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Back in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said when she debated Donald Trump, the year\u2019s Republican nominee for president, he made her \u201cskin crawl.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clinton said it was the way he lurked behind her, \u201cstalking\u201d her around the stage as she spoke, according to her 2017 memoir, What Happened<\/em>.\u00a0 Feeling the heat in the back of her neck, she asked herself whether she should confront him, or ignore him and keep smiling.\u00a0<\/p>\n She decided not to lash out, aided \u201cby a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off. I did, however, grip the microphone extra hard,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n In the tell-all, Clinton said she had second thoughts about how she handled Trump\u2019s behavior and thought confronting him would have been the better option.<\/p>\n \u201cIt certainly would have been better TV,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe I have over-learned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This is the conflict Vice President Kamala Harris is about to inherit. In the blink of an eye, Harris went from propping up an ailing President Joe Biden to becoming the Democratic Party\u2019s front-runner, raising over $100 million in donations<\/a> in just a couple of days, delivering fiery<\/a> campaign speeches, and provoking<\/a> her now-familiar opponent: Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her new standing, as you might expect, makes her the prime target for Trump\u2019s vicious attack lines: To name just a few, he\u2019s called<\/a> her \u201cnasty,\u201d \u201ccrazy,\u201d \u201cincompetent,\u201d and \u201cdumb as a rock.\u201d He\u2019s also mispronounced her name and mocked her laugh. Keep in mind, she\u2019s not the Democratic nominee for president yet, and it\u2019s only been two days since Biden announced he wouldn\u2019t seek reelection.\u00a0<\/p>\n The question on everyone\u2019s mind, then, is this: Is Harris\u2014or any woman, much less a woman of color, for that matter\u2014prepared to take on Trump, with all of the vitriol it incites?<\/p>\n According to Barbara Perry, a renowned presidential historian who has authored multiple books about the presidency, Harris is not only ready for it: She\u2019s the only one who could do it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Harris is the \u201cperfect candidate\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n With Kamala Harris, \u201cyou can\u2019t get more of a contrast from Donald Trump,\u201d Perry told Fortune<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a woman of color with interesting heritage, with her dad coming from Jamaica and her mother coming from India, and her pulling herself up by her own bootstraps. That\u2019s the American Dream story,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Plus, with Harris\u2014a former prosecutor who focused on sexual assault and fraud cases going against Trump\u2019s \u201cmisogyny,\u201d Perry said, \u201cyou\u2019ve got the perfect person to run against him.\u201d<\/p>\n She believes Harris can capture two niche coalitions of voters: the conservative never-Trumpers who didn\u2019t want to vote for an elderly man, and the young leftists who want a progressive candidate. That\u2019s because Harris is uniquely positioned to be both a tough-on-crime, sobered prosecutor\u2014which would appeal to conservative voters\u2014and a progressive, champion of the left, which would appeal to young voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Harris also checks certain boxes that previous presidents have, given her experience in both the judicial and executive branch, and on the local, state and national levels. Harris previously served as the district attorney of San Francisco before becoming the attorney general of California; she won a senate seat in 2017 in a convincing fashion, capturing over 60% of the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI always like to see a candidate have local, state, and federal experience because we\u2019re coming back to the time when we were taking them out of [the] Senate, up until the Reagan years, when we tended to take governors,\u201d Perry said. \u201cShe\u2019s got way more experience than many presidents coming into office, and certainly way more than Donald Trump ever had.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n How Harris distinguishes herself from Hillary Clinton<\/strong><\/p>\n Harris could win if she touches on the kind of \u201cIron Lady\u201d character of other female leaders, such as Margaret Thatcher, Britain\u2019s former Prime Minister, or Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel who led the country through war in the early 1970s.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those women\u2014who were brought to serve in leadership positions in times of conflict, a la the glass cliff<\/a>\u2014maintained their status by exuding self confidence and strength. Harris, meanwhile, can cultivate a sense of stability through authenticity\u2014something Clinton tried, but always failed to achieve, Perry argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI came to meet [Clinton] a couple times and see, I think, her genuine side, which was really attractive and really compelling,\u201d she added. \u201cBut on the presidential trail, what people said was she wasn\u2019t authentic. She could never stick to one persona.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris, in contrast,\u00a0 \u201cseems comfortable in her own skin,\u201d Perry said, which she believes comes from having a loving relationship with her husband, Doug Ermhoff, and by having undergone strenuous circumstances in her political career. Harris had to face \u201cbloodbath\u201d primary elections in her time as California\u2014where it can be incredibly competitive to run as a Democrat\u2014so to get to the top, as attorney general and then senator, \u201cis no tea party.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Harris does have to \u201cwatch out for her laugh\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The reality of the political situation is that with television and social media, everything is visual, Perry said. Biden just dropped out of the race, essentially because of a catastrophic debate night that was reminiscent of former President Nixon\u2019s loss to former President John F. Kennedy in 1960, which was blamed on Nixon\u2019s sickly appearance on TV. Trump just had an uptick in morale and fundraising because of the visual of him narrowly escaping an assassination attempt, then raising his fist in defiance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Perry mentioned how Franklin Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term in 1944, despite dying of congestive heart failure four months into office, because there was no TV or screens for people to see how sick he was.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes you feel superficial, but it\u2019s okay to say, in a visual world, how one presents oneself is important,\u201d Perry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n With that in mind, Perry thinks Harris should be very attuned to her affect, and how her mannerisms are perceived on camera\u2014especially as a woman. Particularly, it is easier for a woman who often laughs to be seen as silly, or less serious, than a man \u2014something Perry says is already playing out for Harris (Trump\u2019s new nickname<\/a> for her is \u201cLaughing Kamala.\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n To avoid further critiques in a still often-sexist world, Harris \u201cneeds to be careful about her laugh,\u201d Perry said. While she thinks the jokes about Harris\u2019 laugh, and the comparisons to Clinton\u2019s similar laugh, are unfair\u2014\u201cthat\u2019s just the way these women laugh\u201d\u2014she said that for any woman to survive a brutal election cycle, they need to do their best to avoid the inevitable teasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf people pick at you on something you can tone down, then better to do that,\u201d Perry said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t cause you to lose your principles or not be yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n