Kamala Day One and My Political Evolution

July 22, 2024

There have been eighteen presidential elections in my lifetime. This year’s matters the most and today was a very big day.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden announced that he will not run for reelection. Today, Vice-President Kamala Harris picked up the baton and left the campaign starting blocks. A whole lot of us exhaled and began to practice normal breathing.

Joe Biden, who the history books will vouch for as a thoroughly decent man and an effective president, has been staring down the barrel of a gun since an agonizing debate performance three weeks ago. Now, after apprehension and angst, Joe has stepped out of the crosshairs.

Kamala Harris has been the supportive V.P. that most of us don’t know. We don’t know what she’s been doing and we don’t know if she’s been doing it well. We’re about to find out. The one thing I know for sure is that, barring some heinous reveal, I will staunchly support her campaign to become the first female President of the United States.

I’m not sure when I began to feel so strongly about our political leadership. In 1968, I remember my morbid fascination as I watched the turmoil and chaos of the Democratic convention in Chicago from the leader's lounge where I was a summer camp counselor. I don’t remember a devotion to the outcome. A few weeks later I left for college and as the Vietnam war raged and my male friends were threatened by the draft, I wasn’t engaged in the political firestorm. I’m not proud of that. One of my roommates, Louise, was a “Nixon Girl” which meant she had cheered at the Republican convention, wearing a short shift that said “NIXON” in bold print and the iconic straw boater on her head. My other roommate, Sabrina, had offered leaflets that said, "Trust Humphrey” to anyone who would accept one. She went into a deep depression when Tricky Dick won. At the time, we thought that Sabrina was the one who got it wrong.

When Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford took office I recall some feelings of—what? Relief? Maybe, but my life was busy and I think I mostly felt grateful for a resumption of “normal.” Enough with the constant political worry.

I have no memories of the Ford/Carter contest which may have more to do with the timing of my divorce than my interest in the moment. Still, I had no pony in that race. It seemed like two nice vanilla guys who would do no harm.

When I moved to Washington, D.C., I was offered a job as the Press Secretary to Congressman Clair Burgener—my hometown Congressman. The last thing he asked me, though the job offer had been made and accepted, was “Gail, are you a Democrat or a Republican?”

When I paused, struggling to recall my last registration, he interrupted and said, “Gail?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“You’re a Republican.”

“Yes, Congressman, I am.”

That was in October for a job that would start in January and in that space of time, I voted for Ronald Reagan. I thought Carter to be a better man but not a better leader. I sat in those long gas lines and I watched Nightline every night as Ted Koppel counted the number of days that hostages were held in Iran. And I was about to begin a job on Capitol Hill in the office of a Member of Congress who was part of the Republican Leadership. It made sense. On reflection, I will always feel a disquiet about that vote. I made it for all the wrong reasons. Decency should have been enough.

By 1984, I was comfortable with another round of Reagan and four years later, George Bush was good enough, despite the clear evidence that his VP pick, Dan Quayle, was dumb as a potato. More evidence that a good man can make bad choices—that one and others to come.

I can forgive my indifference through those years. I was a young mother navigating myriad challenges that accompany that time in our lives and, honestly, it didn’t really feel like much was on the line. Interest rates were okay. World order was okay. Life was okay. If you looked like me (white), were raised like me (middle class) and thought like me (everybody seems to be getting along), it was hard to get worked up about who was sitting in the Oval Office.

And then Clinton happened. I loved that guy. I wanted to look at him and listen to him and know all about him for the next four years and beyond. In some ways, he measured up. He left office with a budget surplus, high job numbers, low inflation and falling crime rates. But he had a fatal flaw that was unforgivable—a moral bankruptcy that would impact our standards forever. His unseemly acts and his lies broke the spell for me and when my young son asked me what oral sex was, I knew there was nothing that Bill could do to redeem himself in this mother’s eyes.

That disappointment kept me from caring as much as I should have about the election of Al Gore. Guilty by association. I voted for him but when the drama of the hanging chads was finally, and with great bias, decided by the Supreme Court, I probably said something like, “Meh.”

On September 11th the next year, I was actually glad that Bush was at the helm. Gore would have been blamed by the hawks on the right regardless of, well, anything. We needed, I thought, a Cheney-driven George Bush to lead this charge.

History has shown us how wrong that thinking was. The next three years of knee-jerk revenge would be a heartbreaking disaster for hundreds of thousands as our quagmire in the Middle East grew wider and deeper.

Surely we could and would never have a leader that bad and I would have campaigned for anyone to defeat him. But we got way better than “anyone”—we got an elegant black man whose ideas and articulation of them made me swoon. I was in D.C. for his inauguration with tears running down my face.

Barack Obama set a new tone and a new standard. While some of the nation quietly simmered and a few more loudly hated, I was content in what I saw as a return to decency and common sense. I was vocal but not active. The need was gone. Or so I thought.

Until. . .

There’s not much point in rehashing my contempt for Donald Trump who I actively campaigned against even though his ascension to the presidency seemed remote and unlikely. The day after his inauguration, I was part of the Women’s March, along with my son, his wife, and his mother-in-law, overwhelming the streets of New York. We were filled with equal parts of pride for the turnout and fear for the future.

Hillary was probably the most qualified person who would never become president and that election showed us what a slippery slope this democracy of ours is on. The United States would be forever changed and we all knew it.

So in 2020, I made about eight hundred thousand (actually, about 1200) phone calls to the sweet people of Wisconsin begging for their support of Biden. That nail biter felt personal and I was proud when those efforts proved a small part of the win, but the contested victory has been a mighty tornado that has never been downgraded—a storm that would simply continue to rage and destroy.

But wait . . . 

Here we are. 2024. Joe did us proud and now we turn our hopeful eyes to Kamala. A race with perhaps the most consequential stakes in history and certainly of my lifetime.

Trump, meet Kamala.

Game on.