After three-and-a-half days of largely meaningless Democratic National Convention speeches (at least as seen by this pro-Donald Trump Republican), the great moment came: We got to hear Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech.
While I disagree with virtually all her radical policies, she gave a good speech. She combined strong speechwriting with excellent training on delivery. It was evidence of the Democrats’ advantage of having Hollywood friends who advise them.
Harris was preceded by her sister, who did a fine job of humanizing Harris and her mother. By the end of the introduction, I felt admiration for her mother, family and the life lessons they had learned.
The convention audience — deeply relieved that President Joe Biden withdrew and fine with the bosses’ decision that Harris was the nominee — was primed for total support. Harris did a good job of patiently accepting the steady outpouring of support from the party she now leads.
Her speech started strong and briefly drifted into the usual banal partisan attacks. But then it switched back to patriotism.
Whether she believes it — or because her advisers showed her the polls which reflect that most Americans are stunningly patriotic — Kamala Harris picked up the rhythm. We are now a long way from the left’s support for football players who refused to stand for the national anthem.
In fact, this was the most patriotic, pro-American audience of any Democratic National Convention since the 1960 Los Angeles Convention which nominated John F. Kennedy for president.
If you were confused about the sudden change in tone, the answer is simple. The Obama political team has moved in to run the Harris campaign. You can expect her to suddenly take common-sense, popular positions — for the campaign, at least. The San Francisco radical version of Harris will be on vacation for a few months. The failures of the Biden administration will be put in one of George Orwell’s “memory holes,” and no one in the media will mention she’s been vice president with Biden for the last 1,300-plus days.
Until the election, for Democrats, protests are out, and patriotism is in.
Virtually every value described by President Ronald Reagan showed up in the Harris acceptance speech — hard work, patriotism, references to religious afterlife (“my mother is looking down”).
One of Harris’s great conservative adoptions was the word opportunity. As the developer of the Conservative Opportunity Society in 1982, I was more than a little amused by her new “opportunity economy.” Of course, her proposals for massive tax increases and enormous regulatory bureaucracy and policies would crush small business. Young people would be so burdened, most of them could never actually save enough to become entrepreneurs and investors.
The trouble with Harris’s opportunity economy is it simply wouldn’t work.
An amazing reversal in Harris’s acceptance speech was her foreign policy and national security commitments. They consistently deviated from virtually everything the Biden-Harris administration has done.
Harris pledged to stand up to Iran, which of course the Biden-Harris administration has clearly failed to do.
Harris pledged to help Ukraine — even though the Biden-Harris administration has slow-walked equipment to the Ukrainian military and severely limited where and how they could be used.
The real Democratic Party did shine through, though. Harris’ commitment to support Israel was met with far less enthusiasm and applause than her commitment to the future of the Palestinian people.
Despite Harris’s good showing, two themes held the Democrats together for their four-day convention: hatred of Donald Trump, and a pork barrel desire to feed taxpayers’ money to key elements of their coalition. These were, of course, combined with a substantial commitment to left-wing radicalism.
There was little effort spent on trying to build a better future because the Democratic Party coalition does not want to have a better future if it involves Trump. They prefer poverty to a Trump victory.
Of course, these left-wing institutions provide thousands of jobs to people willing to go along and enjoy being with their perceived saviors.
The Democratic National Convention did not particularly hurt Harris. Nor did it decisively help her. After each meeting, people left to find high prices, illegal immigrants, widely available deadly illegal drugs and a host of other reasons to be unhappy with the Biden-Harris administration.
In 1988, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis left his convention with a 17-point lead over Vice President George H. W. Bush. Three-and-a-half months later, Dukakis lost by 8 points. One out of four Americans switched their vote as they learned more about how radical Dukakis was.
Kamala Harris helped herself a little. But I suspect it was not nearly enough.
Newt Gingrich is the former GOP Speaker of the House.