OPINION

It’s on!

Kamala Harris challenges Donald Trump with a sharp, strategic approach, contrasting his juvenile tactics. Her experience and assertiveness make her a formidable opponent, reinvigorating the Democratic race and appealing to undecided voters.

B. Jay Cooper

Jul 29, 2024 — 4 min read

Flickr/The White House

TL;DR | Highlights from this story

● Kamala Harris quickly redefined the presidential race, contrasting her vigour against Donald Trump’s challenges and tactics.

● Harris, with her prosecutorial background, addresses Trump’s attacks with confidence, handling his immaturity adeptly.

● Despite Trump’s early aggressive tactics and nicknames, Harris remains unflinching and strategically savvy.

● Her strong performance and growing support indicate a competitive race, with states shifting back to Democrats.

T he Most Happy Felon vs Kamala. The elderly, obese former President against the vibrant, young(er) Vice President.

The fight for how the country will be governed is definitely on, and it didn’t take Kamala Harris long to redefine the contest.

Harris may be Donald J. Trump’s worst nightmare.

She will take a different approach to respond to his immature, childish attacks, and Kamala isn’t bashful.

This should be a most interesting race whether it’s focused on policy or histrionics.

No opponent of Trump’s has taken him on, on (almost) his level.

Harris has shown through her online posts and speeches that she is ready for battle against The Donald. But on her level, not his.

Her opening salvo was spot-on.

Talking about the positions she’s held, she said: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Sums it up pretty well.

And par for the course for the former prosecutor who showed her wits and smarts when, from her perch on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she questioned Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court hearings (“Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” He couldn’t.)

She takes complicated issues and, like a good prosecutor, whittles them down on the fly.

The Trump “nice guy image” that they said we’d see after an assassin’s bullet just missed killing him, didn’t last 10 minutes. His convention speech started on a unity theme but that was done about five minutes into it.

He’s gone nasty already, trying on immature nicknames – “Lyin’ Kamala,” “Laughin’ Kamala,” “lunatic,” “nasty,” each time intentionally mispronouncing her name to try to diminish her. But it won’t work with Harris.

As she said, she knows his type and obviously knows how to handle him.

As Trump tried to hesitate about debating her, she tweeted, “What happened to any time any place?”

CREDIT: FLICKR/THE WHITE HOUSE —

— Joe Biden & Kamala Harris.

She’ll be classy about it but she won’t flinch from it either.

Harris taking over the Democratic nomination for Joe Biden (in a display of patriotism for the annals) gives Trump a different kind of opponent. One he is struggling to figure out how to handle (he’s already saying there will be debates, but he wants them on Fox).

He may not figure it out. It worked against Hillary Clinton, and it was working on a weakened Biden.

Harris is anything but weak.

That doesn’t make this a runaway though early polls are showing she’s catching up, early donations are mounting up, voters Trump was peeling from Biden are returning to the Democratic ledger.

This still, though, is a deeply divided country, especially when you decide the winner based on electoral votes.

But states that were out of play for Biden are falling back into play for Harris.

And she has grown in the job. She’s not the same woman she was four years ago. She’s been in the room, been part of big decision-making and doesn’t need Big Girl pants to take on Trump because she’s plenty big enough on her own.

In the Olympics spirit, then:

Let the Games Begin!