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The old rule that the pol picks up important debts to certain constituencies and VIPs on their rise doesn’t apply the same way to her. This is one of the most unusual features of the Harris ascendance and for now gives her unique advantages.
Coming out of the convention in Chicago, Harris has built as wide a coalition as any Democratic nominee in memory. Everyone there claimed her as their own, with arguably the exception of President Joe Biden’s family and a few of his staffers. The manner of her ascent — the replacement of the octogenarian incumbent, the lack of a primary, the single-minded obsession with beating former President Donald Trump, the coming together of Democratic powers around her candidacy in barely 48 hours last month — means that no one can claim to have brought her this far.
What does it mean to owe few explicit debts? You can design a convention, like the one in Chicago, with little of the identity politics or Gaza passions that tore up your side for years. You can stay ambiguous on policy prescriptions when you want to — no one’s in any position to deny her a check or an endorsement in exchange for a promise to adopt this or cancel that. You can tack as you wish: hence the new centrist, strong-on-crime, strong-on-defense, strong-on-business Harris who, before this summer, didn’t present any of those attributes strongly to the nation.
Most magically of all: You somehow come across looking like the newcomer.
