1 week Ago By The Telegraph
Kamala Harris has spent almost four years a heartbeat from the presidency, but she is still trying to convince the public she can be Commander-in-Chief. It was why, exactly a week away from election night, she felt compelled to to voters with the visual prop of the White House behind her. Perhaps she feared Americans were still afraid to shatter the country’s last and greatest glass ceiling.
Or simply that little more than three months as the presidential nominee had been insufficient to convince voters she belongs at the Resolute Desk. Whatever the reason, the result was Ms Harris’ closing argument to voters was light on subtlety, but also on With the columns of the building’s South Portico illuminated behind her, she boiled it down for voters: it was either her or Donald Trump. There was no other option.
“On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an Enemies List,” she said. “I will walk in with a To-Do list.” The roughly 30-minute address was not intended to climb to lofty oratorical heights.
There were no dramatic rhetorical flourishes outlining grand political ambitions. It was simply a warning that the alternative was worse. “I’ll be honest with you: I’m not perfect,” she told those yet to cast their vote.
But the other option, she said, was “someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power”. On the TV screens beaming her remarks across Washington’s National Mall, and the nation, Ms Harris looked quietly impressive. The carefully choreographed stage of US flags, the flattering up-lighting of the White House grounds, made for a dramatic set.
But for the tens of thousands of people who had turned out to watch the US vice president in the flesh, there was little in her delivery to excite them. Nor did they seem to expect it. With the White House race deadlocked, the crowd’s presence on the grassy Ellipse appeared to be motivated more by their fears of a second Trump term than their enthusiasm for Ms Harris’ vision for the future.
It was the theme of the night. Ms Harris was not attempting to sell voters on herself, but remind them what Trump’s return to the building behind her would entail. Standing in the same spot where the Republican had urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” on January 6, 2021, Ms Harris reminded Americans how the former president had “sent an armed mob.
.. to overturn the will of the people”.
Few residents of Washington have forgotten the violence of that day, or the scars it has wrought on the nation’s psyche. “America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos.
More division,” Ms Harris said. “I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote.
” Ms Harris’ campaign may have done better to ask why, with a week until polling day, she remains locked in a virtual tie with a historically unpopular opponent. But instead, for her “closing argument”, the Democrat relied on the stagecraft of the White House and a heavy dose of doom-mongering to court any remaining undecided voters. In seven days’ time, we will know.
