Obamas chose Kamala Harris as heir apparent and ‘changed the script for Trump,’ former adviser says | 2024 Democratic National Convention
Barack and Michelle Obama have chosen Kamala Harris as the heir to their political movement and reversed the trend on Donald Trump, former Obama adviser David Axelrod told the Guardian on Wednesday.
The Obamas delivered electrifying speeches at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday night. The former US president compared Harris’ rise to his own, saying: “I’m hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good for young people with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible.”
Former first lady Michelle spoke of her husband’s campaign of hope and change, saying, “There’s something wonderfully magical in the air, isn’t there? … A familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long. You know what I mean? It’s the contagious power of hope.”
Both speeches were praised by Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, in an interview after an event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the convention.
He said: “When Barack Obama got the call in 2004 that he was going to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention, he immediately said, ‘I know what I want to say, I want to talk about my story as part of the larger American story,’ and he’s always done that. He and Michelle are great American stories and they’re proud of that and the values that go with it.”
“You heard it last night and Kamala Harris followed the same path. They flipped Trump’s script. Trump’s game is to try to alienate people and what they did was alienate Trump from the values that most Americans share, so I thought those speeches were incredibly effective.”
Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama at the White House, said there was “no doubt” that the Obamas view Harris as their natural heir.
“I think they feel very connected to Harris and they see her as the embodiment of what America is all about: the old values of community, selflessness, hard work and all the things that we like to associate with what it means to be an American. She speaks to that and that’s one of the reasons she’s right in the middle of this race.”
The mood in Chicago is upbeat, with fears of a repeat of the party’s chaotic 1968 convention fading: instead of division and animosity, there is unity and joy. The gloom surrounding Joe Biden’s candidacy has dissipated, with opinion polls showing Harris narrowly ahead of Republican nominee Donald Trump in key battleground states. Can it last?
Axelrod, who was educated in Chicago and has spent much of his career in the city, said: “I don’t know how to measure the end of a honeymoon, but here’s the reality of it. This change in leadership happened very late in the race. She had a very good month, not just because of her honeymoon, but because of the way she presented herself, the way her campaign positioned her. She now has a convention, which is a four-day commercial.”
“Next week is Labor Day, because there’s no more campaigning, and the week after that is the debate. If she does well, that will take you to the end of September and people will already be voting. I think she has the ability to extend that period and it may well be that it’s not a honeymoon period, but a consolidation of the voter base, and it becomes a free-for-all for the remaining voters.”
While the Obamas have portrayed Harris as a personification of American values, Trump has struggled to come back at her. He has tried to attack her on her racial identity and intelligence, as well as calling her outlandish nicknames like “Kamala the Laffer,” “Kamala the Liar” and “Kamabla.” Axelrod says the former president is in trouble.
“He’s a jazz man in this area, he gets in front of an audience and he tries to find the groove and he throws it all at the wall. It’s usually bile, it’s personal and it’s negative. But he’s just trying out themes. The campaign seems more rational than the candidate and that’s been true from the beginning. The question is can they control it and get it through.”
“The best bet for them is to try to make her a sort of Biden Lite and have her take the fall for everything that people don’t like about Biden’s policies. But it’s hard to sell the idea that the vice president was pulling all the strings. That’s the flip side of the fact that no one really knows much about her. I don’t think they believe that, and so there aren’t a lot of good options for that.”
But he warned: “That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a very close race, and I’m not sure if the race were held today, Trump wouldn’t win. But the motion certainly goes in his direction.”
Asked by the Guardian about his final prediction, Axelrod replied: “Are you crazy? My prediction is that it’s going to be a very close race. And I wouldn’t have made that prediction a month ago.”
Highlights from the Democratic convention:
