Kamala Harris (55:15)
There's no question we needed more time. And. But the momentum was absolutely on our side. And the, you know, as you mentioned earlier, Sophia, there was. There was an enthusiasm about what is possible, dare I say joy. And it continued to grow. And again, one of my great experiences in those 107 days was as the room would grow larger and larger, you would see that people who seemingly had nothing in common knew they had everything in common. And. But we needed more time. I mean, running for President of the United States means you have to earn the vote. And I was keenly and fully aware of that. You can't Assume that anyone is going to vote for you. You got to earn the vote. And that was, as you read the book, you will see perhaps the tension in the short time we had to talk with as many people as possible. You know, marketing people will say that someone needs to hear the same message three times before they actually absorb it. So that's about repetition. The campaign in the 107 days, although obviously national, really focused on seven states, the swing states, and it was about going back to those states as frequently as possible, while not neglecting other states, but knowing that this is where the decision would be made. And so the task at hand was to be present. It was to give people an understanding of my background and my accomplishments. You know, one of the things that I enjoyed. You've asked a lot of questions about just what the personal experiences brought to bear on the campaign. It includes, during the convention, the Democratic convention, I gave a speech that I took a lot of time thinking about and preparing. That was what I knew would be an introduction or reintroduction. And part of what I talked about there, you'll appreciate this, is that I have a family by blood and a family by love, and they are both family. I talked, yes, But explaining that my. My sister and I would ride around the neighborhood on our banana seat bikes. Anybody remember those? Exactly. I talked about my best friend from high school, Wanda, who is here, and she and I were in high school together in Montreal. I talked about who I am as a person and my life experiences, including my priorities, which included, for example, that as President of the United States, I intended to honor our relationships with our allies and understand the importance of the interconnection and interdependence and the importance of honoring the relationship and its history. But I needed to do that as much as possible to let the people who are going to invest their time and think, thought about who would be their next president. In knowing who I am, there was the work to do about introducing policy. You know, one of the things I write about in the book is that I had. My focus on policy really was about something I think Democrats have got to do better, which is focusing on the here and now issues. You know, our administration did extraordinary work, including honoring the relationships. But if I had to do it differently, I would have delayed the infrastructure bill that we did and the CHIPS act bill that we did that was about obviously upgrading America's infrastructure and investing in chips. And I would have first done the affordable childcare, extending the child tax credit, and paid leave as the first thing that we would have done as an administration to address the here and now issues in my campaign. That is why, as my priority policies were to offer for the first time, that we would give a $25,000 down payment for first time home buyers, that we would take on corporate organizations that were buying up properties and jacking up rents, that I would take on predatory practices that included price gouging, something I dealt with when I was attorney General. These were the things that I was offering as a new policy approach to dealing with everyday issues. 107 days to let everybody know. And it took time. One of the policies that I still feel so strongly about as a segue on health care was again, we have a very different health care system in the United States than in Canada. And the health care system that exists now has, although we have the Affordable Care act, which was an incredible breakthrough, there are still so many holes in the system, including what it means for what we, and I refer to as the sandwich generation. People who are raising their young children while they're taking care of their senior relatives and parents. They're in the sandwich generation. And for so many who are there, it is almost impossible to take care of both. So I was, as part of my policy and did all the homework that it was absolutely something that was feasible and could be done, would have offered Medicare to cover home health care for people who are in that situation so they don't have to quit their job, which means paying rent to be able to take care of their children, take care of their elder relatives, and then be completely overwhelmed and bankrupt again. To talk with the number of people that needed to hear this and for them to be able to hear it and know it in 107 days was a huge challenge. Part of the momentum that I'm referring to in terms of, of what we were building, if you track it, you can see that as more people started to hear that I attribute to the momentum about the growth. And so there you are. But these are the realities of running for president or any office. And I don't bemoan the responsibility, which is that the candidate must earn the support, right?
