’ve been in and around political campaigns for 50 years, and I’m impressed by Kamala Harris’ operation.
(Note to punctuation purists: AP uses Harris’ as the possessive, not Harris’s.)
She smoothly took over the ship when President Biden stepped aside. She united our fractious party. She picked an all-star running mate in Coach Tim Walz. She put together a strong campaign team. She’s a far better candidate than she was in 2020, and she’s showing how much she’s grown and learned as Vice President.
Above all, she looks like she’s having fun.
The enthusiasm at Harris-Walz rallies is as telling this year as the excitement was at Trump’s rallies in 2016. That energy can’t be manufactured. You’ve got it or you don’t.
And Trump doesn’t. His rallies are noticeably smaller; his campaign pays people to come. He has lost his edge and energy level. His speeches ramble and reel from nonsense to non-sequitur. He’s grim and angry. His audiences melt away.
Harris’ communications team does an epic job trolling Trump. Convention signs in Chicago yesterday read: “Trump-Vance: Weird as Hell” and “Harris-Walz: Joy and Hope.”
In Raleigh last Friday, Harris introduced a new slogan, “A New Way Forward,” and delivered a solid and substantive speech on the economy and cost of living. Read the transcript here.
She proposed action: help for first-time homeowners, tax credits for families, lower prescription-drug costs, relief from medical debt and a crackdown on price-gouging.
She said what Democrats have long needed to say: Corporate greed and supply-chain disruptions from the pandemic, which Trump did nothing to fix, caused inflation.
I must confess: Harris has surprised me. I stood behind Biden because I feared she wasn’t ready to take on Trump.
She was ready, and now she has momentum.
Momentum is a mysterious thing in campaigns. You can’t always figure out where it comes from or where it goes. But you know when you have it, and when you don’t. You can feel it inside the campaign. Everything clicks, or nothing does.
Harris is clicking. Polls show it. The shifts of 4, 5 and 6 points in her direction are huge in today’s polarized, all-but-frozen politics.
If she and the Democrats have a good convention this week, they’ll go into the last 11 weeks leading the race.
She, Walz, her campaign and the party look ready for that last, long sprint.