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Will this be Kamala Harris' moment to make history?
By Martha Teichner
July 28, 2024 / 9:47 AM EDT / CBS News
Call it "the big reveal." Vice President Kamala Harris in the last seven days, emerging, blasting out from behind the curtain of the Biden presidency onto a stage of her own. "There's been kind of a joyous explosion – certainly you've seen that in the reaction in the country," said Stuart Stevens, a long-time Republican political strategist and author.
"There is something about being vice president that diminishes you, and there's something about being the nominee of a party that enhances you," he said. "So, I think what we've seen since the president withdrew from the nomination, this process of Vice President Harris becoming something larger than being a vice president."
Someone large enough in the eyes of voters to be president. Traditionally, candidates have months, the entire primary season, to do that. Harris has exactly 100 days between now and November 5.
She's in a big hurry. In a week, she's locked up the nomination, hauled in a mountain of cash, and racked up an impressive list of endorsements. Young people, volunteers, constituencies who had tuned out of the presidential race are tuning back in by the thousands to support Harris, nudging her to a statistical tie with former President Donald Trump in a new poll.
Harris has moved fast to define the narrative of her own campaign before Trump does it for her. The fact she's a Black South Asian woman is the ever-present undercurrent in the turbulence of the now-redefined election cycle.
Teichner asked, "Do you think that the fact that Kamala Harris is a woman will be a big factor in this election?"
Stevens replied, "When it's said and done, we're gonna look back and say it was the determining factor."
According to presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, "Harris will be bumping up against that expectation that strong leaders, presidents look like men. And so, she's going to have to look strong, look like a compelling leader, while acknowledging that she is different. Trying to find that fine line between being assertive and being a strong leader, while not being unlikeable, is going to be a challenge.
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Of the 24 former VPs who have run, only 10 won, most recently Joe Biden.
Now, Donald Trump is the "old guy" running for the Oval Office. So, will this be Kamala Harris' moment to make history?
Her honeymoon period won't last forever. But she's out of the gate swinging.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-moment-to-make-history-election-2024/