The men in Kamala Harris’s life have freed her up to run as a woman

Last night Kamala Harris reintroduced herself to voters who for all the giddiness on display at the Democratic National Convention this week are still sceptical about her as a presidential candidate.

She promised abortion rights protected by law. She conjured the spectre of Trump “without guardrails”. She pledged to put “country above party and self” and she cited her mother’s advice to “never do anything half-assed”. 

So what? It might just work. The caveats set out here earlier this week still apply. Men and voters without degrees are not persuaded. The economy, the electoral college and Harris’s own record could trip her up. 

But the convention has made a difference. It has showed that the Democrats have

• a wind at their backs
• a new claim on economic populism
• a plan to deal with Trump
• and a candidate who can actually run as a woman (thanks partly to her men).

Four moments from an historic week in American politics:

1 – The event. “And when our daughter was born, we named her Hope. Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world, and I love you.” Tim Walz, vice presidential nominee. 

Anyone who hasn’t seen the video of this moment, when Walz’s 17-year-old son stands up, weeping and saying, “That’s my dad!”, should stop reading this and watch it.

The convention schedule was packed as usual with speeches by Democratic party talent. But the centrepiece of the week has been the Walz and Harris-Emhoff families. Their unselfconscious affection for each other has been as much of a draw as any keynote. Compare this to the stoic, frozen smiles on the faces of the extended Trump family during his hour-long address at the RNC last month, and it’s hard to imagine two more different conventions. 

2 – The party. “And Chicago, we have to help [Kamala Harris] win, because we know Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends…” House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 

At the 2020 DNC, the then 30-year-old Ocasio-Cortez was given a 90-second speaking slot. This year she was on at primetime and she seized the chance to make a coherent case for the Democrats – not the Republicans as the Trumpist narrative would have it – as the party of economic populism and the working class.

The Democrats under Harris’s new management had the confidence to give AOC a chance to speak directly to groups that look to her for guidance and which both Biden and Harris have struggled to bring onside – young people and the party’s left flank.

3 – The campaign. “There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes.” Barack Obama

The best word to describe the tone of the 2016 DNC in Philadelphia was “serious”. There were moments of joy and hope, but it had been a year since Donald Trump descended his golden escalator into a new age of national anxiety. Democrats’ worst fears had not yet come true, but the threat posed by the Republican nominee felt grave.

Eight years on the threat posed by Trump is arguably greater, but Obama is on stage making d**k jokes about him. Democrats have finally realised that the way to take him on is not to take him on, but laugh at him. 

4 – The candidate. “Kamala is a joyful warrior.” Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband

If there’s one thing Emhoff wants the American people to know, it’s that he really loves his wife. As he told a crowd of more than 20,000 this week, the only person in the world who thinks Harris is the lucky one in the relationship (presumably including Emhoff himself) is his mother. Like Walz, he’s a wife guy; non-toxic masculinity personified. Hillary Clinton’s husband Bill – ex-president and serial philanderer – was not quite the same sort of asset. 

The real world. Across the prairies in Jackson Hole, the world’s central bankers have spent the week pondering the cost of inflation and high interest rates and how to bring them down with a soft landing. The pain of inflation has been felt on Harris’s watch as Vice President. If the bankers fail, the threat of recession could still spoil her chance of promotion.