Expect news about a Kamala Harris presidential run to drop any day now.
On Tuesday, the Democratic senator released her memoir, The Truths We Hold, though telling her life story really isn’t the point of this book, as several reviewers have noted. What Harris carefully lays out in the book is the case to voters—those who would be participating in Democratic primaries specifically, it seems—as to why she should be the next president of the United States.
Consider this, from NPR:
Harris has spent much of her career in law enforcement—a period that she largely uses in the book as a way to show that she is tough and decisive. But she also anticipates that this might be off-putting to some liberal voters who believe the justice system is broken. And so she frames herself as a sort of inside woman: “When activists came marching and banging on the doors, I wanted to be on the other side to let them in.”
Or this, from Time:
She opens the book with the perfect blend of the personal and political, recounting the tears that welled up in her 9-year-old godson’s face on Election Night in 2016 when it started to look like Trump was going to win and how she ate an entire family-sized bag of Doritos later that night to cope. (“Didn’t share a single chip.”) She simultaneously tells the story of her own historic win that night as she became only the second black woman elected Senator.
These stories are targeted directly at the Democratic base, the grassroots volunteers who will start deciding the party’s nominee in the coming months. The book lays out a roadmap to winning over those voters: Supporting immigration and marijuana legalization; opposing police brutality and mass incarceration; highlighting income inequality, rising college tuition and health care costs and the opioid crisis; and criticizing pharmaceutical companies, payday lenders and “greedy predatory corporations.”
And then there was Harris’ recent appearance on The View, where co-host Whoopi Goldberg tried to tee-up Harris’ official announcement.
“Apparently you said you were going to make a decision after the holidays as to whether you were going to run for president,” Goldberg said. “So I’m supposed to ask you, are you running?”
“So I’m pleased to announce on The View that I’m not ready to make my announcement just yet,” Harris responded, before erupting in laughter.
Shifting to a more earnest tone, Harris said that the decision hinged on how her family feels before warming up some words that sounded like potential applause lines on the campaign trail.
“I remember when I first ran [to be California District Attorney], my mother said, ‘Now honey be careful, because despite a woman’s role in the world, there’s still certain myths about what a woman can and cannot do,” Harris said. “And in particular, the myth that, you know, we don’t know if we want a woman to be in charge of your safety or your money. In spite of the fact that it is the woman who is the lioness, protecting those cubs.”
Did The View crowd clap at that line? Of course they did, right on cue.
She followed that up with an anecdote about “breaking barriers”—a phrase pointing to a particular, major one: the barrier between a woman candidate and the U.S. presidency. She followed this up by saying she felt the country was “absolutely” ready for a woman of color to be president.
“I’m not saying that about myself,” Harris quickly added, “but I’m saying that about the capacity of the American public.”
And if you needed any more evidence, here’s one last piece worth mentioning: Harris, along with Sens. Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, are among the potential candidates who have reached out to Wall Street executives, ostensibly to feel out financial support for their respective campaigns.
Here is the necessary disclaimer: It is possible Harris won’t run, just as it’s possible that one day, Kevin Hart will learn what a sincere apology actually sounds like, or Mahershala Ali will stop looking so damn fine in yellow (and really, every color known to man). But until further notice, you can put your money on this:
Girl, she’s running. The writing’s on the wall.