民主党人团结在哈里斯周围,她以攻击特朗普开始竞选
【中美创新时报2024 年 7 月 22 日编译讯】(记者温友平编译)周一,民主党基本团结在副总统哈里斯周围,她可能是新一任总统候选人,她承诺对共和党候选人唐纳德·特朗普提起有力诉讼,并捍卫拜登总统的遗产,以此拉开竞选序幕。《华盛顿邮报》记者托卢塞·奥洛鲁尼帕(Toluse Olorunnipa )对此作了下述详细报道。
在发表讲话阐述竞选的一些主题几个小时后,哈里斯获得了大多数民主党全国代表大会代表的支持承诺,这是她总统竞选活动背后强有力的团结表现,表明她很可能在下个月正式成为该党的候选人。
“在接下来的 106 天里,我们将向美国人民提出我们的诉求,我们将赢得胜利,”哈里斯在访问特拉华州威尔明顿的竞选总部时表示,她在那里受到了一群为拜登现已放弃的竞选而充满活力的工作人员的欢迎。哈里斯指责特朗普想要“把我们的国家倒退到许多美国同胞还没有完全自由和权利的时代”。她补充说,“我们相信一个更光明的未来,为所有美国人留出空间。”
拜登拨通了即兴会议的电话,利用周日退出总统竞选后的首次公开讲话感谢他的工作人员,并要求他们“全心全意”地支持哈里斯。
“候选人名单上的名字变了,但使命一点都没有变,”拜登说,他从里霍博斯海滩远程加入会议,他在那里从新冠病毒感染中恢复过来。“我们仍然需要拯救这个民主国家。特朗普仍然是社区的危险。他对国家构成威胁。”
充满活力、高度统一的氛围反映了民主党内更广泛的情绪,哈里斯的迅速崛起颠覆了本已动荡和难以预测的总统竞选。在经历了数周围绕拜登前景的动荡和内讧后,全国各地的民主党人松了一口气,重新焕发活力,纷纷支持哈里斯参选,团结起来,共同击败特朗普。
拜登突然退出竞选并支持哈里斯为继任者后不到 36 小时,数百名州代表、大多数民主党议员和州长、一群州党主席和几个有影响力的利益集团都支持哈里斯,其他潜在候选人表示不会挑战她。国会高层领导人也纷纷效仿,参议院多数党领袖查尔斯·舒默 (纽约州民主党)、众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯 (纽约州民主党) 和前众议院议长南希·佩洛西 (加利福尼亚州民主党) 周一均表示支持哈里斯。
虽然少数民主党人主张采用公开、竞争性的程序,但哈里斯似乎在周一掌握了一条内部途径,可以在下个月的党代会之前迅速获得提名。
哈里斯试图通过访问威尔明顿来反映这种团结感,她在威尔明顿向拜登致敬,并宣布已任命拜登的竞选主席 Jen O’Malley Dillon 来竞选总统。
哈里斯告诉工作人员:“我亲眼目睹了他从椭圆形办公室到战情室,再到在全球舞台上与世界各国领导人的会面。”她重申了当天早些时候在白宫发表的讲话。 “拜登总统为美国人民而战,我们对他为国家做出的服务深表感谢。”
但就在哈里斯发表以捍卫“自由”为重点的竞选信息时,特朗普竞选团队正准备对她发起全面攻击,称她为“危险的自由主义者”,对美国人的基本权利构成威胁。
“这是一场争取美国独立的新斗争,”特朗普竞选高级顾问克里斯·拉西维塔和苏西·威尔斯在一份备忘录中写道,备忘录就通货膨胀、移民、电动汽车和犯罪问题攻击哈里斯。
特朗普的竞选搭档、俄亥俄州共和党参议员 J.D. 万斯周一首次单独出席竞选活动,他抨击哈里斯。在弗吉尼亚州拉德福德的一次活动中,他批评拜登是“一个半途而废的人”,并表示哈里斯“比拜登糟糕一百万倍”。
这份备忘录和万斯的露面列出了共和党对哈里斯的一些主要攻击路线,反映出特朗普及其盟友在拜登退出后被迫重组和调整战略的程度。在庆祝拜登在 6 月 27 日辩论中表现不佳后民主党内讧和不和的长期存在之后,特朗普的盟友周一看到民主党领导人迅速支持哈里斯。
肯塔基州州长安迪·贝希尔 (D) 周一在 MSNBC 的“早安乔”节目中表示:“我很高兴全力支持哈里斯副总统成为下一任美国总统。”“副总统聪明而坚强,这将使她成为一名好总统,但她也善良、有同理心,这可以让她成为一名伟大的总统。”
贝希尔回避了有关他是否想与哈里斯一起竞选的问题,但他明显利用自己的出场攻击了万斯,这是他和其他民主党高层参与的一种公开试镜,因为该党开始将注意力转向谁将与哈里斯共享竞选机会。
密歇根州民主党州长格雷琴·惠特默、伊利诺伊州州长 J.B. 普利兹克和马里兰州州长韦斯·摩尔也在周一支持哈里斯,加入了越来越多潜在提名竞争对手的行列,这些竞争对手最终选择支持她的候选资格。加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽瑟姆和宾夕法尼亚州州长乔什·夏皮罗都被认为是潜在候选人,两人都在周日支持哈里斯。
民主党领导人周一公布了一项新的虚拟程序,用于选择接替拜登的候选人,该程序将于 8 月 7 日结束,即下个月在芝加哥举行的提名大会之前。虚拟程序的日期将于周三公布。
周一,民主党人似乎急于团结在一位候选人周围,并在 11 月 5 日大选前 106 天避免混乱的提名竞争,因此,人们对哈里斯的弱点和不尽如人意的民调数据的私下怀疑基本没有公开。在访问威尔明顿竞选总部期间,哈里斯受到了 100 多名工作人员的欢迎,他们起立鼓掌。房间里贴满了新印的“哈里斯竞选总统”的标语,但至少有一个挥之不去的“拜登-哈里斯”标语证明了总统竞选的变化有多快。
竞选助手表示,已有超过 28,000 名新志愿者报名提供支持,是平时人数的 100 多倍。哈里斯一直在全国各地旅行,她计划本周继续她的竞选之旅。
特朗普在关键摇摆州的民意调查中建立了优势,有时似乎对拜登退出竞选感到沮丧,周日他哀叹自己在长期关注拜登之后不得不“从头开始”。周一,经常依靠侮辱和辱骂的特朗普在社交媒体上发帖称哈里斯“愚蠢如石”。共和党全国委员会在 X 上的研究账户——长期以来习惯于传播拜登看起来老了或困惑的片段——在哈里斯向 2023-2024 赛季的 NCAA 冠军球队发表演讲时开始攻击她。
事态的发展导致哈里斯罕见地独自在南草坪主持白宫聚会,这通常是总统的特权。虽然以体育为重点的聚会旨在轻松愉快、压力较小,但许多人都在关注哈里斯在总统角色中的表现。在简短的讲话中,她称自己是拜登“为美国人民而战”的“亲身见证人”。
哈里斯刚刚起步的竞选团队试图将这股支持热潮描述为她为团结和振兴党派而努力工作的标志。
助手们说,在拜登退出并支持他的副总统后的头 24 小时内,哈里斯的行动筹集了创纪录的 8100 万美元。周日晚上,数万名黑人女性聚集在一次虚拟电话会议上,表达她们对哈里斯竞选成为第一位有色人种女性总统的支持。
据一位不愿透露姓名的知情人士透露,哈里斯周日花了 10 多个小时打电话,身穿连帽衫和运动裤,给全国各地的数十名官员打电话,以获得他们的支持。
政治上迅速接受哈里斯标志着一个政党发生了显著转变,此前该政党曾质疑她作为候选人和副总统的能力。
去年,多位评论员呼吁换掉哈里斯,不再担任拜登的竞选搭档,几位民主党领导人在电视直播中努力回答一个热门问题:哈里斯是副总统候选人的最佳人选吗?
“他是这么认为的,这才是最重要的,”佩洛西 9 月在 CNN 上说,她指的是拜登,这被广泛解读为一个模棱两可的回答。参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦 (Elizabeth Warren)(马萨诸塞州民主党)和众议员杰米·拉斯金 (Jamie Raskin)(马里兰州民主党)去年在电视采访中也对哈里斯表示了不太热情的支持。现在这三人都支持哈里斯竞选提名。
不过,也有明显的反对者。前总统巴拉克·奥巴马 (Barack Obama) 周日发表声明,赞扬拜登,但没有明确支持哈里斯,声称民主党最终会找到“一位杰出的提名人”。
参议员乔·曼钦三世 (Joe Manchin III)(西弗吉尼亚州 I-W.Va.)最初表示有兴趣挑战哈里斯的提名,但在周一退出了竞选。曼钦于 5 月离开民主党,成为独立人士,他说他希望该党采用开放的程序,让更温和的候选人参与竞争。在拜登周日退出竞选之前,曼钦在接受《华盛顿邮报》采访时暗示哈里斯过于自由。
“我认为我们可以重建民主党的品牌,现在你必须选择一个从身体和精神上都坚信我们已经走得太左的人,”他说。“现在,如果他们不这样做,他们将继续逐渐消失。”
曾在 2020 年竞选民主党提名的前纽约市长迈克·布隆伯格警告该党不要在“了解选民的脉搏”之前迅速支持任何候选人。
“这个决定太重要了,不能仓促做出,因为选举太重要了,不能输,”他周一在 X 上写道。
在拜登退出竞选数小时后,特朗普竞选团队发布了一则新广告,将哈里斯作为南部边境移民激增的焦点,错误地将她称为美国的“边境沙皇”。广告中反复播放了哈里斯大笑的片段,这是特朗普试图破坏她竞选总司令的努力的一部分。在周六的集会上,特朗普称哈里斯为“笑脸卡玛拉”和“疯子”,重复了他经常念错她名字的做法。
哈里斯已经开始利用自己作为检察官和州检察长的背景,开始以新的眼光看待与特朗普的竞争。
“在这些角色中,我对抗过各种各样的罪犯,”她说。“虐待妇女的掠食者、欺骗消费者的欺诈者、为私利违反规则的骗子。所以,当我说我了解唐纳德·特朗普的类型时,请听我说。”
弗吉尼亚大学米勒中心的总统历史学家拉塞尔·莱利说,拜登退出并支持哈里斯,颠覆了本已难以驾驭的总统竞选,使竞选更像是一场短跑,而不是传统的马拉松。
“一切都被简化了——所以我们需要寻找的是短跑运动员的技能,”他说。 “耐久性远不及快速反应、专注力、快速启动和快速进入状态。”
Amy B Wang、Abbie Cheeseman、Marianne LeVine、Kelsey Baker、Sabrina Rodriguez、Hannah Knowles、Michael Scherer 和 Matt Viser 为本报告做出了贡献。
题图:周一,副总统哈里斯在华盛顿白宫南草坪与 NCAA 大学生运动员一起参加活动。DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST
附原英文报道:
Democrats coalesce around Harris, as she kicks off bid with attacks on Trump
By Toluse Olorunnipa The Washington Post,Updated July 22, 2024
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. – The Democratic Party largely coalesced around Vice President Harris as its likely new presidential nominee on Monday, as she kicked off her campaign by promising to prosecute a forceful case against Republican nominee Donald Trump and defend the legacy of President Biden.
Hours after she delivered remarks laying out some of the themes of her campaign, Harris secured pledges of support from a majority of Democratic National Convention delegates, a forceful show of unity behind her presidential campaign that signals she is likely to officially become the party’s nominee next month.
“Over the next 106 days, we are going to take our case to the American people, and we are going to win,” Harris said during a visit to campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., where she was greeted by a group of energized staffers for Biden’s now-abandoned candidacy. Harris accused Trump of wanting to “take our country backwards to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights.” She added, “we believe in a brighter future that makes room for all Americans.”
Biden dialed into the impromptu meeting, using his first public remarks after dropping out of the presidential race Sunday to thank his staff and ask them to support Harris with “every bit of your heart and soul.”
“The name has changed at the top of the ticket, but the mission hasn’t changed at all,” said Biden, who joined remotely from Rehoboth Beach, where he has been recovering from a case of covid. “We still need to save this democracy. Trump is still a danger to the community. He’s a danger to the nation.”
The high-energy, highly unified setting reflected the broader sentiment across the Democratic Party, in which Harris’s swift ascendancy has upended an already tumultuous and unpredictable presidential race. After being exhausted by weeks of turmoil and infighting over Biden’s prospects, relieved and newly energized Democrats across the country rushed to embrace Harris’s candidacy and unite around the goal of defeating Trump.
Less than 36 hours after Biden abruptly exited the race and endorsed Harris as his successor, hundreds of state delegates, the majority of Democratic lawmakers and governors, a group of state party chairs, and several influential interest groups threw their support behind Harris, as other potential candidates said they would not challenge her. Top congressional leaders followed suit, with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressing support for Harris on Monday.
While a small number of Democrats have advocated an open, competitive process, Harris appeared to have an inside track Monday to quickly securing the nomination ahead of the party’s convention next month.
Harris sought to reflect that sense of unity by using her visit to Wilmington, where she paid tribute to Biden and announced that she had tapped his campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to run her presidential bid.
“I am a firsthand witness from being with him in the Oval Office, to the Situation Room and seeing him on the global stage with world leaders,” Harris told staff members, echoing a message she had delivered at the White House earlier in the day. “President Joe Biden fights for the American people, and we are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation.”
But even as Harris was laying out a campaign message focused on defending “freedoms,” the Trump campaign was gearing up to launch a full-scale assault against her by describing her as “Dangerously liberal” and a threat to Americans’ fundamental rights.
“This is a new fight for American Independence,” Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a memo that attacked Harris over inflation, immigration, electric vehicles and crime.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), went after Harris in his first solo campaign appearances on Monday. At an event in Radford, Va., he criticized Biden as “a quitter” and said that Harris “is a million times worse.”
The memo and Vance’s appearances, which laid out some of the GOP’s main lines of attack on Harris, reflected how much Trump and his allies have been forced to regroup and reorient their strategy in the wake of Biden’s exit. After celebrating the extended infighting and discord that plagued Democrats in the aftermath of Biden’s halting performance at the June 27 debate, Trump’s allies watched Monday as Democratic leaders quickly fell in line behind Harris.
“I’m excited to fully endorse Vice President Harris for the next president of the United States,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “The vice president is smart and strong, which will make her a good president, but she’s also kind and has empathy, which can make her a great president.”
Beshear sidestepped questions about whether he was angling to join Harris as a running mate, though he notably used his appearance to attack Vance, a kind of public audition that he and other top Democrats are engaging in as the party begins to shift its focus to who will share the ticket with Harris.
Democratic Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Wes Moore of Maryland also endorsed Harris on Monday, joining a growing list of potential rivals for the nomination that instead opted to endorse her candidacy. Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, each considered potential candidates, both endorsed Harris on Sunday.
Democratic leaders on Monday unveiled a new virtual process for selecting a nominee to replace Biden that would conclude by Aug. 7, ahead of the nominating convention in Chicago next month. The dates for the virtual process will be announced on Wednesday.
The private doubts about Harris’s vulnerabilities and less-than-impressive polling numbers largely remained unspoken Monday as Democrats appeared eager to consolidate around a candidate and head off a messy competition for the nomination 106 days before the Nov. 5 election. During her visit to campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Harris was greeted by more than 100 staff members who gave her a standing ovation. The room was covered in newly printed signs that read “Harris for President,” though at least one lingering “Biden-Harris” sign stood as a testament to how rapidly the presidential race had shifted.
Campaign aides said more than 28,000 new volunteers had signed up to lend support, more than 100 times the typical number. Harris, who has been traveling around the country, planned to continue her campaign travel this week.
Trump had built an advantage in polls of key swing states and has at times appeared frustrated with Biden’s exit from the race, lamenting Sunday that he had to “start all over again” after long focusing on Biden. In a social media post Monday, Trump who often relies on insults and name-calling, called Harris “Dumb as a Rock.” The Republican National Committee’s research account on X – long accustomed to circulating clips of Biden looking old or confused – began attacking Harris during her speech to NCAA championship teams from the 2023-2024 season.
The turn of events resulted in a rare instance of Harris hosting a White House gathering on the South Lawn by herself, a privilege typically reserved for presidents. While the sports-focused gathering was designed to be lighthearted and low-pressure, many were watching to see how Harris performed in a presidential role. During brief remarks, she called herself “a firsthand witness” to how Biden “fights for the American people.”
Harris’s nascent campaign has tried to frame the rush of endorsements as a sign of her hard work to unify and energize the party.
Harris’s operation raised a record $81 million in the first 24 hours after Biden dropped out and endorsed his vice president, aides said. A group of tens of thousands of Black women gathered on a virtual call Sunday evening to showcase their support for Harris’s bid to become the first woman of color to be president.
Harris spent more than 10 hours on the phone on Sunday, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, calling dozens of officials across the country to secure their support, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal process.
The rapid political embrace of Harris marked a notable shift from a party that had previously questioned her strengths as both a candidate and as a vice president.
Last year, multiple commentators called for Harris to be swapped out as Biden’s running mate, and several leading Democrats struggled on live television to answer what had become a hot-button question: Is Harris the best option for vice-presidential candidate?
“He thinks so, and that’s what matters,” Pelosi said on CNN in September, referring to Biden in what was widely interpreted as a noncommittal answer. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) also offered less than enthusiastic support for Harris last year during television interviews. All three have now endorsed Harris’s bid to be the nominee.
Still, there were notable holdouts. Former president Barack Obama released a statement Sunday praising Biden without explicitly endorsing Harris, asserting that Democrats would ultimately find “an outstanding nominee.”
Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-W.Va.) initially expressed interest in challenging Harris for the nomination, before taking himself out of the running on Monday. Manchin, who left the Democratic Party in May to become an independent, said he wanted the party to embrace an open process to allow more-moderate candidates to compete. Before Biden left the race on Sunday, Manchin suggested in an interview with The Washington Post that Harris was too liberal.
“I think we can rebuild the Democratic brand and right now you’re going to have to pick somebody that physically and mentally basically believes with every fiber of their body that we’ve gone too far to the left,” he said. “Now if they don’t, they’re going to keep dwindling away.”
Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2020, warned the party against rapidly lining up behind any candidate before taking “the pulse of voters.”
“The decision is too important to rush, because the election is too important to lose,” he wrote Monday on X.
In a new ad released hours after Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign targeted Harris over the surge of migration at the southern border, falsely branding her the nation’s “border czar.” The ad featured a repeated clip of Harris laughing, part of an attempt by Trump to undermine her bid to be commander in chief. At a rally Saturday, Trump referred to Harris as “laughin’ Kamala” and “crazy,” repeating his practice of mispronouncing her name.
Harris has already begun leaning into her background as a prosecutor and state attorney general as she began to cast the race against Trump in a new light.
“In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” she said. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”
By dropping out and endorsing Harris, Biden has upended an already unwieldy presidential contest, making the race akin to a sprint rather than a traditional marathon, said Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
“Everything is abbreviated – so what we need to look for is the equivalent of sprinter’s skills,” he said. “Durability is much less an issue than quick reactions, ability to focus, a fast start and getting into stride quickly.”
Amy B Wang, Abbie Cheeseman, Marianne LeVine, Kelsey Baker, Sabrina Rodriguez, Hannah Knowles, Michael Scherer and Matt Viser contributed to this report.