As if by magic, America’s presidential campaign changed the instant it was effectively certain that Joe Biden was withdrawing from the race and Kamala Harris would succeed him at the head of the Democratic ticket. As if by magic, money from donors large and small suddenly started flowing into Harris’s campaign coffers. As if by magic Democrats were suddenly energized to volunteer for her campaign in startlingly large numbers. As if by magic Republicans were suddenly on the defensive, the man at the head of the ticket, Donald Trump, now the angry, unpredictable oldster and the man behind him, J. D. Vance, now the retrograde, far right misogynist. And, as if by magic, the polls suddenly changed in favor of the Democrats, not dramatically but perceptibly.
What explains the turnaround? How did it come to pass that Kamala Harris was transformed in an instant from second rate vice president to first rate presidential candidate? Was she really one thing one day and something entirely different the next? Or was it Democrats who metamorphosed overnight from depressed and disgruntled to eager and excited? Or was instead something about the context, the country, that changed so quickly and radically it explains what seems an entirely altered political landscape?
I don’t want to exaggerate the point. The November election is still light years away and the outcome remains uncertain. But there is no question: Harris at the head of the Democratic ticket has changed the mood of the moment. The presidential race has been energized and the odds that the Democrats can hold on to the White House have improved.
To understand the transformation and how it happened with lightning speed let’s look at the three parts of what I call the leadership system: 1) leaders; 2) followers, and 3) contexts. In this case – not in every case but in this case – it’s best to look at them in the sequence in which I listed them.
First, the leader changed. The Democratic nominee for president went from being old and tired to being young and energetic. From being an old model, a white man, to being a new model, a multiracial woman. From exuding depression and defensiveness to exuding just the opposite, hope and change.
Second, in response to the first, a changed leader, followers followed. They changed. Democrats including elected officials, wealthy donors, union leaders, party activists, black interest groups, and ordinary voters went from being disinterested and disengaged to being enlivened and invigorated. They now saw Harris through an entirely different lens which explains why they were, suddenly, strongly motivated to support her. Again: Harris was not an especially visible or successful vice president, either as a leader or as a manager. She became a figure of the future only after it became clear that she even had a future – and a remarkably promising one at that.
Finally, given leadership is a relationship, between leaders and their followers, together they impact on context. America’s political landscape has changed because overnight there was a bond between Vice President Harris and large swaths of the American electorate. A bond so swiftly forged and, already, so strongly in place it could not even have been imagined a month ago.
Maybe it’s not magic. But the alchemy of leadership is mind-boggling.