When the Obamas are Just Your Warm-up Act

How to Make a Political Tsunami Into an American Renaissance

So far, I’ve watched the addresses by Michelle and Barack Obama three times from beginning to end. And like most Americans I have seen the best bits over and over again on Tik Tok, Instagram and Twitter.

The speeches deserve study. They were masterpieces of political oratory not despite their lack of weighty marble-clad phrases but because of it. They spoke to all Americans in an accessible way that then, once they gained entry into your mind made a beeline for your heart and took it soaring. They were tough when they had to be tough, funny at just the right moments and then in the end, inspiring, the kinds of call to action this year’s high stakes election demands.

But what was perhaps most striking about the Obama addresses was their generosity toward Kamala Harris. The Obamas showed up to help another Democrat, the party and the country. They knew their roles. They are pillars of the party, perhaps the most popular Democrats in the country. But they showed up not to burnish their reputations but to use them to help elevate the country’s next great leader, one in whom they clear deeply and sincerely believe.

They delivered two of the great addresses ever delivered at a U.S. political convention. And they and everyone in the house knew they were just one of the opening acts for the main attraction.

It’s not easy to be at the top and then hand the stage to the next great star. Much has been written about Joe Biden’s selflessness in this regard. But Hillary Clinton and the Obamas offered further examples that all those at the pinnacle of influence in the Democratic Party—every single one of them—are throwing their best efforts and energies into the support of the Harris-Walz ticket.

What we are seeing is an unprecedented display of spontaneous, heartfelt party unity. You could tell as you listen to the cheers throughout the normally tedious but on Tuesday downright exhilarating roll call vote. (At least, I think you can. I’ll admit that as a long-time Kamala Harris supporter seeing her ascension being formally made real through that roll call, I did my fair share of (super manly) weeping. So I missed some bits.)

Then, when the coup de theatre came and the ceremonial vote was complete and the Vice President was declared (yet again) the nominee and they cut on the giant screens to the scene at a packed arena in Milwaukee and out onto the stage stepped Harris and Walz and both crowds cheered and cheered, you could feel what Michelle Obama later called the “magic” of this event, surrounding this candidate, of this movement and this moment in our history.

The Obamas followed and somehow managed to keep the energy going without ever stepping on the core message. What we are witnessing may be a continuation of the Obama and Biden legacies, but it is also something very new. Harris in just a few short weeks has made it clear, she will build on past successes but she is not content with them. She has learned much from the successful Democratic leaders who came before her but her role is not to emulate them, it is to blaze new trails and yes, to surpass them.

There are many examples of excellence from which she can draw. And there are many lessons she can learn from past challenges. Barack Obama sets an exceptionally high standard as a communicator and a thoughtful leader and his domestic policy achievements, like Obamacare (after Tuesday’s address, I feel obligated to call it by its birthname). Joe Biden may not have been the communicator his former boss was, but he far surpassed him in terms of the record of substantial legislative and economic accomplishments his four year term brought. Biden is a skilled foreign policy hand. But Harris would do well to infuse some of her foreign policy with lessons from other Democratic presidents—the conscience and respect for human rights of Carter, the commitment of Truman or Roosevelt to defeat authoritarian threats from abroad.

As a leader committed to crossing a new frontier, she has the example of Kennedy’s stirring vision. As one who recognizes that major social strides need to be made in terms of restoring the right to vote, of defending women’s rights to bodily autonomy, of protecting people’s rights to love whom they love, the example and courage underlying Johnson’s Great Society and his progress on civil rights offers useful lessons. Clinton got assault weapons banned and led a job creation revolution at the dawn of a new technological era that also will offer the next president useful lessons.

But of course, none of these leaders were perfect. All were flawed or incomplete in meaningful ways no matter how the lens of gratitude and sentiment may distort our memories. That is why, because the challenges of this moment are great at home and abroad, in terms of the threats we face and the promise of new technological revolutions like the ones in AI, biotech, quantum computing, neuroscience and new energy technologies, we need a president who learns from the lessons of the past but is not content to retrace the footsteps of mentors and historical figures.

Kamala Harris must go further. She may ride the shoulders of Biden, the Obamas, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the leaders of the civil rights and women’s rights movements and more. But she must strive to be better than them. She must take care not to repeat their errors.

In short, all the quibbling I hear among some in DC about whether she will be more of an Obama or Biden disciple is just so much dirty bathwater. Kamala Harris will not be and should not be Obama 2.0 or Biden 2.0. She will be and must be Harris 1.0, something entirely new, elevated and informed by what has come before but not limited by it, unwilling to repeat past mistakes or to let nostalgia lead her to be blind to those errors.

And so the flow of this convention is getting it exactly right. Its narrative arc is that of the Democratic Pary as it has entered the current era. And it will culminate in the nomination of someone who owes much to the leaders who came before her on the stage but who is very different, very much her own person, very much the reason that this convention and the campaign of the past four years feel unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.