-
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.
- nicole allan
-
My name is Nicole Allan, and I’m a writer and attorney in San Francisco. In 2019, I wrote a profile of then-senator Kamala Harris that focused on her record as a prosecutor in California.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In 2019, Kamala Harris ended up dropping out of the primary early before the Iowa caucuses. And at that point, she had pretty clearly developed a reputation nationally as someone who gave the sense that she didn’t quite know what she wanted to say and what she stood for. As vice president, that reputation has followed her.
But when I learned that President Biden had chosen to step aside and to endorse Kamala Harris, it seemed to me like it was finally Harris’s moment and gave her the real opportunity to redefine herself in the public image as someone who was uniquely positioned to beat Donald Trump in November.
In 2019, it was largely a race to the left. Many Democratic voters cared a lot about criminal justice reform and were generally skeptical of prosecutors. There was a rising movement where people who identified as progressive prosecutors were running and sometimes getting elected in cities across the country. They promised to essentially shrink the role of the prosecutor by doing things like decriminalizing minor drug offenses or reforming cash bail, declining to prosecute marijuana offenses, for example.
So Harris, when she launched her campaign in 2019, also published a book, a memoir in which she attempted to self-identify with the progressive prosecutor movement. And she said that she believed a progressive prosecutor was essentially someone who used the office to pursue justice.
And many people critiqued her for this position. They critiqued her for doing things like threatening to prosecute parents whose kids were chronically truant from elementary school.
- archived recording (kamala harris)
-
We are putting parents on notice. If you fail to take responsibility for your kids, we are going to make sure that you face the full force and consequences of the law.
So Harris ended up dropping out of the race at the end of 2019, and by that point, she had developed a reputation as someone who didn’t really know what she stood for and who was extremely cautious and reticent to take stands on issues. And that, in combination with the critique of her record as a prosecutor, made a lot of people think that she lacked a political compass.
When Harris took office in 2021, she had a rough start. She developed a reputation, certainly on the right and even among certain observers on the left, as someone who was in over her head. But I think Harris is a more compelling candidate than people give her credit for. And in order to understand why, you really need to look to her record in California and how she was perceived during her years of service there.
Harris was a very popular politician in California, from when she began as district attorney in San Francisco up through her time as attorney general. She was extremely charismatic in front of a jury. She was direct and forceful, but also had a natural and relaxed demeanor that really got people on her side, juries and judges and co-workers, but also when she started running for office, donors and voters.
And she was known as someone who was equally comfortable in poor neighborhoods of San Francisco, like the Bayview, and also in fundraisers with wealthy donors in Pacific Heights, for example. She was able to really exist in both worlds at one time.
Harris is in a really different position now than she was in 2019. And one big reason for that is that the country is in a really different position, particularly on criminal justice issues. A lot of voters, including many voters on the left in cities like San Francisco and New York and Washington, DC, are very concerned about what they see as rising crime and public safety. And there’s a bit of a pendulum shift back to more conservative positions on law and order issues.
It’s also an interesting time for prosecutors because they’re getting a lot of attention in the headlines with the Trump prosecutions, and they’ve assumed heroic status in some circles. And the idea that Harris, with her prosecutorial background, would be able to go after Donald Trump in the same kind of way is very exciting to many people.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Harris has become the Biden administration’s leading voice on standing up for reproductive freedom and abortion access.
- archived recording (kamala harris)
-
And, of course, a year after Dobbs, it is clear where this is headed. Extremist Republicans in Congress have proposed to ban abortion nationwide, nationwide. But I have news for them. We’re not having that. We’re not having that. We’re not standing for that.
At this moment in time, what matters is whether Harris can beat Donald Trump in four months. While Harris certainly struggled in 2019, and that campaign was a learning experience for her, it should not be determinative of her prospects at this moment. She’s running in a completely different race, and she’s also learned a lot. She’s a different politician now than she was then.
And many national voters are not aware of the Kamala Harris that Californians have known for a long time. That individual was extremely compelling. She was exciting and magnetic and charismatic and had a real brand that she knew how to present.
So if Harris can reconnect with that version of herself and explain to voters why she is uniquely positioned to beat Trump, she should have a stronger chance than many people give her credit for.
- archived recording (kamala harris)
-
Before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States senator, I was the elected attorney general of California. And before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds.
Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.
[CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Title: If You’re Worried Kamala Harris Can’t Win, Listen to This
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/opinion/kamala-harris-background.html
Source: The New York Times – Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos
Source URL:
Date: July 24, 2024 at 08:15PM
Feedly Board(s):