Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, landed in Chicago on Sunday night with second gentleman Doug Emhoff, for a presidential convention kicking off Monday that no one could have imagined a month ago.
Harris, Emhoff and her vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and his wife, Gwen, will be camped in Chicago from Sunday to Friday morning, with a side trip Tuesday for a Milwaukee rally in battleground Wisconsin.
Democrats are exuberant. President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election — and Harris quickly seizing the nomination and rallying Democrats in Obama-like fashion — means former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, has a fight on his hands.
With Harris leading in many polls so fast means this is a political turnaround operation like we’ve never seen in our lifetimes.
Though her acceptance speech is Thursday, Harris will be on stage Monday to take the baton from the president. Biden’s keynote will make the case to elect Harris. He’ll be in Chicago only for a few hours before boarding Air Force One to fly to California after his speech.
Harris, campaigning in swing state Pennsylvania on Sunday, said her convention speech was “almost done,” with some “little tweaks” left to be made.
Chicago, the convention city
This is Chicago’s 26th time hosting a convention.
When Democrats met here in 1996 to nominate the Clinton-Gore ticket for a second term, it was a fun-fest, wiping out — so we thought — the bad image the city earned because of the battles between protesters and Chicago cops during the Vietnam-era 1968 Democratic convention. Now Chicago’s reputation again is on the line with this convention.
Democrats, giddy at their sudden reversal of fortunes, are convening during sobering times: Ukraine’s battle against Russian aggression continues, and mass protests are planned here over the Israel-Hamas war.
If the protests get out of hand, this could be a split screen convention: Delegates inside the United Center, protesters outside on the streets.
Biden and his team have been saying that a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza and a cease-fire could happen any day now — meaning there could be an announcement during the convention.
Monday is Biden’s night and Hillary Clinton’s and Brandon Johnson’s
Biden is the keynote speaker Monday night, an evening intended to celebrate his accomplishments as he in turn makes the case for the Harris presidency. First lady Jill Biden will speak on Biden’s legacy.
How we got to this point — how Biden was pressured directly and indirectly by Democratic leaders — to drop his second-term bid after a disastrous debate with Trump — will fade in time. What matters is where Democrats are now. And that’s in a position to win.
Democratic National Convention Committee chair Minyon Moore told me, it is “an honor that we’ll have [Biden] on Monday night, and [we] plan to celebrate him very well because he has earned it, and with the gift that he has given us to unite, to unite the party.”
My analysis: Biden will go down in history for giving two gifts to his party in the summer of 2024. Stepping aside when it was clear that he would lose and putting Harris in the pipeline to be in position to shatter that ultimate glass ceiling and become the nation’s first female president.
Not to be overlooked in all this is what Hillary Clinton will say. Clinton — still getting over, she has written, her stunning defeat to Trump in 2016. She was supposed to be the one to crack that glass ceiling. On Monday, Clinton’s speech will pick up where she left off — making what was called back in 2016 “herstory” by electing a female president.
Only this time, in 2024, the ending is supposed to be different: Trump defeated and a woman in the Oval Office.
Mayor Brandon Johnson opens the night in what will be the biggest speech of his life.
Moore told me, “We are in Chicago, and the first order of business after we do our business is to have our mayor welcome us to the city of Chicago.”
I ran into Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias on the floor of the United Center on Sunday. I asked him what Harris has to do to keep the momentum going. He said he hasn’t seen this kind of energy since the Obama campaign of 2008.
Said Giannoulias, “I think the energy is there. I think building on it this week and just continuing, especially with folks who are leaning Harris or not sure, that needs to be the focus,” he said.
FYI
Salutes to the president are planned for all four nights. Expect some power oratory. Former President Barack Obama speaks on Tuesday, with Michelle Obama going on just before him.