There were hip gyrations from the stage. The playlist included \u201cGirls in the Hood,\u201d \u201cMamushi,\u201d \u201cSavage,\u201d and \u201cBody.\u201d The candidate quoted Quavo.<\/p>\n
A Joe Biden rally this was not.<\/p>\n
If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Vice President Harris took the stage for a campaign rally to the strains of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u201cFreedom.\u201d Biden forecast this kind of a change four years ago when he talked about a bridge to a new generation, but that transformation didn\u2019t take place until the past two weeks when he officially relinquished his grip on the party.<\/p>\n
In Atlanta, the baton was fully passed to Kamala Harris. This was now her party. Her campaign. Her playlist.<\/p>\n
In fact, Joe Biden never came up.<\/p>\n
From the music to the outfits \u2014 and, most tellingly, the crowd size \u2014 it was clearer than ever that the shift to a new Democratic generation was complete.<\/p>\n
By and large, it is the same campaign aides who were putting on Biden events that are now in charge of Harris ones. But the types of crowds interested in attending Harris events \u2014 and the musicians willing to perform at them \u2014 are very different. The new playlist, even if controlled by the same staffers who curated Biden\u2019s soundtrack (a mix including Whitney Houston\u2019s \u201cHigher Love,\u201d Tom Petty\u2019s \u201cI Won\u2019t Back Down,\u201d and Elton John\u2019s \u201cPhiladelphia Freedom\u201d), has a certain Harris flair, and is put together based on her personal input.<\/p>\n
Campaign aides say they are still thinking about how Harris events will be different, and they are determined to not only do large-scale rallies but want to put her in smaller settings as well. The coming days will provide more of a test case as Harris picks a running mate and launches a seven-state tour that will probably include a range of venues.<\/p>\n
Harris is attempting to harness the surge in organic enthusiasm to display a show of force around her campaign launch. Aides want to do so in ways that are not only helpful to the vice president\u2019s case but also work to get under Trump\u2019s skin (The Trump campaign has scheduled a rally on Saturday in the same Atlanta arena that Harris filled on Tuesday).<\/p>\n
The crowds to date in the Harris for president campaign are simply more energized. They\u2019re bigger and louder. And it is a different tapestry than the Democratic Party has presented to a general electorate since at least 2016.<\/p>\n
Biden is the candidate who works rope lines and owns small rooms, but has never been known as the one who can fill large arenas. Filling a middle school gymnasium, as he did last month, was reason for boasting, and success for him is the amount of time he spends on a rope line after the event rather than the number of total supporters who attend it. And four years ago, during the height of a global pandemic, the closest the president came to having large rallies was events where cars gathered, at a social distance, and honked their horns.<\/p>\n
Harris, at least in the opening weeks of her candidacy, is drawing the kind of energy and excitement that Barack Obama drew in 2008 or that Donald Trump brought in 2016.<\/p>\n
While Democrats have long had strong ties to the entertainment industry \u2014 attracting actors as donors and musicians as opening acts \u2014 the octogenarian who spent half a century as a politician and rarely dips into pop culture was not a source for inspiration. Biden\u2019s prized possession is a car built in 1967 (a Corvette Stingray) and his favorite movie was made in 1981 (\u201cChariots of Fire\u201d)<\/p>\n
Biden often quotes Abraham Lincoln or Irish poets in his speeches. On Tuesday night, Harris was quoting hip-hop artists in hers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump \u2026 Does not walk the walk,\u201d she said. \u201cOr as my friend Quavo would say: He does not walk it like he talks it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd ate it up.<\/p>\n
Biden often says the Black community was among those that \u201cbrung me to the dance.\u201d But he most definitely did not have the playlist, or energy \u2014 or the dance \u2014 that came from Atlanta.<\/p>\n
The rally marked a debut of sorts for Megan on C-SPAN, which streamed the event live. She took the stage amid flashing strobe lights, and was dressed in a blue pantsuit, a white shirt with exposed midriff, and a blue tie. She riffed on one of Harris\u2019s strongest campaign planks: abortion rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur future president \u2014 let\u2019s get this done, Atlanta,\u201d she told the cheering crowd. \u201cWe\u2019re about to make history with the first female president. The first Black female president. Let\u2019s get this done, honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she sang her song \u201cBody\u201d she told the crowd: \u201cNow, I know my ladies in the crowd love their bodies \u2014 and if you want to keep loving your body, you know who to vote for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s remarks were stylistically different from Biden\u2019s, with her own cadence and without verbal digressions and the storytelling that Biden often relishes. But at the core, many of her policy aims did not significantly diverge from the ones that Biden promotes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilding up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen our middle class is strong, America is strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
She talked about the need to tame inflation, and she spoke in sharp tones about immigration.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe tanked \u2014 tanked \u2014 the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWhich goes to show, Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself. I will bring back the border security bill, and I will sign it into law and show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n
She mocked Trump\u2019s policy positions \u2014 called some of the things from him and his running mate \u201cjust plain weird\u201d \u2014 and poked fun at her GOP rival for not fully committing to a debate. While Biden also often mentions Trump, she seemed to take more glee in poking at her new rival.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonald, I do hope you\u2019ll reconsider, to meet me on the debate stage,\u201d she said, looking into the cameras. \u201cBecause as the saying goes, \u2018If you got something to say, say it to my face.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris also echoed what has been a signature line in her brief time as a candidate, as she recalled her time as a prosecutor taking on \u201cpredators who abused women; fraudsters who ripped off consumers; cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo hear me when I say,\u201d she added, pausing for effect. \u201cI know Donald Trump\u2019s type.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Atlanta and elsewhere, there are calls-and-response. There is a rollicking feeling that often doesn\u2019t exist amid polite applause at Biden\u2019s events. When Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on Tuesday night chided Trump for being \u201ctoo scared to debate Vice President Harris,\u201d the crowd began chanting, \u201cToo scared! Too scared!\u201d<\/p>\n
When Harris referenced Trump\u2019s legal problems and guilty verdicts, the crowd yelled, \u201cLock him up! Lock him up!\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden has acknowledged his milquetoast taste.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t it really dull when you have a president known for two things: Ray-Ban sunglasses and chocolate chip ice cream?\u201d he said last month during a gathering in Harrisburg, Pa., as he sought to inject life into his reelection campaign.<\/p>\n
Two weeks later, he was out of the race. And now he\u2019s hoping to propel to victory a president known for things far less dull.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There were hip gyrations from the stage. The playlist included \u201cGirls in the Hood,\u201d \u201cMamushi,\u201d \u201cSavage,\u201d and \u201cBody.\u201d The candidate quoted Quavo. A Joe Biden rally this was not. If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}