Laura Washington: Kamala Harris’ 2019 debate turn heralds a powerful performance

The big debate, the much-anticipated clash between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, is just over a week away.

The September 10 debate will be the first and possibly last time these candidates will face off against each other.

Since Harris was named the Democratic Party candidate, Trump has been trying to lure her in with insults and slander. He wants to smoke her out by forcing her to respond to his insults. So far, his racist and sexist insults have failed. His claims that Harris is not intelligent and not really “black” have flopped. Harris has let the bullying go. Trump is a schoolyard bully with a remarkable lack of imagination. His youthful insults have highlighted his inability to compete, as if he were playing tennis with himself, hitting the ball against the wall.

Trump will appear extremely frustrated and energized on debate night, but he will be up against an opponent who is much smarter and faster.

It’s the criminal versus the prosecutor. That’s an oft-repeated pitch from the Harris campaign. It resonates, thanks to the 34 felony convictions hanging around Trump’s neck.

It’s a battle between a crime fighter and a criminal.

So during the debate, Harris would have to draw on her extensive record as a prosecutor, from her crusade to jail heinous sex offenders to her prosecution of drug cartels to her takedown of the big banks that left thousands of families victimized in the national housing crisis. By promoting her nomination for prosecutor, she is asserting her intellect and signaling that Harris wants to be seen as a law-and-order candidate. That message could protect her from Trump’s claim that Harris is a soft-on-crime, bloody-hearted, San Francisco “commie.”

Harris’ critics last criticized her for running a lackluster campaign. The then-U.S. senator and former California attorney general dropped out of the crowded race for the Democratic presidential nomination in December 2019, two months before the primary season began.

That is all forgotten now. Her 2024 campaign has been virtually flawless and very compelling.

Comment |

Editorial: Trump and Harris talk a lot about the economy, but their plans don’t address the federal deficit
Comment |

Clarence Page: Donald Trump and the ‘controversy’ over Kamala Harris’ racial identity
Comment |

Laura Washington: Kamala Harris must talk to voters about crime to maintain momentum
Comment |

Peter H. Schwartz: Donald Trump’s Visual Politics Are Changing America

Still, I will never forget Harris’s star performance in the 2019 presidential debate, a harbinger of a powerful performance to come.

In the run-up to the Democratic presidential primary, Harris had the biggest breakout moment of the campaign. She took then-presidential candidate Joe Biden to task for his record on race and civil rights, leaving the sitting vice president in a heap of shameful dust.

During that debate, Harris turned to Biden, noting that he had praised John Stennis of Mississippi and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, “two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on racial segregation in this country,” she said. “Not only that, but you worked with them to oppose busing.”

Biden looked shocked at the podium and responded, “It is a misrepresentation of my position on all fronts.”

“I wasn’t against busing in America,” he continued. “What I was against was the busing that was mandated by the Department of Education.”

Harris refused to give in.

“There was a little girl in California who was in the second grade that integrated her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris responded. “And that little girl was me.”

Months later, Biden chose her as his running mate. He knew Harris was an asset he couldn’t pass up.

And now she’s back, ready for a crucial debate, this time pitting a rising Democratic candidate against a crumbling Republican opponent. Trump will try to cast her as soft on crime, a coddler of the Black Lives Matter and “defund the police” crowd. Her record will prove otherwise.

He will use his usual fear-mongering and warn the women of the suburbs that her type is coming for them and burning their white picket fences to the ground.

Trump will certainly continue to trash talk. Last week, in response to Harris’ CNN interview, Trump took to social media to claim she was “babbling incoherently.”

And at a campaign rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, “Trump railed against Harris’ big interview, ridiculing her for its aesthetics,” the New York Post reported.

“She sat behind that desk — that huge desk — and she didn’t look like a leader to me,” Trump exclaimed.

Don’t worry. On September 10, Harris will stand on the debate stage, look Trump in the eye, and deliver a devastating rebuttal in court. She will seize the opportunity to bait Trump and, with a bright smile, expose him as a small-time con artist whose poll numbers and electoral prospects are shrinking by the second.

Laura Washington is a political commentator and veteran journalist in Chicago. Her columns appear every Monday in the Tribune. Write to her at [email protected].

Send a letter to the editor of no more than 400 words here or email [email protected].