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Why Harris’ Barrier-Breaking Bid Feels Nothing Like Hillary Clinton’s
Katie GlueckMon, August 26, 2024, 7:05 AM CDT
Many Democratic women credit Clinton’s candidacies with helping Americans grasp what a female presidential nominee might look and sound like, giving Harris running room to define herself more broadly this time around. (Of course, Clinton — a former first lady, senator and secretary of state — hardly reduced her campaign to her gender, either.)
“The focus today is, it seems to be on a discussion really about a much more holistic view of identity, and I think that’s important for where we are as a country,” said Gov. Maura Healey, the first woman and first openly LGBTQ+ person to be elected governor of Massachusetts, who also emphasized that “representation really matters.”
Clinton, she added, “broke that glass ceiling.”
In a campaign in which Trump, a white man, has already tried to question Harris’ racial identity, Democrats are bracing for sexist and racist attacks on Harris.
This past week, Michelle Obama, the former first lady, warned her party against complacency, saying that there were many “who are ready to question and criticize every move Kamala makes, who are eager to spread those lies, who don’t want to vote for a woman.”
“We cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala, instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected,” she said.
So far, Trump has struggled to press a consistent and effective message against Harris, but leading Democrats do not bank on that lasting.
On Friday, at least, Trump — who relies on the support of social conservatives and has said he is “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe v. Wade — seemed to acknowledge that on the issue of abortion rights, the Democrats had put him on defense.
“My Administration,” he insisted on Truth Social, “will be great for women and their reproductive rights.”
Why Harris’ Barrier-Breaking Bid Feels Nothing Like Hillary Clinton’s
CHICAGO — They still wear suffragist-white outfits and cheer on the prospect of “Madam President.” But eight years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket, Democrats are sending American women a more sober and urgent message even as they try to...