Kamala Harris Will Be the First Woman President of the United States

She is the Right Candidate for a Pivotal Moment in Our History

Contrary to a misconception that is popular at the moment, the debate about who should replace Joe Biden in 2024 began even before Biden was elected. As many have noted, Biden himself said during the campaign it was his intention to be a transitional candidate, a bridge to a new generation.

When he picked Kamala Harris as his running mate, it was assumed that she had the inside track at being his successor. As it happens, she is the first member of Gen-X to be elected either president or vice president.  It made sense that she would be the one to whom the torch would be passed.

Almost immediately following the inauguration of Biden and Harris, the discussion restarted. However, Washington being Washington, it is more important to have opinions than knowledge and these discussions tended be colored by what is often referred to as “conventional wisdom” although I can tell you from experience that wisdom seldom has anything to do with it.

In the first year of the administration, gossip spread about discontent on the Vice President’s staff or about the peripheral nature of her role in the administration. She derogated as a potential candidate because her 2019-2020 campaign had not done very well…despite the fact that Biden himself was a flop as a presidential candidate on more than one occasion before being elected and sworn in.

Some of this was based on sexism. Some of this was based on racism. You’d regularly hear that America would never elect a woman—although Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump in 2016 and Harris was, after all, elected VP in 2020. So you know, tickets with women on them have won the majority of votes in two straight elections. You’d also here that America was too racist to elect a woman of color even though, that’s right, a person of color was elected president in 2008 and 2012 and one was, need I remind you, elected vice president in 2020. So, just to draw a line under it, people of color have been on the winning ticket in three of the last four presidential elections.

Facts Schmacts

But facts schmacts. People KNEW things.

Also, there were, and this may come as a big shock, people in the White House who either wanted to keep Harris from upstaging the president or who wanted to ingratiate themselves to the press by leaking little tidbits about the VPs office. No matter that the tidbits often proved to be misleading. This is how DC has always worked and, I warn you, it is how it still works.

Some folks would say, the VP was given the border problem and had not solved it so she’s obviously a big failure. The fact that no one has been able to do anything meaningful about the border problem since, I don’t know, the signing of the Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo including every single president of both parties did not figure in their thinking. Because once again, facts spoil the story.

I had been a Harris supporter during her presidential campaign in 2019. I found her to be intelligent, compelling on important issues, and a fresh voice. I was deeply impressed by her performance during the campaign 2020 when, according to the people who study such things she did an excellent job helping to deliver key voter groups. I was moved when she became the first woman to win one of our two highest offices. And I made a point of studying her work as vice president.

So even in those early days when the buzz in DC was doubting her, I was not. I would write about my view and speak about it in the media. As a result, I would periodically find myself at dinner parties at which the question came up “who will replace Biden because it is obvious he cannot run again in 2024?” And people would offer all their shrewd and insightful answers based on things like who their friends were or what the last person they saw on TV said or what candidate might be best to advance their personal interests. And then the host or hostess would turn to me and say, “David here, thinks the best option is Vice President Harris.” This would result in scowls and people staring deep into their split pea velouté and then a kind of grudging, “Do go on…”

The Case for the VP

At this point I would make the case for the VP. First woman elected district attorney of San Francisco. Reelected. First woman elected attorney general of California where she ran the second largest justice department in the U.S. Reelected. First woman of color elected senator from California. Reelected. Vital in helping to deliver key voter groups in 2020. Respected by the president. Managing an expanding portfolio of substantive responsibilities. As a foreign policy guy I often cited her many meetings with world leaders, the progress she made on border issues (she made breakthroughs with the president of Mexico, helped lead the creation of programs pumping billions into Central American countries so that citizens there would focus on jobs in their home countries rather than getting them in the US), her trips to Asia to help build the ties that would be key to our regional strategy to counterbalance China…eventually her trips to Europe to help build support for the US position of backing Ukraine, the enthusiastic reception and respect she received from foreign leaders…later her active role in helping to really set the terms for what “the day after” would look like in the war in Gaza and her role ensuring that America’s support for Israel was balanced by addressing the humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians.

On the domestic side, of course, she has long been the administration’s leading champion on women’s issues and on combatting the scourge of gun violence in America. On the former point, her role grew dramatically in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Further, in the past year, she has become the administration’s principle connection with young voters and voters of color—two other vital groups in the election. And in her tours this year to college campuses and other venues on these issues she has been nothing less than a rock star, generating huge crowds and supe enthusiastic responses.

Rather than going through all that again…though it has never been more important to emphasize, let me offer you just a few of the pieces I have written about the Vice President, her role and her achievements.  This is my most recent piece , written after Biden dropped out of the race. Here’s one from a couple weeks ago that foreshadowed what happened today.   Here’s one from a week before that, right after the debate, calling for Biden to pass the torch to Harris.    Here’s one from earlier this year about her finding her voice and in particular about the Gaza crisis. Below is a conversation I had with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC about her foreign policy achievements from about two years ago.

 I could go on and on. But I won’t Here’s just one more from last year in which I talk about a meeting with her that I attended.

I would end some of those party interventions from the early days with a bold statement.  I would say, I believe Kamala Harris will become the first woman to be president of the United States. Now we are all—thankfully—much closer to that reality.

What We Need to Do for Her to Win

There are many hurdles before us, of course. First, she has to navigate the nominating process. I believe given the immediate support she has received from many in the party leadership, this will be a straightforward process. Simultaneously, she has to assume the role of guiding her own campaign. While the current plan calls for her to just pick up the whole Biden campaign team lock, stock and barrel, that’s just not realistic in the medium term. She needs her own people. It must be her campaign not Biden’s campaign. And some of those on the Biden team—you know who you are—who having been among those keeping the VP down for the past few years or taking shots at her behind the scenes with the press in the past few weeks—need to go.

The new campaign needs to run on the Biden record but also on the Harris vision for the future. It must zero in on having the prosecutor make the case against the felon-rapist-traitor. It should gain strength from having a woman lead at a time when the other party is waging a campaign to strip women of their most basic rights and from having a daughter of immigrants run directly against a candidate who plans to commit crimes against humanity to realize his racist draconian vision of what our immigration policy should be. Finally, in every speech, at every turn, she and all her surrogates must frame the stakes, make it clear that our democracy is at stake, that her opponent has said that he would be a dictator from day one, that he embraces our enemies like Russia and rejects our allies like NATO. Focus on just a few core themes, find a vice presidential candidate who can also make the case and above all, let Kamala Harris be Kamala Harris. She is a very compelling, appealing, brilliant candidate who has only just recently been allowed to speak in her own voice.

Finally, of course, the Democratic Party has to heal. I have written in my last post here that I believe that will happen. But it needs to begin to happen now. The goal of Dems must become not only electing Harris and whomever her VP candidate is. It should be to win up and down the ballot, to control the Senate and the House, to win by a substantial margin. It is possible. Generic numbers for the party are solid. The party is likely to be energized as never before. And the GOP is running the worst candidate in American history and a running mate who seemingly aspires to be just as bad.

As I said shortly after today’s announcement, “Kamala Harris is going to be America’s first woman president and she will get there by defeating the most anti-woman ticket in American history.”  I believe it. You should believe it. But more than that, you should back up your beliefs with action. It is time for the party and all who love democracy and the country to unite behind Kamala Harris, to commit to work for her, to donate, to get out the vote. Because right now she is what stands between this country and unspeakable disaster.