Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
AI may be the most important new computer technology ever. But AI needs a lot of processing speed. And that gets expensive fast. Upgrade to the next generation of the cloud: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic.
Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash NYT. oracle.com slash NYT. Hello. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good, thanks. Are you in Chicago already? I am, been here two weeks. Leah Daughtry is an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee, representing New York. She was the CEO of the 2008 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions.
and is one of the most prominent Black women in party leadership. This year, she's a co-chair of the Convention Rules Committee, an incredibly significant role given all that's taken place. Basically, she's the ultimate Democratic Party insider, which is part of the reason I wanted to talk to her as the convention gets underway. Can you get me into these parties? I don't even know what the parties are, so probably not. But...
Once I get to the hall, it's all over. You said, that's your party is going to be on the convention floor. But that's not the only reason I called Daltrey. I have always found her to be remarkably candid and straightforward, which, when it comes to party insiders, isn't always the case. And in our previous conversations, she had been a passionate defender of President Biden. So I was especially interested to talk to her, with Biden out and Kamala Harris in.
Today, as the DNC kicks off its convention in Chicago, less than a month after Democrats changed their nominee in a historic political shakeup, I talked to Daughtry about how the Democratic Party got to this place and what to expect this week. From The New York Times, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Run-Up.
The first question I really had was just how unprecedented has the last month been for you? You're someone who has been involved in democratic politics for a long time, specifically around conventions. And that's part of the reason we wanted to talk to you. How different is this year than the ones you've previously been involved in?
Well, the big difference here is, you know, the change of the nominee. We've never had this in Democratic Party history. The closest would be LBJ, who withdrew from the race, but he withdrew mid-primary season. So people were still voting. This is very different in that President Biden withdrew from the race after all the votes have been cast. So we really had no precedent there.
for what happened and how, you know, what you do. And by some twist of fate, I was co-chair of the Convention Rules Committee. So we had to ensure that the processes and procedures for the convention could accommodate
The withdrawal of our presumptive nominee and how you get another presumptive nominee in keeping with the rules. Well, and I want to ask about those program changes. We're really here to talk about the convention. But one question on Biden dropout. Were you surprised? You know, I don't really know.
If I was surprised, you know, I was a diehard Biden person because I'm just believing loyalty. Mm-hmm. And I wanted it to be whatever decision he wanted to make, I was going to the end with it. Mm-hmm.
And I elected him. I voted for him and my primary. And so I'm a Biden delegate and I'm a Biden loyalist. And as long as he was the president and if he was going to run, I was going to be with him. If he made the decision that that's not what he wanted to do, then I would, you know, respect and accept that and move to what was next. But certainly. So I don't know if I was shocked.
The people who were opposing him or who thought he should drop out, it was death by a thousand cuts in many respects. It just kept coming. It was, for me, distressing because it seemed to me to be...
I just want I wanted to ask all of them, have you had this conversation with him in private before you had it in public? Do you mean like elected officials, donors, people who were just coming out at the time? Yeah. You know, mainly the elect is the people who have relationships with him. OK. You know, but that's but that's just my personal. If I'm I'm not going to say anything about my friend in public that I haven't said to them in private. And so for people who had access to him and who had.
ability to chat with him. I just want to ask, did you say any of this in private and to him?
Before, you know, we were reading press releases and Twitter statements. Yeah, you heard some of that from the Biden folks kind of feeling a little blindsided by that twist post-debate. I wanted to ask, you know, now that we are in this new political moment, obviously it's shaping up to be a very different convention than the ones you were planning, you know, less than a couple months ago. How are you now feeling about the state of the race?
I'm very hopeful. And I think I joined the thousands, thousands, perhaps millions of Americans who feel a sense of hope and a sense of joyfulness. I think the launch of the Harris-Walls campaign has been nearly flawless and has really, I think, given permission to Americans to be joyful and
And to be optimistic after, you know, a long season of grievance and finger pointing and blaming. I'm incredibly hopeful. I think we can win. There's lots of work ahead. But I think, you know, we're energizing each other. The voters are energizing each other because they're seeing other people like them signing on and getting happy about this ticket.
It started with black women in that crazy Zoom. And now you've got like white dudes for Harris and Lotus for Kodas and, you know, Karens for Harris and all of these people who the Republican Party would have us think have such divergent interests. And we're learning that we don't. We're the same. We want the same things. We want bright futures. We want our children to be well. And we're learning that we have more in common and that there are more of us.
than we thought. There's certainly an injection of energy that you're identifying that's been undeniable from the Zooms to the increase in fundraising to the change in polling. I mean, it's been kind of night and day, frankly, where Democrats were a couple months ago. Is there something that makes you nervous? What do you think is the biggest challenge for Harrison Walls? You know, I'm always nervous. I've been doing this a long time. This is my 10th presidential cycle.
I'm always nervous. And I think the lessons of the Clinton campaign, the Hillary Clinton campaign, give us cause for nervousness because we everybody said we were going to win. It's feeling favored, uncomfortable. Do you feel like there are Democrats trying to lower expectations now? Well, we're naturally, you know, Cassandra's. So, yeah.
That's just who we are. And I think it's because we've been burned. You know, Al Gore won the popular vote and we lost. Hillary won the popular vote and we lost. And so we're I think we are justifiably nervous and just, you know, nail biters about all of this, particularly with the Clinton campaign, which is really the last in-person convention we had was the Clinton campaign. Yep. And so we're back in person. And so there's you know, there's that, you know, freshness of recollection.
about that. And so I think going into this fall, it's like we can't take any vote for granted. We can't make any assumptions. Rallies do not mean votes. Rallies are a sign. They are not nobody's. The number of people at a rally does not translate to the vote. Some people are just there because whatever, you know, they're still deciding. And it's great. So I think that that sort of practical acknowledgement that
this work to do. We've got to knock on every door and ask for every vote. But I think if you find a Democrat or party strategist who's like, oh, yeah, we got this locked up, they don't know what they're talking about. None of us feel that way. We know we've got work to do. Are there particular groups or voting blocs you're most concerned about? I hear the challenge of like, you know, we need to translate interest into votes. I'm saying, is there a group of people you're most focused on?
You know, I think that it appears from the poem I saw this morning that, you know,
Black women are as enthusiastic as they've ever been, and those numbers are going to track with what's happened in the past. I think we've got some work to do with black men, although I think it may be a little overblown. The doom and gloom about black men, I'm not sure if that's accurate. I'm concerned about Latino voters and that we're speaking to their issues or sharing information with them in the ways that they receive it through the channels that they receive in order to make the case.
about why they should trust Harris-Walls with their vote.
I think Tim Walz does a lot for rural voters and opening that conversation. So, you know, who those voters who feel left behind or left out. I think he particularly has a story that resonates with them. And so I'd watch, you know, young voters are important. Young voters don't always vote. And so how you motivate them to the polls, senior citizens tend to vote and vote regularly.
And I don't have any reason to think that they won't continue that trend. But young voters who we want to vote, but they don't often vote their strength. And so that but I think she's uniquely positioned to reach into that community. So the communities I'm watching are young voters, Latino voters.
And Black men. Those kind of marginal groups. I think, you know, the polling would tell us are certainly core to Democrats kind of achieving their highest vote share. You know, one question I wanted to ask is when we think about this new nominee, a thing that's come up with Vice President Harris,
This has been true in the last presidential run or even somewhat I have heard recently is a sense of voters saying that they might be interested in her, but don't exactly know what she believes and stands for. What responsibility does the convention have to make sure they're giving an answer to voters about what Harris kind of stands for and beliefs? And what answer should we expect the convention to give us?
Well, I think in that regard, it's not different from any other convention beyond conventions of an incumbent. And the purpose of the convention, besides the business of the party with the platform and the rules and the credentials and the charter and the bylaws, all of that sort of thing, the real role of the convention is to introduce the nominee.
You're talking to Democrats and Republicans, and you're giving all the voters in the United States a sense of who this person is. You have four days to tell a story of their values, of their background, of their vision for America. And so that comes through in the themes of the convention, in the speakers who are there to amplify that theme or to really flush that out, because it's as much about the nominee as what
But understanding is the nominee of the party. So who the party is in this moment and how the nominee is going to help the party to move forward. So it's sort of a get to know you moment. But it's also a commercial about the Democratic Party and a commercial about the nominee, both of them.
Mm-hmm. Is there anything about a Kamala Harris-led Democratic Party and convention that's different on the substance than the Joe Biden one? Are there issues that you think are going to come up more this week that would not have maybe come up in the Joe Biden version of this convention? Are there, you know, topics that are going to be more highlighted? What is the substantive shift from Biden to Harris as it relates to the convention? Listen, it's two different people. So they have
a lot of agreement, but there may be some places where she wants to go further or that she wants to highlight, um,
More than she would have as the vice president to a sitting president. Is that something that she communicates to the DNC? Like, how does it work? Like, is it something that you hear from like a Harris campaign? Like, hey, I want to prioritize this over this? Well, I think without saying what I can say is that you'll see the various themes of the evening. And so we'll see her work as vice president, then bridge to her work as president.
The nominee and potential president of the United States. So the places where she wants to go farther, the issues that she highlights. For example, we know that maternal mortality and maternal health care is very important to her. And so that may be something that you'd see as funny. We know that she's been on this reproductive freedoms tour as the vice president. So I think we'll see some of that. And, you know, we do have a party platform that she also is now leading.
And so you'll see over these four nights, the themes that she wants to highlight because she determines that. Mm hmm.
You know, it is striking just how different the picture is for Democrats. Now, you mentioned the hope of this moment. Obviously, the kind of fundamentals of the race will say the Democrats are in a much better position than Harris's ceiling. It's just higher than President Biden's was. You know, I am somewhat, you know, not to bring up the past, but I am somewhat thinking about the conversation we had back at the DNC winter meeting a year and so ago, where some of those things came up. And I've
we were asking about voter concerns around Biden's age. When you look at the reality of what's changed in the last month, does any of you think, you know, maybe the switch would have happened a year ago? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, you know, because I don't. Both Biden and Trump are of an age. There's a couple of years of difference between them. And so I always found it odd that we were focused on
Biden's age and not focused on Trump's age. And the disparate attention to those to the ages of the two men always made me feel like there was some other story that was wanting to be told or there was a narrative people didn't want to talk about. And quite frankly, I think it was about some of it about Harris.
And whether people that people whether people felt that she was ready. And so to be president and I've said this before, if both men are the same age, practically speaking, but only one, we're only talking about one's age. We only saw my Biden's age and not talking about Trump's age, which was most of the chatter. Right. Why is that?
And for me, perhaps, you know, as a black woman, you know, burnt child scared of fire. It was about Kamala and whether people felt like she was ready to be president. But you can't say that.
in most quarters and be conventionally correct. So you can't say we're afraid that Joe Biden might die and Kamala will be president. Oh, my God. Pearl clutch. So you don't say that. So what you do is focus on Biden's age. Now, there were some rare reporters and rare storytellers who were talking about both men's age. And I thought, you know, in that sense,
Is age a question? Is fear a question? Of course it is. My dad's 93. My mom's 83. So I have a particular lens into how older Americans function. But they both preach every Sunday. So, you know, I don't have as much a concern about age as an indicator of someone's ability to do a job. And Joe Biden's been an excellent president.
And so I just wondered if the chatter about his age really had more to do with people's willingness to see a Harris campaign and what their feelings were about a Harris presidency, rather. More with Leah Daughtry after the break.
AI may be the most important new computer technology ever. But AI needs a lot of processing speed. And that gets expensive fast. Upgrade to the next generation of the cloud: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic.
Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash NYT. oracle.com slash NYT. Hello, this is Yuande Kamalafa from New York Times Cooking, and I'm sitting on a blanket with Melissa Clark. And we're having a picnic using recipes that feature some of our favorite summer produce. Yuande, what'd you bring? So this is a cucumber agua fresca. It's made with fresh cucumbers, ginger, and lime.
How did you get it so green? I kept the cucumber skins on and pureed the entire thing. It's really easy to put together and it's something that you can do in advance. Oh, it is so refreshing. What'd you bring, Melissa?
Well, strawberries are extra delicious this time of year, so I brought my little strawberry almond cakes. Oh, yum. I roast the strawberries before I mix them into the batter. It helps condense the berries' juices and stops them from leaking all over and getting the crumb too soft. Mmm. You get little pockets of concentrated strawberry flavor. That tastes amazing. Oh, thanks. New York Times Cooking has so many easy recipes to fit your summer plans. Find them all at NYTCooking.com. I have sticky strawberry juice all over my fingers.
You mentioned the kind of implicit concerns that some people talked about out loud, but most people talked about in private that some Democrats had about Harris's ability to take over the party. Now that you've seen this unity around her in the last month, how do you think we should think about it now? Is it that, you know, a crisis has come and folks have put the differences they had to the side and decided to support her?
Is the unity around her more complicated than it kind of seems on the surface? Like, what happened to those concerns? Because we both remember them. Yes. So I think a couple things. Number one, people didn't know her.
And had questions that the last glimpse really of her on her own feet was her campaign. And so she ended her campaign before votes were cast. And then she became vice president. And like all vice presidents from time immemorial, they're not a high profile person. Their job is to vice. They got two jobs, according to the Constitution, which is to be ready.
And to serve as the president of the Senate. That's the job. There's no other thing. And nobody pays attention to what the vice president does or doesn't do. And so...
Questions about her readiness, I think, got magnified, honestly, because she's a black woman and people had to wrap their minds around, oh, my God, if something happens to Biden, it's going to be a black woman president. What will we do? Will the nation function? But I think her stepping forward and as she took on more responsibility, people got to see her differently. And then all of a sudden the world shifted.
And now she's the nominee and we get to see her in a completely different light where she's leading, clearly leading. She's out front. She's making seemingly good decisions like Tim Walls. The banter between them is great. And they have brung together.
A freshness that I think Americans needed. It's lighthearted, it's joyful. And I think America's ready for that. You know, AOC made an argument on Instagram Live, I remember when the Biden chatter was at its peak, saying that she was kind of sticking with him because she didn't trust that the party would line up.
behind Harris. And it wasn't an argument that said that Harris couldn't do or execute as a candidate or lead the party, but that she just frankly just didn't think the kind of insiders, donor class, the like, would rally behind her. And I know those concerns at the time seemed legitimate as someone who had been reporting on some of that stuff and had heard some of those donor concerns and kind of party concerns around her.
Was your Biden advocacy also tied to some protectiveness around her? Did you worry that maybe the party wouldn't line up in the ways that it has? You know, I said I didn't just turn black. I've been black a long time. And my black experience in this country always makes me suspect that.
that the institutional voices, the people who uphold the system are really, are they really going to support a woman, a black woman in this role? I don't know. And I certainly was nervous about that. Now, I was loyal to Biden because I'm a loyal person, you know, and I was going to support him until he decided not to do that. But even in that, it's like, is he going to endorse her?
Yeah. And so that was a legitimate thought. Like some people were. Yeah. OK. And I and I know enough about him and well enough to know that his inclination was to back her and to endorse her. But I also, again, been black enough to know that there would be voices that were saying no.
Well, what about this one, that one or the other one? And so that he would feel tremendous pressure to endorse his vice president. Of course, within 30 minutes, he did. When he put his first statement out, I said, oh, my God, he didn't endorse. So what does this mean? This is going to be crazy. But, you know, within 20 minutes that was put to bed. Yeah. And it was thrilling. It's like, OK, great. Now, what y'all going to do?
Really, what y'all going to do? Y'all lining up or you not lining up? Show us who you are. That's helpful insight because I had those same 20 minutes too, because when he first announced, I thought, oh, it's chaos now. But it shifted within an hour or two. And I think the party was looking for unity because it had been three weeks since
of backstabbing and commentary and all of this. And while the Republicans got a complete pass and we didn't even talk about Donald Trump's performance at the debate. And so it was just three weeks of just,
ridiculous hand-wringing on the part of the Democrats. And remember, they were talking about an open primary and an open process. And of course, I'm the chair of the Rules Committee going, we can't do any of that.
That's not in the rules. That's not going to be in the rules. How are we going to do that? All the people who say them like they don't know what they've never even probably read the Democratic Party charter. So I'm just I'm listening to them with amusement. But that also told me that they were thinking if the president drops out, then it shouldn't go to Vice President Harris. We need a process to decide that.
Yes. Which was insulting to me. And, you know, I didn't I've never asked her about it. I haven't had a chance to ask her about it. You know, I would imagine if I were her, I'd be insulted in any other scenario. The sitting vice president is the obvious natural choice. And why is that not happening this time? Yeah.
That's interesting. We read it the same way because when people were talking about a mini primary, one, I was like, I don't really know what that means. But two, I was like, it really feels to be communicating that you don't want it to be here. And that's really all I was taking from that because to your point about what the roles that the vice president has, it seems like this exact scenario is one. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm on record saying, listen, if it isn't her.
If we if he doesn't name her and or if he names her and people don't line up and the party elders, whoever they design themselves to be, skip over her. We got a problem in this party that will last a generation because black women, black people will whether you like her or not, it's insulting and it's offensive. And I've said several times.
If this happens, if he decides to step down, I hope he doesn't. But if he does and it's not her, this party will be broken for a generation because people like me who've labored inside the party would see it as the height of an insult. And then I'm done. I'm going to my bench in Brooklyn and watch the trees grow. Yeah.
You know, does the convention have to address any of the changes that have happened in the last month or so? Obviously, Republicans have tried to make an argument that this is somehow undemocratic because, you know, folks did not vote for a Harris ticket. Is there any burden of explanation that's on this week of the DNC to say, hey, voters, this is how it happened and this is why it happened?
That's in the rules. And so what I will give the rules report on Monday night and will if people want to go read the rules line by line, it's dozens of pages. Knock yourself out. But, you know, as I as I've been giving talks about this, as you may imagine, over the last month or so, every state is different. I voted for Joe Biden. Kamala Harris was not on the ticket. I vote in New York. You vote for Joe Biden and then you go down to the bottom and you vote for I voted for six delegates to the convention.
They represent me and my interests. We vote for a nominee. We vote for these delegates and we vote for them to represent us. So in this case, they were presumptive Joe Biden delegates. And then when he's out now under the party rules, they're free to vote for whoever. Now, what the Republicans are saying is that somehow it's undemocratic and we have no authority to change nominees. And that's simply untrue.
We are the Democratic Party of America is the arbiter of what our rules are. We get to make our own rules and determine our own process. And our process says that what we did was in keeping with our rules. And this is the process we are undertaking. And they can't challenge that.
You know, it does seem like this is a more unified party than it was six weeks ago. But obviously, there are still some things we're expecting in Chicago, mainly a big protest action that's happening specific to the war in Gaza, I think, on Monday and Thursday. How is the convention thinking about, you know, some of the protest concerns that we know will be there? We always have protests. Every single cycle. I've worked on conventions since 1992 and preceding then.
We have protests. We're the Democratic Party. We like a good protest. So we always create a space for folks to have their rallies. And at every convention I have ever been to, there are demonstrations, there are rallies. Now, look, you got to abide by the laws of the place that you live in, but we welcome the protests. And so this cycle, 2016, I think it was climate justice. There was some home. You don't see this one as any bigger or more concentrated? I don't know.
I don't know. We'll see. I don't know. However, whatever size it is, whether it's big or whether it's small, we welcome it. But also the city that hosts a convention is also always prepared.
to make sure the protesters are safe, make sure the convention goers are safe. Sometimes the convention goers are the protesters. So make sure everybody's safe and that this comes off, at least on our side, as a place that values diverse voices and that voices that don't agree. Have you met us? We love a good debate. So you got some issues, let's hear it.
And I don't want to downplay it. Obviously, Gaza is a critical issue and has been for the last 10 months or so. And so, you know, I'm sure people are coming and will have and will share their concerns. And I think that's really important.
for them to do and for Democrats who are coming in and out of the hall to see their concerns, to understand their concerns, both the concerns of the hostage families and the concerns of the people in Gaza who have needlessly lost their lives to over-militarization. And it's a critical issue primarily because it's ongoing. But I'm also sure that the climate people will be here.
And, you know, all the people that always come to convention, we're not trying to clamp down on anybody's right to protest or anybody's right to share their concerns. Do you expect a smooth week? I expect a smooth week. The last question I would have is a fun one. You know, like I've heard the rumors of Beyonce or the Taylor Swift's like what level of celebrity cameo should we expect?
I can't tell you that. I can't tell you. What level can you expect? It's all great talent. People are going to have a great time. It's going to be a really good show and reflective of the nominee. And it's the place to be. It's the place to be. And if you can't be here, tune in. So you can't give us any hints except to say the rumors of star wattage are true.
Starwater, just true. OK, OK, I'll take it. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Anytime, instead. And, you know, I appreciate you being candid about this stuff. And I'll see you in Chicago. I'll see you soon. Take care. That's The Runner for Monday, August 19th, 2024. The first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. We'll be back tomorrow.
AI may be the most important new computer technology ever. But AI needs a lot of processing speed. And that gets expensive fast. Upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic.
Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash NYT. oracle.com slash NYT. The Run-Up is reported by me, Ested Herndon, and produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Anna Foley. It's edited by Rachel Dry and Lisa Tobin, with original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Sophia Landman, and Alicia Baitube.
It was mixed by Sophia Landman and fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Dolnick, Larissa Anderson, David Halfinger, Maddie Maciello, Mahima Chablani, Nick Pittman, and Jeffrey Miranda. Do you have questions about the 2024 election? Email us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or better yet, record your question using the Voice Memo app on your phone and then send us the file. That email again is therunupatnytimes.com.
And finally, if you like the show and want to get updates on latest episodes, follow our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, y'all.
AI may be the most important new computer technology ever. But AI needs a lot of processing speed. And that gets expensive fast. Upgrade to the next generation of the cloud: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic.
Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash nyt. oracle.com slash nyt.