Country First Kamala

In a new post-convention poll from Puck and Echelon Insights, Harris’s hard pivot from progressive to patriot appears to have neutralized Trump’s advantage on issues like toughness, strength, and keeping the country safe. Meanwhile, almost nobody knows what it means to be “brat.”

Voters continue to give Harris the benefit of the doubt in other ways, viewing her as her own person, rather than Biden’s No. 2. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Peter Hamby

August 27, 2024

Last Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as I was getting mic’d up for a segment on CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash, I glanced up at the massive screen above the speaker’s podium and almost spat out my coffee. The convention producers were doing sound checks and toggling through that night’s slogans, one of which, in giant all-caps letters, was “Country First.” Dana and I both chuckled. The two of us were on John McCain’s campaign bus back in 2008, when that was McCain’s slogan, a cudgel deployed by the Vietnam War hero against his liberal, antiwar opponent, Barack Obama.