Kamala Harris’s closing argument
Her vision of the future is also a nostalgic one. Do enough Americans still believe in it?
Senator Barack Obama was well ahead of the country in 2007, or so believed some of Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisers. “Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun,” Mark Penn, her top strategist, wrote in an internal campaign memo in March that year. Mr Obama was trying to celebrate his background as “diverse” and “multicultural”, but Americans were not ready for that message. “Save it for 2050,” Mr Penn wrote.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Back to the future”

From the October 26th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDonald Trump’s Washington reaches a new partisan peak
His address to Congress showed that Republicans will follow their leader anywhere, and that Democrats don’t have one
Andrew Cuomo plots a comeback in New York City
The disgraced former governor announces a run for mayor of the Big Apple
Trump’s armed forces won’t look like Biden’s
America is set to spend more—and differently
Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s savvy dealmaker
The novice diplomat embodies the president’s transactional worldview
America has never had state media like it does today
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are revolutionising presidential communication
America’s Gen Z has got religion
Because of them, a long decline in the number of Christians has levelled off