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Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. She wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.
The great debate, the highly anticipated throw down between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, is just days away. The Sept. 10 debate is the first time, and may be the last time, these aspirants will engage in face-to-face combat.
Since Harris was anointed the Democratic Party nominee, Trump has been trying to bait her with insults and calumny. He wants to smoke her out by forcing her to respond to his insults. So far, his racist and sexist insults have fallen flat. His claims that Harris lacks intelligence and is not really “Black” have flopped. Harris has been blithely ignoring the baiting.
Trump is a schoolyard bully with a singular lack of imagination. His juvenile insults have highlighted his inability to compete. It’s as though he is playing tennis with himself, just hitting the ball against the wall.
On debate night, Trump will likely show up deeply frustrated and loaded for bear, but he will be facing an opponent who is a lot smarter and quicker on her feet.
It’s the felon versus the prosecutor. That is an oft-mentioned pitch from the Harris campaign. It resonates, thanks to the 34 felony convictions hanging around Trump’s thick neck. It’s a battle between a crime fighter and a criminal.
So, at the debate, Harris should lean into her extensive record as a prosecutor, from her crusade to imprison heinous sex offenders, to prosecuting drug cartels, to taking on the big banks that victimized thousands of families during the national foreclosure crisis. Touting her tenure as a prosecutor confirms her intellect and signals that Harris wants to be seen as a law-and-order candidate. That message could inoculate her from Trump’s claim that Harris is a soft-on-crime, bleeding heart, San Francisco “commie.”
The last time around, Harris’ critics slammed her for running a lackluster campaign. The then-U.S. senator and former California attorney general dropped out of the crowded race in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination in December 2019, two months before the primary season kicked off.
That’s all but forgotten now. I believe her 2024 campaign has been virtually flawless and highly compelling.
Yet, I will never forget Harris’ star turn in a 2019 presidential debate, one that signals a potent performance to come.
In the run-up to the Democratic presidential primaries, Harris enjoyed the biggest breakout moment in the campaign. She prosecuted then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s record on race and civil rights, leaving the sitting vice president in a pile of ignominious dust.
During that debate, Harris turned to Biden and noted that he had praised John Stennis of Mississippi and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, “two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country,” she said. “It was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.”
Biden, shaken, looked down at the podium, then replied, “It’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board.”
“I did not oppose busing in America,” he went on. “What I opposed was busing ordered by the Department of Education.”
Harris refused to relent.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris replied. “And that little girl was me.”
Months later, Biden tapped her to be his running mate. He knew Harris was an asset he could not afford to pass up.
Now, here she is, once again gearing up for another pivotal debate, this time as a surging Democratic nominee taking on a sagging Republican opponent. Trump will try to excoriate her as soft on crime, a coddler of the Black Lives Matter and “defund the police” crowd. Her record will indicate otherwise.
He will deploy his usual fear mongering, warning suburban women that her type will be coming for them to burn their white picket fences down to the ground.
Trump is sure to keep up the trash talk. Last week, in response to Harris’ CNN interview, Trump took to social media to claim that she “rambled incoherently.”
And during a campaign town hall event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, “Trump went on a tirade about Harris’ big interview and ridiculed her over the aesthetics,” the New York Post reported. “She was sitting behind that desk — this massive desk — and she didn’t look like a leader to me,” Trump exclaimed.
No worries. On Sept. 10, I expect Harris will stand on the debate stage, look Trump in the eye and deliver a scorching courtroom rebuttal. She will take full advantage of the opportunity to bait Trump and, with a glowing smile, paint him as a small-time hustler whose poll numbers and electoral prospects are shrinking by the second.
