We’ll remember the busing moment, but Kamala Harris dominated the debate from the start. She is fervent but deploys her anger precisely, like a flashlight. As Eric Swalwell and Joe Biden tussled over whether the elder statesmen of American politics should “pass the torch” to millennials, Harris calmly waited for her moment. Then she said, “Americans don’t want a food fight. They want to know how they’re going to put food on their table.” There was silence, and then applause, including from several of the other candidates—a recognition that, however the generational scuffle might shake out, an adult had spoken. Onstage, Harris, the former prosecutor, distinguishes herself as a storyteller, who conjures up images as well as arguments in ways the other contenders do not. Answering a question about health care, she spoke of parents looking through the glass door of the hospital as they calculated the costs of treating their sick child. Answering a question about detainment camps for undocumented immigrants, she hypothesized about a mother enlisting the services of a coyote, desperate to secure a better chance for her kid. “We need to think about this situation in terms of real people,” Harris insisted. She certainly demonstrated her ability to do so—to imagine policy as embodied in actual American lives. That narrative instinct framed the most powerful moment of the debate. Criticizing Biden for his past support of busing, Harris began telling another story. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public school, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. “And that little girl was me.”
