There are lots of differences between the presidential candidacies of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, but, rhetorically at least, there’s one disparity that stands out. In 2008, when Clinton lost to Obama in the Democratic primaries, she referred to putting “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling”. Accepting the Democratic nomination in 2016, she said: “We just put the biggest crack in the glass ceiling.” And later that year, when she held what would turn out to be her terrible, deflated election night party, it was at the Jacob K Javits Centre, a convention hall in Manhattan that has, er, a glass ceiling. It’s notable, therefore, that several weeks into Harris’s candidacy, she’s not touching Clinton’s ceiling with a 10ft barge pole.
As a piece of imagery, the glass ceiling got very old very quickly, so that even by the time Clinton had it on heavy rotation, it was already emptied of meaning. Even without the phrase’s “all right, Grandma” vibe, it makes basic political sense for Harris to avoid using an image associated with the failed candidacy of the only other woman to be a major-party nominee for president. What’s curious is the decision her team has apparently made not only to eschew that particular phrase, but to handle with slightly more delicacy the nature of her candidacy. If Harris wins, she will, of course, not only be the first female president, but the first Black female president, and the first president, woman or otherwise, of south Asian descent. Pointing out this fact is not a major rhetorical part of the campaign.
