WASHINGTON _ Kamala Harris' first big speech as a vice presidential candidate will be remembered not only as historic but for its strong potential to motivate women and people of color to vote Democratic, experts said Thursday.
Some in the black community had qualms about Harris as a vice presidential candidate, concerned about her "top cop" reputation as California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017. Those concerns have largely faded.
"Watching her take to that podium, surrounded by a flurry of American flags, was a moment that took generations to build thanks to the tireless efforts and sacrifice of Black women and women of color," Aimee Allison, founder and president of She The People, a national network for women of color, told The Sacramento Bee.
"Her presence on the ticket deepens enthusiasm and resolve among the core of the voting coalition, women of color, who are the margin of victory in battleground states."
Earlier this year, the group said it polled members about a vice presidential pick. Harris was runner-up to former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams in the poll.
"Senator Harris has garnered support, but a candidate like Abrams who doesn't have that (prosecutorial) history may better appeal to the Democratic base in the wake of national protests," Allison said at the time. She did praise Harris' criminal justice reform efforts as a senator.
Convention speeches have a history of defining a politician in the public eye. It's often the first time a huge national audience gets to see them unfiltered, defining who they are and what they believe.
Harris' address to the convention Wednesday night was unusually closely watched.
"Because she's the least known of the four national candidates, it was important to introduce her, to tell her story and to allow her to make a good first impression," said Joel Goldstein, a professor of law and vice presidential campaign expert at St. Louis University.
That story is one Democrats eagerly wanted to tell. The California senator is the first woman of color on a major party's national ticket, as well as the leading Democrat to be the party's presidential nominee some day.
The speech itself is unlikely to be remembered as a rhetorical classic.
"I honestly thought it was a fairly nondescript speech," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball.
But analysts said it did serve other important functions: It defined Harris to millions unfamiliar with her, energized communities of color and women and previewed the sort of campaign she'll run.
"She did a great job with what I define as relatability," said Antjuan Seawright, a Columbia, South Carolina-based Democratic strategist. "Keep in mind the traditional role does not apply with Kamala Harris. She is not the traditional candidate."
There was none of the wild enthusiasm from the convention floor, no television cutaways to people weeping or laughing, since there was no convention floor.
Nor was there the traditional vice presidential tactic of being the bulldog, the candidate unafraid to sharply attack the other side while the presidential candidate gets loftier.
Harris spoke "in a way that was attentive to the historical context of her own nomination," said Goldstein. She described her upbringing, her immigrant parents, how her mother raised her and her sister to "to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage". Harris' mother is from India and her father is from Jamaica.
Her gentler tone, and her resume-reciting, may have served another purpose.
"What Harris was doing was pointing not so much to this election, but future elections," said Timothy Walch, editor of "At the President's Side: The Vice Presidency in the 20th Century."
For Harris, he said, "It was her way of saying, 'Look at me. I'm the future of this country.'"
Not only does that send a message to women and people of color, but also a reminder that presidential nominee Joe Biden would be 82 when his term ends in 2025. Harris will be 60.
Harris did criticize Trump, and the question for her now, but was careful to only send a "signal," as Goldstein put it, for more criticism to come.
As she spoke Wednesday night, the Trump campaign sent out a "rapid response" calling her a "phony, far-left radical who's wrong for America." It went on to charge she is "in total lockstep with the socialist, job-killing policies of Bernie Sanders and AOC." Sanders, a Democratic Socialist, is a Vermont senator. AOC is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a liberal New York congresswoman.
Harris mentioned Trump only once in her speech _ "Donald Trump's failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihood" _ and did not directly respond to the Republican onslaught. Former President Barack Obama and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who spoke just before Harris, did.
The lingering image was that Harris is an important historical figure, one that traditional Democratic constituencies can rally around.
"The voting power of the women of color constituency met the power of her candidacy and that bodes well for the Democrats' chances to retake the White House," said Allison. "Kamala Harris' appeal goes far beyond ousting Trump."
