Kamala didn't just flip the script. She released a flood of pent up emotion and energy.

The speed and efficiency of her rise showed how ready she was.

Salon: Getty Images

Energy and excitement are where the power is in politics. Period. Stop. Go no further. It’s just plain true. We got proof of it this week as the Democratic Party was swept up in a tsunami not only of support for Harris, but of people  expressing their enthusiasm in phone calls, emails, text messages – all the ways that energy is measured in today’s politics.

The Democratic Party may be headquartered in Washington, but the people who vote for Democrats live in every county of the 50 states that vote in presidential elections. It was out there that the real earthquake shook the ground. Looking back over the last week, it was as if the entire party not only exhaled at once but began dancing in the streets. Social media accounts blew up. There was relief that the Dark Three Weeks following the Biden-Trump debate were over, replaced immediately by enthusiasm that the party had Harris standing in the door and ready to go. 

There was something special at work in the transfer that took place from Biden to Harris as the party’s nominee. Harris had spent four years in Biden’s shadow, as every vice president must, especially while the president in question is in his first term with a re-election campaign on the horizon. In fact, Harris came under withering criticism for appearing to play such a quiet second fiddle to Biden. She was called “low energy,” her speaking style was criticized and in Republican corners ridiculed. 

But when you look back at the last four years, Harris did what any vice president is required to do in any administration: She made the speeches to various groups and gatherings around the country; she attended the requisite meetings; she made the overseas trips that the White House determined were not presidential enough to demand Biden’s presence of President Biden. She was even criticized for some of the trips she made on behalf of the president, most recently when she attended the Munich Security Conference along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Harris was said to have taken a backseat while the two men in the room came away with the headlines about the expansion of NATO and plans by EU nations to support Ukraine.

In retrospect, however, the “back seat” Kamala Harris took as vice president has served her well after Biden’s sudden departure as a presidential candidate. Harris’ reputation as a “low energy” vice president looks wholly different when you consider that most energy in politics is expressed as ambition. So, when Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped up, she couldn’t be taken to task for having been too ambitious a vice president who was eager to push him out of the way. She wasn’t. 

What she was, was ready, and that truth came across in the speed and efficiency with which, in the words of the Washington Post, she “took control of the Democratic Party.” Sure, the party was ready for someone to take control after the Dark Days of Biden’s apparent decline after the Trump debate. That Harris was as prepared as she has shown herself to be surprised a lot of people, and positively delighted Democrats who were ready for a change.

This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Salon. To read the full column, go to:

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