Light instead of darkness
During his debate with Kamala Harris, a flustered and frustrated Donald Trump blurted out, “She is Biden.” Harris responded calmly: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden. And I am certainly not Donald Trump.”
That was the single most revealing exchange during the debate because it crystalized the most critical issue in this campaign. Since COVID-19, the country has been in a sour mood, and by a margin to 2 to 1, voters consistently tell pollsters that the country is headed down the wrong track. They are demanding change, and for one night at least, Harris seized that banner away from Trump.
Her achievement was particularly remarkable because she faces such a tough challenge. She is, after all, the incumbent vice president, and Trump summarized his strongest argument against her in his closing statement: “So she just started by saying she’s going to do this, she’s going to do that, she’s going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for 3 1/2 years.”
Harris has found a way to tell a different story. “Let’s turn the page on this. Let’s not go back,” she kept saying, and obviously she meant: Let’s not go back to the chaos and craziness of Trump. But in a subtle way, without being disrespectful or disloyal, she was also saying: Let’s not go back to the feebleness and failures of Biden, either.
It’s absolutely essential that she separate herself from Biden, and recent polling in Pennsylvania — the most important state in the country this year — shows why. Asked by CBS about their state economy, only 36% rated it as good, and 61% as poor. In a particularly strong warning to the Harris campaign, 4 out of 5 Pennsylvania voters call the economy a “a major factor” in their voting decisions, and 78% describe inflation the same way.
Moreover, history is against her. In the last 188 years, only one sitting vice president — George Bush 41 in 1988 — has won the White House. Defending your administration’s record while running as a fresh face is an inherently mixed and messy message.
In establishing an identity separate from Biden, Harris has a few advantages. As a woman of Black and Asian ancestry, her essential image conveys a key distinction: Clearly, she is not just one more white guy.
She has learned from President Obama how to handle the issue of race, and learned from Hillary Clinton how not to handle the issue of gender. Not once during the debate did she mention the pioneering nature of her candidacy, or copy Hillary’s constant references to cracking a glass ceiling to elect the first woman president. Harris understands that stressing gender can be a help with some voters, but it can also create a damaging, sexist backlash with others.
On race, Harris never mentioned a theme that she emphasized during her failed primary campaign in 2020 — her role as a child in California, bused across town to integrate the public schools of Berkeley. In telling stories about her childhood, she now emphasizes her mother’s struggle as a single parent to raise two daughters. Like Obama, her stories try to transcend race and reach a universal human message. The most important word in her tales is “mother,” not “Black” or “Asian.”
And when she did mention race during the debate, it was not to emphasize her own identity, but to berate Trump. “Honestly,” she said, “I think it’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently, over the course of his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people. I think the American people want better than that. Want better than this.”
She didn’t just separate herself from Biden — and the past — she painted a bright vision of the future. “What I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country,” she said, “one who believes in what is possible, one who brings a sense of optimism about what we can do instead of always disparaging the American people.”
This is pure Obama-ism, the candidate of “hope and change,” but it also echoes other successful Democrats: from Jack Kennedy — who promised a “new frontier” led by a “new generation of Americans” — to Bill Clinton, who campaigned as the first baby boomer president and the Man From Hope.
When you’re running against a rival who insists America is a “failing” and “dying” nation, being the candidate of light instead of darkness is a huge advantage.