Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, won his party’s nomination based on charisma, a somewhat poetic speech and a vision of a country in which there was room for everyone, especially minorities.
Joe Biden became the Democratic candidate after more than four decades of a political career based on substance, connections with the powerful and loyalty to Obama himself, whom he faithfully accompanied for eight years as vice president.
Kamala Harris is more in Biden’s league. She is not a charismatic politician with great vision. She climbed the party ranks based on strategy, substance and ambition. Her personal biography helped her. The daughter of immigrants, an endocrinologist from India and an economist from Jamaica, who met at the University of California, Berkeley, during the student revolts of the 1960s.
Especially in the last stretch of Biden’s journey, Kamala was extraordinarily faithful. She apparently believed the story – the president can still be the candidate who defeats Trump. She defended it tooth and nail.
Biden repaid her in spades. Minutes after posting on social media that he was dropping out of the presidential race, he gave her his unconditional support, saying: nominating her for vice president was the best thing I did during my administration.
The swift acceptance of his candidacy by Democratic leaders and activists was as surprising as Biden’s resignation. He was helped by the urgency of his supporters to waste no more time in fighting Donald Trump.
His age, 59, also worked in his favour. Trump will not be able to boast of his horse-like energy at 77. In front of Kamala, his age and the extra pounds will be noticeable.
Unbreakable will, good decisions, being in the right place, loyalty and age have catapulted her to become the second female candidate of the Democratic Party.
However, all this will not be enough to beat Donald Trump on November 5.
In the next 100 days, we will learn what Kamala is made of. Whether or not she has the leadership to harness the Democrats’ verging on desperation to prevent Trump from returning to the White House.
He will soon have to decide who will be his running mate. A VP who will guarantee him some votes, since his fight for the Oval Office will always be an uphill battle.
Being a woman and black will not be enough for her to deploy the enormous umbrella that allowed the last two Democratic presidents – Obama and Biden – to shelter all the currents and minorities of the party. From the extreme left, like the representative for New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or the pro-hydrocarbon conservative, the senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin. She urgently needs an integrative vision and message.
It will be essential for her to find a balanced narrative on the issue that hurts Biden and Kamala the most – migration and the porous border with Mexico. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have already dubbed her the “migrant invasion czar.”
She has little time to present herself to undecided voters as a candidate from the center of the Democratic Party, à la Bill Clinton. Trump already painted her “red” four years ago and the Republican artillery in that regard will be merciless.
Finally, she will have to get under Donald’s skin and not have him literally throw her off balance with his antics, as he did with Hillary Clinton. She will have to prove her reputation for being tough and confident when it comes to the debate with Trump.
The fight for the White House in the next three months will be merciless. The prize is extraordinary. The most important office in the world.
Kamala President is a dream for minorities, especially women in the United States, the world and Mexico. Kamala President is also a dream for those who believe in republican democracy with checks and balances and in the version of the United States that is tolerant of all races and religions.
For the dream to become a reality, the Democratic candidate – Kamala Harris – will have to show in the next hundred days that she is made of the material of a leader, with a vision for the future and exemplary character.
