Harris projects herself as candidate of continuity, change, consensus

Washington: In her first interview since becoming the Democratic Party nominee for president, Kamala Harris projected herself as the candidate of continuity by owning Joe Biden’s legacy; as the candidate of change by promising to bring the decade-old “era” marked by Donald Trump’s dominance to an end; and as the candidate of consensus by reaching out to both swing voters and anti-Trump Republicans.

After being criticised for not holding a single unscripted event or doing an interview, Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash at a cafe in Savannah in Georgia, a key battleground state in the American south that the Democrats flipped from Republicans in 2020, on Thursday. Her running mate, Minnesota’s governor Tim Walz, also participated in the interview.

Given her tricky position, as both a sitting vice-president and a candidate, Harris addressed her campaign’s four big vulnerabilities — economy, immigration, energy policy, and Israel’s war — in a way where she carried forward Biden’s policy positions but used a new framework and vocabulary to talk about it.

Asked if she regretted defending Biden’s ability to serve another four years, Harris responded with an empathic no. “He is so smart and loyal to the American people. And I have spent hours upon hours with him, be it in the Oval Office or the Situation Room. He has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgement and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president. By contrast, the former president has none of that.”

‘Opportunity economy’

On what she would do on day one of her presidency, Harris spoke about strengthening the middle class, and implementing her plans for what she has called an “opportunity economy”. “I have already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we are going do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we are going to do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we are gonna do to invest in families.”

With Trump consistently pointing out how grocery and gas prices were lower under his term, Harris sought to retrace the environment in which Biden and she took over, of the pandemic and economic crash. She highlighted the administration’s achievements of job creation, infrastructure and climate legislations, health care costs, and domestic manufacturing, but acknowledged that people were hurting and more needed to be done.

The more uncomfortable questions related to Harris’s own shifting positions and record. She had called for a ban on fracking during her own presidential run in 2019-2020, a position that she has since backtracked from. Explaining the shift, Harris said that her “values” hadn’t changed and she believed the climate crisis was real. “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

In the backdrop of Trump labelling her the “border czar” and pinning the surge in illegal immigration on her — Harris had been given charge of addressing root causes of migration from three Central American countries — the vice-president pushed back against Trump for torpedoing a bipartisan immigration bill because he thought it would hurt him politically.

She also spoke of her own record as California’s attorney general in enforcing the law. “We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally. And there should be consequence. And let’s be clear, in this race, I am the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organisations who traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings. I am the only person in this race who actually served a border state as attorney general to enforce our laws. And I would enforce our laws as president going forward. I recognise the problem,” Harris claimed.

War in Gaza

On Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, an issue that has fractured the Democratic coalition, Harris continued to walk a fine balance. “I am unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defence and its ability to defend itself. And that’s not going to change.” She spoke about the horrors of the October 7 Hamas terror attack against Israel, said Israel has a right to defend itself but how it did so mattered too. “Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we have got to get a deal done…Let’s get the hostages out. Let’s get the ceasefire done.”

But Harris rejected any shift in policy, including stopping arms supplies to Israel, a demand from the progressive Left of her party. “No…we have to get a deal done,” Harris reiterated, adding she was committed to the two-state solution and Palestinian dignity, security and self determination.

The vice-president, who had several anti-Trump Republicans speak at the convention, also said she would have a Republican in her Cabinet, as she welcomed diversity of opinions. Just like her positions on other policy issues, the announcement appeared to be aimed at moderate voters and an attempt to cast herself as the consensus candidate who could bring Trump’s divisive era to an end.

“In the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans,” Harris claimed. This decade, she said, was an era where the strength of a leader began to measured by who “you beat down” rather than who you lifted up. Americans, Harris claimed, were ready to turn a page on that era.

Harris didn’t speak about her gender or race as a defining feature that has lent her candidacy a historic element during the convention speech. When the interviewer asked Harris about a photograph from the convention that has gone viral — the picture shows Harris speaking from the stage and her young grandniece was watching her — and how she thought of gender and race, Harris said, “I am running because I believe that I am the best person to do this job at this moment for all Americans, regardless of race and gender. But I did see that photograph. And I was deeply touched by it…It’s very humbling.”

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