Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

It’s too soon to say that Kamala Harris will be the Democrat candidate for president replacing Joe Biden who will taking his place in history, though news reports this morning indicate that is essentially there.

But, for my part, I am breathing easier with her in the top spot on the D ticket.

She won a piece of good news this week when Representative Nancy Pelosi endorsed her, adding to what is now a long list of those who have done the same..

Philip Bump, a solid political analyst who writes for the Washington Post, performed a service when he prepared a piece listing contrasts between Harris and Donald Trump.

Contrasts that ought to prod many thoughtful voters to cast ballots for her instead of the inveterate liar, Trump.

Here is a summary of the contrasts Bump outlined:

Age

It’s worth doubling down on this particular distinction because it is probably the most consequential.

A week ago, the Republican convention rolled into Milwaukee, Trump’s campaign giddy after he emerged nearly unscathed from an attempt on his life and appeared to be coasting to a rematch against a candidate seen broadly as doddering.

It was hard for Republicans to criticize Biden’s frequent verbal fumbles in 2020 because Trump’s, particularly as president, were more significant. This year (and particularly after the June 27 debate) Trump’s weird comments and asides got far less attention than Biden faced every time he spoke.

That will continue over the next few months as Biden closes out his presidency, but the electoral stakes are negated.  Instead, Trump is likely to face someone two decades younger than him (Harris is 59; Trump is 78) without the same habit of missteps and rambles.

“Now it will be Trump who will be scanned for signs of decline.  It’s no longer “the guy who fell climbing stairs” against “the guy who was overly cautious going down a ramp at West Point.”  Now it’s just the latter guy.

Gender

Of course, this is THE obvious difference.

But it is one that Harris, if she becomes the official nominee, can translate into a substantial advantage.

This year’s presidential contest was already shaping up to be an echo of 2016, two unpopular candidates seeing whose base was most likely to show up in force on Election Day.

Some significant portion of the opposition to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy eight years ago was rooted in misogyny.  That will almost certainly be a factor in opposition to Harris, as well.

But the landscape has shifted.  Harris has taken the lead in the Administration’s efforts to protect national access to abortion, the Supreme Court’s repeal of which is directly attributable to Trump.  For obvious reasons, many voters concerned about access to abortion will find Harris a more sympathetic messenger than the former president.

The other shift since 2016 is that there are more points of valid criticism of Trump’s treatment of women.  A month before the 2016 election, the “Access Hollywood” tape was released, spurring a flurry of allegations from women who complained they had been forcibly kissed or touched by Trump.

Last year, one such incident led to a significant financial judgment:  A jury determined that Trump had raped — using the judge’s language — writer E. Jean Carroll.

Relationship with criminal justice

Once Biden’s withdrawal was announced and Democrats consolidated (still incompletely) around Harris, her supporters noted the applicability of her pre-Senate career:  Harris is a former district attorney and state attorney general.

Trump’s relationship with government prosecutors, of course, is as a target.  Or, call him what is, which is a felon.

When Harris was (ultimately unsuccessfully) seeking the Democrat nomination in 2020, she used this contrast as an argument for her candidacy.

Again, this was before the spate of criminal charges targeting Trump and before the lawsuit from Carroll.  It was before Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and before he took classified documents to Florida after leaving office.  

Trump’s response to his indictments in Manhattan and in Fulton County, Georgia, at times seemed to highlight that the prosecutors who obtained the indictments were Black.  More than once, he explicitly accused them of being racist against White people.  Which, of course, is a contrast in its own right.

Race

One of the underappreciated aspects of American demography is that younger Americans are more likely to be Asian, Black, Hispanic or mixed-race than are older Americans.  In other words, talking about the political views of younger Americans and those of non-White Americans is often talking about a lot of the same people.

Harris — young only by the standard of the 2024 presidential contest to this point — is a reflection of America’s increased diversity.  She is Black and South Asian, one of 10 per cent Americans of a mixed racial background.  (About 15 per cent of U.S. residents younger than 18 are multiracial.)  It is not the case that this guarantees Harris significant support from Black, South Asian or other non-White voting groups, certainly, but it does draw a sharper contrast with Trump.

It may also play into Trump’s explicit efforts to characterize White Americans as embattled.

Record in office

At its convention, the Republican Party was relentless in targeting Biden and his record in office.  Harris was mentioned more than she had been in 2020, but the focus was on making the political case against the incumbent.

Suddenly, that’s largely gone.  Harris, as Biden’s vice president, can be criticized for the Administration’s perceived failures or for her work as vice president (both real and exaggerated).  But she also remains at a distance from much of it.  The Administration’s positions on the Afghanistan withdrawal or the war in Gaza are much easier to tie to Biden than to Harris.

And here is Bump’s conclusion:

We’re in an unusual situation.  The candidate likely to be running as a continuation of the incumbent Administration is someone who has not herself served as president.  The candidate running as the challenger to the incumbent has a record in office.  Harris can present herself as a blank slate to voters in a way that Trump cannot, an inversion of recent incumbent-challenger patterns.

All these distinctions ignore the most obvious, of course:  That the election will be between a Democrat and a Republican with very different visions of the United States and of the presidency.

That was always the case. The transition from Biden to (presumably) Harris means that the choice being made by voters in November now unfolds along several other dimensions, too.

And my conclusion:  It is too soon to tell how these contrasts will make their way into the election.

But, for now and for me, they provide excellent reasons to vote for Harris if – or perhaps when – she becomes the official nominee.