Leaving Chicago, blown away: Reflections on DNC, Kamala’s speech, and the road ahead

AS THE THREE of us pack our bags and leave for home, we offer some individual ruminations on the Democrats’ convention week. 

Dworetzky: Political pageant meets the multiverse

In the story we wrote just before the convention, we acknowledged that Vice President Kamala Harris had done an extraordinary job in grabbing the party banner from an exhausted Biden campaign and launching full tilt into her own. 

We went on to comment, “Whether that success is the result of heretofore unappreciated political chops or simply a lot of good fortune remains to be seen. While the answer to that question may take months to assess fully, how this convention proceeds may offer clues.”

Leaving Chicago the morning after Harris’s acceptance of the Democratic nomination, it seems to all of us that the last four days added weight to the likelihood that her political instincts and acumen have been underappreciated. She had a very good convention.

There were protests, of course, but nothing that even remotely drew comparison with the convention in 1968.

There were plenty of logistical issues — one California delegate reported testily that on the first night, “There was a snafu that had buses and delegates waiting in very long lines outside the United Center to go through security. From the hotel … to getting inside the United Center, it took me nearly two hours. There were probably about 1,000 delegates waiting in the parking lot to go through security at one point. Most got in late.”

There were long lines, poor and confusing signage, and volunteers assigned to provide information who had none themselves. On Thursday night, the United Center was filled to bursting with many unable to get in.

Still, the frustrations couldn’t dampen a general vibe that was overwhelmingly positive. The packed house and long lines were just further signs of the delegates’ enthusiasm.

The speeches, of course, varied in quality and significance, and at times the program bogged down — with Biden famously being pushed out of prime time on Monday by long-winded speakers who preceded him — but the people who mattered most delivered. The Obamas, Oprah, Walz, Doug Emhoff, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and Harris herself, were very strong. There were memorable moments that were less anticipated, particularly from Steve Kerr, Kenan Thompson, Adam Kinsinger, and Mindy Kaling. And if Joe Biden’s debate performance had been as strong as his speech on Monday, he would still be the candidate.

I have one personal beef: When the kind of ornate praise that one hears at funerals is applied nonstop for four straight days in support of candidates who are very much alive, it threatens to puff them up into comic book superheroes, needing only capes to launch into the Marvel multiverse. Yet, as Michelle Obama suggested, Harris and Walz are human and imperfect. They will make mistakes. I can’t but wonder why the campaign did not try to offer a more realistic portrayal of their standard-bearers.

That gripe aside, the pageantry, rah-rah and boosterism of the event were as well tricked out and smooth as 21^st century conventions can be. There was enthusiasm and energy everywhere we looked — and everywhere the TV cameras pointed.

And on the final evening, Harris’s acceptance speech showed a candidate confident, capable, and in command. Among the several missions of her address was a show of personal strength — and that came through. She told the country that she can be tough when it is needed, someone who won’t be a pushover for anyone on the world stage. Her performance capped a very successful week.

At the end of the Republican convention, when Trump was sitting on top of the world, I wrote, “It is hard to imagine that the trajectory of the Trump campaign will continue at its current pace, and the natural desire to sustain that momentum will lead to mistakes and opportunities for the Democrats. That is, if the party is in a position to take advantage of them.”

In the month since that moment, Harris and the Democratic party have done some hard lifting and moved into that position. As the Democratic team moves out of Chicago, they have shown they can play offense as well as defense, and when Trump fumbles — as he certainly will — they’ll be prepared to pick up the ball and run like hell.

Paul: The stark pivot from joy to dead seriousness

Kamala Harris killed it. Consistent with her themes around liberty, freedom, and the Promise of America, and a Democratic National Convention that repositioned the party around a positive vision of the country, Harris gave a speech that in many respects only a person from an immigrant family could give. Hers is an unabashedly positive embrace of what it means to be an American; celebrating the view that to have been born in America is to have won the lottery. It is why her parents — and my grandparents — embarked on journeys across the globe, so that generations following them could realize that dream.

Yet, in other respects, her speech reflected a stark pivot. Not from the extremes of the party to the center, as Richard Nixon famously described as an essential challenge to every presidential candidate as the general election campaign begins, but from the overarching theme of joy to one of dead seriousness.

Harris laid out who she is, what she believes in, and the central policies that she is committed to implementing as president. She embraced tax policies to support middle class families; the belief that the country can embrace its history as a nation of immigrants, even as it fixes a broken immigration system and secures the southern border; the urgent need for the United States to lead an alliance of democratic nations facing a hostile world; and many other issues. She did not choose between the security of Israel and the suffering in Gaza, but said we must address both. Yet it did not seem like pandering, but rather a belief that we do not have to be captive of zero-sum choices, but can walk, and chew gum, at the same time.

The joy in her speech was less the soft joy of the past month, than an elevated, almost reverential devotion — that to me reflects the immigrant experience — for the privilege of being an American and having the opportunity to lead America into its next historical moment. There was no joy at all as she laid out the task in the campaign ahead. Rather, she pivoted to her prosecutorial mien, and it was a dazzling performance. Gone were the presumptions of what might be to come, based on the written words of Project 2025. Instead, speaking to the convention, and those watching across the nation, she argued her case against Donald Trump based on his own spoken words.

Harris: Big dreams and calculated risks face big test

After a pop-up campaign that had been long on good vibes and short on specifics, the Democratic convention spectacle this week was scripted to “define” Kamala Harris and put some meat on the bones of her intentions while maintaining her remarkable momentum. In that, they seem to have succeeded. The Obamas, Oprah, Trump-fearing Republicans, a parade of mostly effective prime-time speakers, and Harris herself made her case. The question now, of course, is, has this rousing set-up launched a winning campaign?

In her speech Thursday night accepting the party’s nomination, addressed to the flag-waving, standing-room-only crowd packing the United Center, Harris told her personal story, growing up middle-class “in the flats” of Oakland among “firefighters, nurses, and construction workers” and soaking up the encouragement of her parents to do big things.

She called Donald Trump “unserious,” and she detailed, yet again in a convention jammed with references to his agenda, his “explicit intent” to free convicted January 6 extremists, jail journalists, and use the military against the American people.

She promised “common sense” and a strong border bill, bodily autonomy for women, capital for small business, voting protections, and even “a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.”

At every turn, exuberant delegates roared and waved their American flags.

But as Harris’s address turned to security, the flags and the chants of “USA! USA! USA!” in the hall took on a different feel, shading from a noise like proud Olympics fans to something darker and more martial.

For some who’ve been savoring the Harris-Walz Happy Meal, it was jarring, even harsh.

Earlier on Thursday, the campaign had denied a speaker’s slot to an elected Palestinian-American official and, in doing so, turned a cold shoulder to Arab Americans, including the large population in critical swing state Michigan, many with relatives in Gaza, some counting their dead.

And though Harris addressed the carnage in Gaza, acknowledging the “scale of suffering” and speaking of the Administration’s work “around the clock” for a ceasefire, she never addressed directly what many on the left see as the ultimate leverage with Israel: ending American shipments of bombs and high-tech weaponry to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

All of this — the New York Times called it “gravitas” — must surely be calculated. The campaign’s brain trust seems to have decided that while a joyful, optimistic contrast to gloomy Trump has its place in the story of these next 74 days, there are still more votes to be gained from sounding, in the same script, not simply patriotic, but unapologetically tough.

Seeing real momentum, the campaign may be hoping not just for a win, but to run up the score, building election margins large enough to withstand any challenges from MAGA and putting both houses of Congress in the hands of Democrats. To do that — and, more ambitious still, to drive a stake in the heart of MAGA — they are crafting an appeal not only for the party faithful, independents, and suburban women, but for disaffected Republicans who have never before considered voting for a Democrat.

The dream, so it seems, is a coalition that spans the spectrum from Bernie-crats and Squad fans to conservative admirers of Liz Cheney and Ronald Reagan. And one of the takeaways of the week, from the speakers at the podium and private conversations with people who know her well, is that Harris not only dreams big and takes calculated risks, but frequently delivers.

No doubt she’ll face challenges. For one thing, Trump, with no shame about assaulting women and playing on racial fears, seems virtually certain to seize on the image of a tough Black woman and work it in ways unimaginable in campaigns before 2015.

But there are other risks as well. Harris’s political chops will be tested further as she tries to hold together that broad coalition. Will Republican voters respond to Harris’s appeal to their patriotism? Will progressive grassroots organizers, so critical to turning out younger voters and communities that feel marginalized in today’s big-money politics, stay fired up when they hear her pledge unyielding support for the police and the world’s “strongest, most lethal” military?

As Republican ad man Fred Davis told us before the convention, who knows?

Meanwhile, “Coach” Tim Walz says, “It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball. …”  And the Big Game, the election of our lifetimes, could still go either way.

To Americans who want to tilt the playing field for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, Michelle Obama charged, “Do something.”

Bay City News staff writer Joe Dworetzky is in Chicago with fellow BCN reporter Jay Harris and correspondent David Paul to report on the daily drama and curiosities at the Democratic National Convention. Learn more about their work here.

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