It came to me like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces consisting of points I wanted to make, things that stood out about her becoming the pick and then later, her acceptance speech. There was also the added bonus – more accurately, the added difficulty – of trying to frame it all in a structure you the reader, as well as I, could follow, could understand.
Needless to say, it scared me.
By the way, writing is exhausting. Like for me, when I’m done, though I feel relief, it’s still so exhausting, like practically physically exhausting. It takes a lot out of me, even as it gives me so much more.
Anyway, what I began on the day Kamala Harris was selected ended up not being finished until six days after she gave her acceptance speech. I wasn’t writing that whole time. There was a lot of thinking, self-doubting, unsatisfactory attempts, TV watching and social-media immersion in between.
While ultimately I’m happy with the way it turned out, it didn’t end up being what I planned it would be. Initially, I was just going to do a piece about her being chosen and what I thought about her being chosen. I was particularly interested in her getting picked even after she called Biden out regarding the school busing issue during the presidential debate last year when they both were candidates (Here’s proof that I have a tendency to write long-ass sentences, which at times bothers me).
That was a do or die move for anyone, but especially for a black woman, and oddly enough, for her it turned out to be a do. She got a huge spike from that risk and increased her name recognition. She even had commentators saying she was going to claim the nomination.
Then her presidential run fizzled out much quicker than anyone who watched, or even heard about that debate, could have anticipated given the explosive bump it gave her. Still, her political capital never died. One might even say it multiplied. A little Bebe’s Kids humor there. Shout out to anyone who remembers that.
Okay, back to regular programming. From what I can ascertain there were several reasons her failed presidential run and risky debate move didn’t hurt her VP potential:
- She made a name for herself as a senator.
- 2020 presented her with a slew of issues that gave her a comedy of fortunes and allowed her to maintain her presence in the media.
- And perhaps most importantly, she had a loyal following, the K-Hive.
Basically I asked myself the question: what was so different about Kamala Harris’ situation that allowed her to succeed after doing things that causes so many others to fail? I concluded that these three things were it.
Because of those three things, I believe Joe Biden had to pick her, just like Barack Obama was faced with a set of circumstances that made Joe Biden his go to pick.
I’m not sure if that came through or not in the piece I ended up with, but that was my initial intention.
So for anyone trying to replicate Kamala’s success in their own field, or in life in general, to me what this means is that you have to be prepared for the moment before it comes. The moment is definitely coming and when it does you have to seize it. And lastly, I think the most important thing is the third thing, you have to have support. It’s because of Kamala’s high support – she had her K-Hive, she was polling high regarding potential VP picks – that her failure did not equal defeat. And I think that was the biggest takeaway for me from her candidacy: When you have the support of others you cannot lose. We’re better together.
I can write this with much more ease now that I’ve already agonized over that first piece. And since I was taking forever to get my thoughts straight, I couldn’t publish it before her acceptance speech.
That presented a new challenge: trying to tie together these two separate concepts: my thoughts on her being picked, and my thoughts on how she presents herself as a VP nominee.
Basically, what stood out to me the most in her acceptance speech was her play on the word chaos, the prominence of racism in her speech, and challenging President Trump’s record on the economy.
Writing about her acceptance speech was difficult, because normally, I don’t like to give direct quotes from people talking by saying, he said, then inserting a comma and quotes that features a direct line from what they said. However, I couldn’t think of any other way to do it, so instead of wasting even more time, that’s what I did.
I also wanted to touch on how I thought the speech was much better than the media coverage afterward gave it credit for. As a matter of fact, most of the coverage I saw, both that night and the next morning, focused primarily on President Obama’s speech which I thought was unfortunate and a bit sexist. This was, after all, her night. At the same time, I understand why they had him go on the night before Joe Biden instead of the same night as his former VP. At no fault of his own, President Obama has the tendency to overshadow people. Who can remember anything from the 2004 Democratic National Convention other than then State Senator Obama’s speech?
So yeah, that’s what I was trying to convey, and I was trying to do it without repeating so many of the same words that I always use. I need to expand my vocabulary. I need to do so many things, but that’s how I wrote my Kamala Harris piece. Again, overall, I’m pleased with it. It’s just what comes out is never as good as what’s in your head…well, almost never (Sade’s song Never as Good as the First Time, just popped in my head).
One of the things I’m most intrigued by with writers is what was the thought process behind what they wrote? How did they arrive there? In case you wonder the same thing, this is for you.
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