Attorney Harris | The Press

(Chicago) After the smiling Kamala, the United States got to know Attorney General Harris.

The long-underestimated vice president had a unique opportunity to introduce herself to the country, and she didn’t miss the chance.

As for the joy, the enthusiasm, the public already knows. On Thursday evening, it was a question of showing behind this shattering smile a competent, resolute, serious stateswoman at times. A “commander in chief”, not just an empathetic politician.

Also, an opponent who will not hesitate to attack Donald Trump, both on his policies and his character. She returned point by point to his criminal and civil convictions. On his refusal to recognize his electoral defeat. And on the most extreme aspects of the “2025 Project”, written by his allies.

“They. Have. Lost. Their. Minds,” she said.

The crowd roared.

A screaming, packed crowd that had overflowed the United Center even five hours before his speech. Hundreds of people were standing on the top floor. Others crowded the stairs, craning their necks to see a bit of what they perceive as history live.

The great influence in her life, her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, came from India to study microbiology. She had a career as a cancer researcher. She died 15 years ago. She and her father divorced when Kamala and her sister Maya were children. Her father, Harold Harris, a Jamaican immigrant, is a retired Stanford University economics professor. She quoted him, but the man was absent from the convention, as he was from the major political occasions of his recent career.

She spoke about the values ​​of solidarity of her community and some of her mother’s mottos, the most famous being: “Instead of complaining, what are you going to do to change that?”

Her parents met at a civil rights protest in the early 1960s, and provided Kamala with her political education.

This is what gave her the desire to become a lawyer, and more precisely a state prosecutor.

“Every day in court, I stood up proudly in front of the judge and said these words: ‘Kamala Harris for the People.’ Because when a crime is committed against one person, it is the entire people who are attacked, and who prosecute a defendant.

“My entire career, I have had only one client: the people.”

It was here that we saw a side of her personality that had been less highlighted until now by the Democratic campaign: the resolute woman with a steely gaze.

She spoke of her court victories, of the cases she has led against large corporations, criminal organizations, to make an analogy with the role of president and the battles to come.

The prosecutor against the criminal? Yes, yes, she will be happy to campaign on that too.

Abortion will continue to be at the forefront of her rhetoric. Every day, she will point out that Trump appointed the judges who overturned abortion rights, and brag about it. The “2025 Project,” from which Trump is trying to disassociate himself, proposes to go even further in these restrictions.

“In many ways, Donald Trump is not a serious man. But the consequences of his return to the White House would be extremely serious.”

She did not avoid the Gaza issue, as did almost all the speakers at the convention, echoing the position of the Biden administration.

Finally, she contrasted the dark Republican vision of the country with her own optimistic one.

In other words, she will not let herself be “defined” by Republicans. And she is telling Democrats not to let Trump define what the United States is.

When the traditional red, white and blue balloons fell from the ceiling, she could say: mission accomplished. There are still several tests to pass in 75 days: interviews, debates…

But for now, she can’t ask for more after this flawless performance.

As much as the Republican convention in July fulfilled all its objectives of unity and message, the Democratic convention succeeded in rekindling the flame, filling the coffers, rallying volunteers and completely changing the tone and the very subject of this campaign.