January 30, 2019--Kamala's Got the Goods

My early impressions had not been positive. I got the appeal but not the substance. The sizzle but very little steak.

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee she participated a couple of weeks ago in the interrogation of Robert Barr, Trump's nominee to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. It was a star-turn opportunity and so I tuned in hoping to be impressed but came away disappointed.

She spoke too much from notes and did not light up the room with her smarts or tenacity. A ho-hum performance  Not much evidence of fire in the belly. She seemed already too much a member of the Senate club after having been there a scant two years.

But, for me, Sunday changed all that. 

After informally announcing she was running for president two weeks ago while interviewed by Rachael Maddow she organized a rally in her home town, Oakland, CA, where she offered a full-throated declaration she was running for the highest office in the land.

With crowd size an important metric in assessing the strength of candidates (remember Trump's obsession with how many showed up for his inauguration?) it was impressive that at least 20,000 turned out for Harris. To organize such a massive rally is no mean trick, especially so early in a national campaign.

And then there was the speech itself. Unlike other candidates (think Hillary Clinton) who struggle for up to two years on the campaign trail to offer a convincing answer to the classic Roger Mudd question, the one back in 1979 he popped on Ted Kennedy who was seeking to unseat Jimmy Carter: "Why do you want to be president?" Kennedy effectively lost any chance of securing the nomination after struggling to offer a coherent answer.

With a nod to rhetoric at times used by Barack Obama, Senator Harris at the Sunday rally kept it simple and eloquent.

She concluded-- 

“We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before. And we are here at this moment in time because we must answer a fundamental question: ‘Who are we? Who are we as Americans?’ So, let’s answer that question to the world and each other, right here and right now: ‘America, we are better than this.’’’ 

As they say, the crowd went wild and her polling numbers a day or two later soared--Biden had it all his way in the polls until then. His numbers lingered comfortably in the high 20 percents, hers languished at 5 percent or less. 

But as of now they are in a statistical deadbeat. Yes, it is still very, very early but this suggests Harris is tapping into a powerful vein of national aspiration. 

People are still longing to be optimistic, to have hope for a better future.

Further, she was radiant. Unlike so many others who on the trail feel as if they are campaigning begrudgingly, Kamala Harris seemed totally in her element and appeared to be having a deeply-felt joyous time. A star was being born.

And so, an early prediction--

Kamala Harris will win the nomination or wind up as the vice presidential candidate on Joe Biden's ticket. Far out on a limb I see the former to be more likely.