Page 30 of 107 Days
The long signs prepared for the crowd to wave during his climactic speech that night inadvertently told the whole story. WE JOE , they read. And in small print: “Paid for by Harris for President.”
I was sensitive to how he and his family must be feeling. It was not the end any of them had wanted for his fifty years of public service.
But I was also extremely proud of what we had accomplished in four years.
This convention would have the big emotional beats, the important speeches, but it would also be fun.
We’d put thought into engaging young delegates.
There was a special area set up for social media influencers, and DJ Cassidy was going to turn the sometimes tedious roll call into a nationwide dance party, spinning music organic to each state.
I love our conventions. I love running into delegates from Alaska and American Samoa, Mississippi and Maine: Americans united by a passion for democracy.
I love that at this huge event—the jumbotrons, TV cameras, lights, speakers—there’s a real intimacy in the hall.
Local organizers and political icons rubbing shoulders.
Elected leaders and grassroots activists and big donors thrown together for an intense four days.
At my very first convention, in Los Angeles in 2000, I’d been a committed young Dem who hadn’t yet run for anything. My bestie, Chrisette, who later introduced me to Doug, attended with me, sitting high up in the rafters, cheering for Al Gore.
Twelve years later, as California AG, I had my first speaking role.
It didn’t go to plan. The convention that year was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I was cochair of the rules committee with Martin O’Malley, then the governor of Maryland.
The city had rushed to get ready for the incoming hordes.
It didn’t quite succeed. Parts of the hotel booked for our California delegation remained under construction, with the manufacturer’s stickers still on the elevators and no hot water in the showers.
When I spoke at the delegates’ breakfast, I led with a line from the Eagles song: “Welcome to the Hotel California.”
I was supposed to give a report on the rules committee meeting and then, two nights later, a speech on my work as AG taking on the big banks. When I rehearsed, the convention director had sage advice: “Walk out there like you bought that podium. You own it. It’s your podium.”
I was trying for that confident strut—head up, shoulders back—when my stiletto sank right through the floor. It had found the trapdoor in the stage.
“If anything goes wrong with the prompter,” I’d been instructed, “don’t worry. There’s a copy of your speech on the shelf of the podium.”
It was the opening of the convention. The arena was filled with delegates for the very first committee report.
As I looked up at the screen where I expected to see the text of my rules committee remarks scrolling, I realized that they’d loaded, instead, my speech for two nights later.
As I improvised—“We had a great meeting of the rules committee, we talked about the rules…”—my hand was groping for the promised paper speech on the podium shelf. It wasn’t there.
No matter how many speeches I’ve made since then, the memory of that teleprompter fail has always been at the back of my mind. I knew it would be with me even as I walked out to accept the nomination.
Of all the conventions I’ve attended, this was the most united in years. There’d often been undercurrents—not-quite-mended rifts: Hillary supporters sour that she’d been run over by Barack, Bernie supporters resentful of Hillary’s win.
It was hard to detect anything but relief in this hall.
We could have been staring down a very different four days.
It could have been a contested convention, a messy floor fight.
Instead, there was gratitude that Biden had passed the torch to me, relief that I’d been able to grasp it, a sense of unity and enthusiasm.
Delegates wore T-shirts—some homemade—with a range of slogans.
A simple ,LA was popular: a playful instruction on how to pronounce my first name.
KAMALA IS brAT (a Charli XCX reference) abounded.
SAY IT TO MY FACE , quoting my debate challenge to Trump, and CHUCKS they would always cut up together.
When she looked at me, held my hand, and said, “Your mother would be so proud of you,” I knew she was standing in for my mother and I could feel my throat constrict. But I would not let myself cry. I told myself, I will not do that tonight .
After I went onstage for my brief remarks, I joined the audience to sit next to Doug and Tim.
I’m not sure when I started to worry. But at some point, I realized that things were running behind. I knew the program; I knew what we had to get through. If they didn’t pick up the pace, I feared that Joe’s speech might get pushed right to the edge or even out of prime time in the East.
I wanted Joe to have his moment. I couldn’t figure out what was up.
None of the speeches seemed to be running noticeably over time.
Although I did observe that Shawn Fain—sporting a TRUMP IS A SCAB T-shirt—finished his timed remarks, which had been loaded in the teleprompter, and then continued his rousing defense of unions from additional notes he’d somehow smuggled onto the podium.
And while the introduction said Senator Raphael Warnock, the person who actually walked onto the stage was Reverend Warnock, the head preacher at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Needless to say, he was not brief.
I learned later that Biden’s people were backstage, reaming out anyone and everyone.
Parts of the program were untouchable. Jill Biden had to speak, then their daughter, Ashley, would introduce Joe.
To gain back time, something would have to be cut.
In the end, a performance by James Taylor and a video about Joe that Steven Spielberg worked on were regretfully sacrificed.
He was supposed to go on at 9:44 p.m. Even with those program cuts, when Joe walked onstage to an almost five-minute audience chant of “Thank you, Joe!” it was 11:30 Eastern time.
He spoke for nearly an hour, detailing the accomplishments of our administration.
It was a legacy speech for him, not an argument for me, and he was entitled to it.
But if we waited for some personal stories about working with me and what qualities he had seen that led him to endorse me, they weren’t there.
And then, at last, a fulsome, generous endorsement: “Selecting Kamala as my vice president was the very first decision I made when I became our nominee. And it was the best decision I made in my whole career.”
Given that his career spanned half a century, that was saying something.