Turning The Page
On this, the first day of the DNC, the big talk is about the speech tonight by Joe Biden, who will be introduced by his wife, Jill, and will give both him and the audience of loyal Democrats at the convention his final say and give him their final farewell. The questions that are most prolific today in the convention hall, outside amongst the protestors and on the air among the pundits have to do with how much the Harris/Walz policy platform will diverge from the Biden/Harris platform. It is a logical question to ask, but asking it and expecting a clear answer from Harris refuses to recognize the political realities that confront a national candidate. Kamala Harris is in that uncomfortable moment when she must honor the incumbent, her boss for the past four years, the widely beloved (at least by core Democrats) Joe Biden. I don’t mean to make that sound like its an obligation she is uncomfortable with, but given the circumstances of this transition from Biden to Harris in the last month, there is certainly a bit of discomfort with the issue.
Every new political leader has a certain need to set the tone about what has gone before them. If you are like Donald Trump, the answer to that question is obvious, regardless of who that prior leader may be. You just have to decide exactly how loud you want to be in your denigration of all the fuck-ups that have been left on your doorstep. Anything that is a problem is clearly the responsibility of the other guy and anything good would never have happened if you hadn’t come on board and set it right on course. But that is not possible for Kamala for two reasons. First of all, those policies were both Joe’s and hers. There is very little she can or should denigrate in those plans since she then opens herself up to the disloyalty claim or the yes-woman claim that she had nothing to do with any prior administration successes or policies at all. There are also plenty of Democrats (including me, even though I am not a registered Party member) that actually admire Joe Biden and the job he did as president and we would not take kindly to Harris standing on Joe’s shoulders while grinding her sole into his soul.
The problem becomes more apparent when you listen to some of the protestors outside the convention hall. The pro-Palestinian crowd, as an example, wants Harris to specifically state how her policy towards Israel will differ from Biden’s. Biden has done a great deal of jawboning of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to moderate his conduct of his retaliatory war on Hamas so as to minimize casualties of innocents in Gaza and to gain the release of the remaining hostages. But the pro-Palestinians are not swayed by that straddling stance. They feel the U.S. must be much more pro-active in getting Israel to demure and push for a two-sate solution for future governance of Gaza and the West Bank. They want Harris to publicly strengthen her stance against Israel to force their hand more than Biden has chosen to. That is as big a political issue for Harris as exists because Republicans, showing their Islamaphobic leanings, have been staunch supporters of Israel and are fully behind the Netanyahu strong-man program. So, it is a delicate calculus for Harris to decide how to thread that needle. Will she stick by the existing Biden/Harris policy (it is the governing dynamic until Joe leaves office in January) or will she suggest that a change is needed?
The transition will undoubtedly occur naturally at some point and there is one thing that is surely true and that is that four years is a long enough time to be able to say that policies for the future…and even the next four years…must change to meet the times. Look at one of the biggest hot button issue, immigration and the border. It is fair to say that sentiment about immigration policy has shifted in the Democratic Party over the past four years and it was not just a political decision. Large cities have felt the burden of dealing with immigrants and have felt overwhelmed. Since those cities are mostly governed by Democratic mayors and/or governors, they have openly called for stronger, more stringent immigration controls. Some aspects like the Dreamer issue haven’t really changed, but there has been enough change in the border situation that this is a fair issue that requires revised thinking at this point in time. All that said and done, there needs to be careful calculus during an election cycle as to whether its a net winning or net losing strategy to make that change during the campaign rather than wait until after the election.
Candidates for the presidency generally have one set of staff for their campaign and another for the policy management process if and when the election is won. It must be fascinating to see and hear the interface between these two sets of people. For a new candidate there is probably a high degree of consistency between the two camps. For an existing incumbent there is probably very little daylight between the two camps as well. But for a “new incumbent” like Harris, the two camps may well have a large gap between them and yet a strong mutually self-serving need to keep quiet about those gaps while the campaign is still underway. It serves no one’s interest (except the opponent’s) to have the two camp’s differences on display.
The page-turning underway at the DNC is very focused on this, the opening day. I’ll bet it is not accidental that everyone wants to put the page turning behind them and leave the last three days of the convention to be focused on the future. It is the speakers at the convention that constitute the list of most eligible future political leaders of the Party. A good convention speech is remembered for years and can help a future candidate a great deal. But that all has to be done in service to the candidate of the moment. It is OK to focus on the future of the country at a convention, but it is unseemly to have too much focus on the future of an individual other than the candidate. Even the running mate must stay 100% focused on lifting up their senior partner and try to do nothing but tout their virtues. So, we will all watch the DNC very carefully to see how Harris does at tip-toeing through the minefield of the political issues of the moment. So far, Harris has done a fine job of not stumbling (even once) since she ascended to the throne of the leading candidate. It would be too much to expect that to continue with no chance of stumbles. That said, the page will turn tonight and the next page still has lots of blank spaces on it waiting for the future yet to be written.