Vision
There’s an old coaching phrase: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” I used it with my track athletes all of the time. If they could envision themselves winning the race, clearing the bar, throwing or jumping farther; they were half way there. We used to “practice” visualizing what it would feel like to win, to soar, to stand at the top of the podium. We even jumped off spring boards, used elastic bands, and threw lighter weights, just to gain the physical experience of what achievement would feel like. If they could see it, they could do it.
I know, with a high school football coach on the Democratic ticket, it opens the door to all sorts of athletic analogies. He talked about “the 4th Quarter down a field goal”, “blocking and tackling” and getting down “in the trenches”. It’s not like I needed permission; my coaching life and my political life often mirror each other. Laying out a track schedule and laying out a campaign plan are much the same. Add that to the recent Olympics, and there’s going to be a whole lot of sports similarities in our lives, or at least in my writing.
Last night, Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. For only the second time in our history, a woman is on the top line of a major party ticket. And for the first time, a woman of color, of South Asian descent, stands at the brink of that ultimate political power.
Summon the Future
I have to say that only sixteen years ago, I questioned whether America was ready to elect a Black man as President. Barack Obama seemed to summon the future, an action I didn’t really think I’d be alive for. You see, it was only sixty-four years ago (1960) that Americans elected the first Roman Catholic as President. That’s something that today isn’t even an issue (Joe Biden is the second Catholic President). It was only thirty-two years before that New York’s Al Smith, was defeated by Herbert Hoover by almost twenty percent. He even lost his own home state, mostly because of his Catholic religion.
I was very much in favor of Obama in 2008; knocking on doors, putting up signs, and voting for him in both the primary and general elections. But I still questioned whether America was ready. When he won, I was even more impressed by his opponent, John McCain. Through the exquisite pain of national defeat, he acknowledged the historic marker that the United States had reached.
Last night we watched Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the United States, accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. She is the 52nd Democratic nominee in history, a long line going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of our American political system. When she stood at that podium she told us her life “story”. And she explained why she is prepared to hold the ultimate political power. Harris demonstrated that she is a central part of America’s “story”, the ultimate success of the “Schoolhouse Rock” American Melting Pot saga.
And she excoriated her opponent Donald Trump.
The President
She fulfilled every objective, and did what politics required her to do. To achieve success, good politicians run “to the center” when it comes to the general election. Like most elections, this one will be won or lost “in the middle”, by the decision of those ten percent of our citizens who remain willing to vote, but undecided. Harris gave a “centrist” speech, praising American institutions, and promising to defend freedom and liberty both here and in the world.
She explained her “bona fides”. She told us the work she’s done as a prosecutor, a state attorney general, a Senator and a Vice President, that prepared her for the task. And she exhorted her fellow Democrats to go to work. As Governor Wes Moore of Maryland put it, there are seventy-four days and a “wake-up” before election day. It’s only a little time before the decision is made. And as Governor/Coach Walz of Minnesota said: we can sleep when we’re dead.
But the most important thing that Vice President Kamala Harris did last night, was give America the vision of herself as the President of the United States. America saw what could be. We saw, not just a Black woman, not just a South Asian woman; not just a Prosecutor from California. We saw a person who would be, should be, President. She showed all of us that she is “ready”.
And if we can see it, we can do it.
