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She set a tone at the very start when she walked right into his space to shake his hand and made him almost pull back into himself in response. She was in charge and never stopped being in charge.
Harris also managed what neither Joe Biden nor Hillary Clinton nor any of the 2016 Republicans managed to do which is successfully bait Donald Trump and get under his skin. Within a few minutes Trump was visibly angry and not in a way that empowered him but in a way that made him lose focus, go down rabbit holes and generally go off onto damaging tangents. Spittle anger, not righteous anger, shall we say.
In the way Biden shit the bed she didn’t, which is to say Trump was and remains his own liability.
She just needed to respond to his bullshit like a sane human, and she did. She was nervous and you could see her reverting to “this is what I practiced” words a few times but frankly she only needed to not shit her adult diaper to win.
She did sieze a few moments to really push the dagger in, she did what Biden ought to have been able to do. Did she distinguish herself? Nope. Not to me EXCEPT relative to how the political discourse has been the last few years.
She’s still the same candidate I chose Bernie over.
BUT juxtaposed to Biden and Trump she’s a fresh of breath air.