How Harris Avoided the Clinton Trap

Does America care that it is about to vote for its first female president? Hillary Clinton was so confident at the DNC in 2016 that she appeared triumphant on screen to images of breaking glass. Eight years ago, she failed to break that glass ceiling, but it is still one of her favorite metaphors. In Chicago, however, she was virtually the only one to pull it off. It is telling that there has been little mention of the fact that Kamala Harris is a woman.

Even last night, in her acceptance speech, Harris chose not to play that card. Instead, she accepted “on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language your grandmother speaks.” She recounted her life story, delving into personal anecdotes and building toward a pointed but carefully vague outline of her policy agenda. And she spoke muscularly about her record on crime, drug cartels, and predators. In her own way, she tried to be gentle but firm.

The most striking statement about Harris’s gender this week was a wordless one, on Thursday, when female delegates wore white in a nod to the suffragette movement. Their outfits were visible everywhere in the audience, but their silence was deafening. Even the New York Times noted the gap in coverage on Thursday, describing Clinton-style rhetoric about historic firsts as “a little dated.” Clinton made gender central to her campaign message. Harris had surrogates and supporters “point out the obvious.”