Four days: Kamala Harris' unlikely journey, via Chicago, plays a huge role in Biden's legacy
Singer/songwriter Jason Isbell performs his working class anthem, “Something more than free” at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Editor’s note: This story is a compilation of Smoky Mountain News Politics Editor Cory Vaillancourt’s pop-up daily dispatches, “Via Chicago,” originally published online from the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago the week of Aug. 19.
Day 1, ‘For the people’
It was an end of sorts, but also a beginning. The first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago culminated with a speech by President Joe Biden, but it wasn’t exactly a misty-eyed moment of reflection on his substantial legacy of public service. That will come in time.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ job during this convention is to define herself better than her opponents can, and every speaker who stands behind the podium before Harris does has that same job — even the President of the United States.
Accordingly, some of the biggest names in Democratic politics turned up to do exactly that, all riffing on the night’s working-class theme — “for the people,” a clever double entendre based on what Harris, a former prosecutor, used to say when making an appearance in court.
En masse, leaders from the country’s largest labor unions — AFSCME, SEIU, LIUNA, IBEW, CWA and AFL-CIO — voiced their support for the Harris-Walz ticket before Shawn Fain, president of the United Automobile Workers, recognized Biden and Harris for walking the picket line with the UAW.
“For the UAW and working-class people everywhere, this election comes down to one question: which side are you on?” Fain said, calling former president Donald Trump and running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, “lapdogs of the billionaire class.”
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New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who six years ago was a bartender without health care coverage, carried the theme forward.
“We have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she’s from the middle class,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
In an emotional speech, former senator, secretary of state and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, who if things were different would be speaking at the conclusion of her second and final term as president, reflected on the historic nature of Harris as the party’s second female nominee.
Clinton’s speech came one day after the 104th anniversary of Tennessee ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in state and federal elections, but she too pivoted back to the working-class themes that prevailed throughout the night, including during a performance by singer-songwriter Jason Isbell.
Hillary Rodham Clinton took the opportunity during her speech to revisit a number of historic female firsts. Andy Bailey illustration
“So as President, [Harris] will always have our backs,” Clinton said. “She will fight to lower costs for hard-working families, open the doors wide for good paying jobs and yes, she will restore abortion rights nationwide.”
When Biden finally took the stage late in the evening, he was greeted with a thundering ovation. Ever the team player — he didn’t want to drop out of the race, but he did — Biden did the job he came to do, spending half his time praising Harris and the other half excoriating Trump for nearly every objectionable statement or act he could recall.
Biden’s list was long but eventually the arc of his speech curved back toward the night’s theme.
“Wall Street didn’t build America, the middle class built America,” he said. “When unions do well, we all do well.”
President Joe Biden delivered a powerful speech on the opening night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Andy Bailey illustration
Sharp, focused and fired-up but not without the occasional flub, Biden’s performance led some to ask openly, “Where was this guy during that disastrous debate, the one that sealed his fate?”
His speech wasn’t the end of his legacy, which is still being written. It was, however, a beginning — a beginning for Harris, as the torch is slowly passed over the course of four days. And if Harris loses, that legacy will be in tatters.
Day 2, ‘A bold vision for America’s future’
Former President Barack Obama has played a substantial part in Biden’s legacy, and as the second day of the Democratic National Convention opened with the theme of “a bold vision for America’s future,” Obama started by gazing not towards the future, but instead towards the past.
“Looking back, I can say without question that my first big decision as your nominee turned out to be one of my best,” he said. “And that was asking Joe Biden to serve by my side as vice president.”
Trudging down memory lane, though, leaves Democrats on a tricky path. Harris has offered to fix many of the nation’s problems on “day one,” but as some have pointed out, day one for Harris was more than 1,300 days ago.
There are, however, plenty of other issues that are part of that bold vision that Democrats haven’t quite been able to push across the finish line. Senior members of the party spent a lot time discussing them from the podium, at first without having to raise the specter of perennial boogeyman Trump.
“Senate Republicans pretend to care about middle-class families, but they voted ‘no’ on expanding the child tax credit,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who worked with Harris when she was a senator. “JD Vance didn’t even show up to vote. Senate Republicans pretend to care about the border, but they voted ‘no’ on the strongest border bill in a decade.”
In his adopted hometown, Barack Obama became the second president to stump on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris. Andy Bailey illustration
JB Pritzker, wealthy Democratic governor of Illinois, underscored the importance of Democratic policies reflective of Harris’ working-class agenda.
“More than anything, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want a country where we can all live with a little serenity,” Pritzker said. “The serenity that comes with a balanced checkbook, an affordable grocery bill and a housing market that has room for everyone.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, technically an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has long been considered one of Congress’ most liberal elected officials, if not the most liberal. Sanders’ own bold vision includes an economy, and society, geared towards the working class.
“These oligarchs tell us we shouldn’t tax the rich, we shouldn’t take on price gouging, we shouldn’t expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision, and we shouldn’t increase Social Security benefits for struggling seniors. Well, I’ve got some bad news for them,” he said. “That is precisely what we are going to do.”
Still, a large part of Democrats bold vision involves invoking the boogeyman’s lone term, or perhaps looking forward to his next one. Sanders largely avoided this, but Schumer said a Trump victory in November would return the country to “the dark night of Trump’s American carnage” while Pritzker ridiculed Trump’s many business failures.
“Take it from an actual billionaire,” Pritzker said. “Trump is rich in only one thing. Stupidity.”
Obama joined in during his own rousing speech, comparing Trump’s time as president to a cinematic disaster — “We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse” — but, ever the statesman, redirected his comments towards Harris’ bold vision of America’s future.
“America can be and must be a force for good: discouraging conflict, fighting disease, promoting human rights, protecting the planet from climate change, defending freedom, brokering peace,” Obama said. “That’s what Kamala Harris believes and so do most Americans.”
Day 3, ‘A fight for our freedoms’
Most Americans take for granted hard-fought freedoms so ingrained in the infinitesimal minutiae of daily life that they’re difficult to notice. Economic freedom — especially for the working class — is one thing, but social freedom is quite another.
Speakers on the third day of the Democratic National Convention were given the theme of “a fight for our freedoms” and used it to outline what they say are threats to some of those freedoms, like LGBTQ+ rights and abortion.
But the rest of the night shaped up like an old-timey variety show. The blind Motown pianist. A television talk show host. Another former president. Pop sensations current and past, covering a Prince song in honor of Walz’s beloved Minnesota. Sandwiched in there between them all, and probably overlooked by many, was maybe the least-known but most profound speaker of the night, 26-year-old former U.S. Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.
In 2021 at the age of 22, Gorman read her poem, “The hill we climb” at Biden’s inauguration.
The poem focused on the struggle to maintain and improve the nation, starting with an acknowledgement of hardship and loss. Invoking dawn and light as metaphors of a new beginning just two weeks after a mob of violent insurrectionists penetrated the Capitol, Gorman called for unity and for purpose by emphasizing common goals and finished with a call to action — for America to rise above chaos and work together to create a better future.
“… when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
When her time came, Gorman rose above the fracas, the celebrities, the politicians, and offered a new piece, “This sacred scene.” Similar to “The hill we climb,” Gorman’s latest poem emphasizes love and empathy, but correctly identifies the maintenance of unity as “the hardest task history ever wrote.” In redefining the American dream, she demands that Americans become and remain worthy of it.
“Only now approaching this rare air are we aware that perhaps the American dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together.”
For Walz, that dream is the freedom to build the future in which you want to live.
Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz gave a relatively short speech on the third day of the convention, but stuck to the evening’s theme. Andy Bailey illustration
“When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office, corporations free to pollute your air and water and banks free to take advantage of customers,” he told the crowd during his relatively brief speech/high school pep rally. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own healthcare decisions and yeah, your kid’s freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”
Day 4, ‘For our future’
In the end, it was a beginning, but not just for the Harris/Walz ticket. It was a beginning for the next cohort of Democratic leadership at a critical moment in the party’s history, vaulted to national recognition — particularly, the slate of prospective vice presidential candidates who fell short of Walz. Each of them spoke at some point during the convention, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, briefly considered as Harris’ running mate, earned a major role in the program, speaking right before Harris closed out the convention. Cooper joked that he was “the last guy standing between you and the moment we’re all waiting for,” and he wasn’t talking about Beyonce.
Cooper, a close ally of both Biden and Harris, talked of his time as the state’s attorney general and the work Harris performed as California’s attorney general on behalf of homeowners who’d fallen prey to illegal foreclosures back during the Great Recession. Cooper lauded the tenacity of Harris, who fought to turn a $4 billion settlement into a $20 billion settlement.
Appearing more animated and enthusiastic than usual, the normally staid Cooper told the world that Harris would fight for them, too.
“Tonight, I want the American people to know, even if you don’t agree with her on everything, Kamala Harris will fight for you to the very end. For families who need better health care or a safer place to live, Kamala will fight for you. For parents who want better schools for their kids, for workers worried about a secure retirement for themselves, Kamala will fight for you. For any one of our allies, anywhere in the world, wondering if America still has your back, remember this — Kamala will fight for you,” Cooper said. “And when she fights, we win.”
Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted her party’s nomination for president on Aug. 23. Andy Bailey illustration
Inspiring the capacity crowd, Cooper then commanded a number of delegations from swing states to stand up, starting with his own. The reality of Cooper’s prime-time speaking slot and Trump’s choice of then-NCGOP leader Michael Whatley to head the RNC suggests that both parties realize North Carolina is indeed in play for Harris this year.
Harris, delivering the most important speech of her career, began with a reflection on how she came to stand at that podium, at that moment. She called it an unlikely journey, while touching on themes from previous speakers like Gorman — the “divisive battles of the past” that are beneath Americans’ collective dignity. Harris also nailed campaign talking points bolstered by those who stood before her on the podium and now stand behind her. She called it all a “New Way Forward,” giving proper noun status to her intentions.
As with Trump’s Asheville rally on Aug. 14, Harris’ speech was thick on promises and thin on policy, except for a few. Codify Roe. Bring back the bipartisan border bill Trump killed. Ceasefire in Gaza.
But perhaps the most unlikely part of Harris’ journey, via Chicago, is that the enthusiasm, the pageantry, all of it was created by Biden’s withdrawal from the race. If Harris wins, when Biden’s legacy is finally written this may be its most important chapter.
