When Kamala Harris was formally installed as the Democratic presidential nominee, her home-state delegation had the best seats in the house, right up front.
Visions of the Golden State and a parade of its personalities filled the convention’s four-day program, and passes to California’s after-parties — featuring appearances by John Legend, the Killers and Oakland’s Tony! Toni! Toné — were among the hottest tickets in Chicago.
Suddenly, California is at the center of politics, in a way the nation’s most important and populous state hasn’t been since former Gov. Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
A California Democrat sits atop the party’s presidential ticket for the first time in history, thanks in good part to the machinations of another California Democrat who helped elbow the incumbent — and nominee-in-waiting — aside.
“California is having a moment,” said Don Sipple, a political strategist who helped elect several of the state’s governors, because of “the woman who opened the door and the woman who walked through it.”
(Though, it should be noted, the door-opening woman, Nancy Pelosi, and Harris have never been close. The former House speaker publicly spoke of an “open process” to replace President Biden before endorsing his vice president as the best alternative after Biden gave up his reelection bid.)
With heightened attention comes greater scrutiny, and with that added scrutiny comes a fight to define California — and, by extension, Harris — for the rest of America.
The outcome could very well determine who wins in November.
Is California a sun-kissed incubator of innovation and opportunity that continues to beckon doers and dreamers from the world over, as it has for well over 150 years?
Or is it an overburdened and overstretched collection of struggling communities that fail to provide even the basics — safety, clean shelter, sustaining livelihoods — for a shamefully large portion of its population?
Yes and yes.
“There is plenty of evidence” to support both views, said Jack Pitney, a former Republican operative and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He paraphrased Walt Whitman.
“California is large. It contains multitudes,” Pitney said. “It is possible for two things to be true at once.”
Red and blue America. Prosperous and failing California. Two ways of seeing the same thing.
Bill Carrick, longtime political advisor to the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, scoffed at the notion that Harris’ home state will hang like a millstone around the vice president’s neck.
“Ultimately, a presidential campaign is about picking someone who you think will make your life better,” said Carrick, who has worked extensively in national politics. It’s not, he said, about a candidate’s return address.
Sure, Carrick went on, “there are some ideological Republicans who are devoted to Trump” and who eagerly lap up the California-as-hellhole narrative — but “we’re not going to get them anyway.”
Most voters,