Kamala Harris has helped America see joy and now she needs to make America see a president.
Her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night will represent her most exacting test yet in a dizzying month that rocketed her to the threshold of an historic presidency that could reshape American politics.
The vice president will offer the country a new beginning and a chance to move to a different place — beyond the prolonged funk brewed by years of Donald Trump’s dark rhetoric and public exhaustion after a once-in-a-century pandemic and consequent and punishing high prices.
More broadly, she’s proposing to restore the elusive lightness and optimism to American life and to reclaim the concept of “freedom” from conservatives, encompassing everything from reproductive rights to new economic relief for the working and middle classes, to access to health care and safety from mass shootings.
Her party is calling on Harris to ascend to the next level of the political stratosphere after advanced age ended President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.
No modern presidential nominee of any major party has faced such a tough assignment in so short a time.
