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Vice President Kamala Harris’s marketing campaign has been on a roll—stacking up key endorsements and shattering fundraising targets—ever since she emerged because the consensus Democratic nominee for president on July 22.
Her momentum appears more likely to persist via the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Aug. 19.
But if she is to take care of her momentum after the conference and entice extra voters to her trigger, she might want to lay out a transparent imaginative and prescient of what a Harris Administration would stand for and the insurance policies she would pursue. It might be a difficult maneuver, particularly if these insurance policies diverge from President Joe Biden’s.
History means that an incumbent vice chairman in search of the White House could be hamstrung by a president who has exited the race. Hubert Humphrey confronted that problem in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson determined to forego reelection largely due to the continued and unpopular Vietnam War. Humphrey wanted to distance himself from Johnson on the battle, however doing so created friction with the president and proved tough.
These occasions have formed the present dialog about Biden’s withdrawal, however the extra instructive episode for the current second got here 4 years earlier, when Johnson was thrust into the highlight at a second’s discover. Johnson’s success at shedding the picture of a reduced and continuously maligned vice chairman and scoring a record-setting presidential election victory illuminates why mapping out a program and a imaginative and prescient that may energize the Democratic base—whereas additionally interesting to independents and a few Republicans—is so important.
The circumstances that landed Johnson in energy have been abrupt and tragic. Riding two automobiles behind President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, Johnson discovered himself on the floorboards of his limousine after pictures rang out in Dealey Plaza. Roughly two hours later, Johnson took the presidential oath of workplace on Air Force One, with Kennedy’s physique behind the airplane and his widow by Johnson’s facet.
Read More: Biden Drops Out of Presidential Race, Endorses Harris to Replace Him
The horrific occasions of that afternoon remodeled Johnson, who had been estranged from Kennedy’s internal circle and despondent in a job with little energy. Before assuming the vice presidency, Johnson had been arguably essentially the most profitable Senate Majority Leader in historical past. But as Kennedy’s quantity two, Johnson had been consigned to symbolic international journey, stewardship of the nation’s area effort, and management of a toothless presidential committee on equal employment alternative. He was the butt of jokes, solid apart by Attorney General Robert Kennedy—the President’s youthful brother and Johnson’s arch-nemesis—in addition to by John Kennedy’s internal circle.
There was even hypothesis that Kennedy may dump Johnson from the ticket in 1964, with Johnson himself musing about dropping out. In quick, he was depressing.
But the tragedy in Dallas, in Johnson’s dwelling state of Texas no much less, modified all the things.
Johnson grabbed the reins of energy, led the nation via its interval of mourning, and handed payments on taxes, international assist, and civil rights that Kennedy had launched earlier than his homicide. In reality, Johnson grasped the opportunity of going far greater than his advisers advisable, or than his predecessor had imagined was doable. Responding to pleas that he sidestep laws on civil rights, Johnson countered, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?” In reality, he labeled Kennedy as “too conservative” for his style and pledged a extra dramatic enlargement of the welfare state.
Within six weeks of assuming the presidency, he had introduced a “War on Poverty” and dedicated the state to funding enhancements and alternatives in training, jobs, well being, and housing. And lower than 5 months later, he articulated the a lot grander imaginative and prescient of what he known as his “Great Society,” a sweeping effort to mix nationwide prosperity with social equality. That imaginative and prescient of a extra compassionate, simply, and equitable society, in addition to early victories on key items of laws, propelled Johnson to a landslide electoral triumph in 1964. It was a outstanding turnaround for a political determine as soon as consigned to the wilderness.
But it wasn’t simply legislative success that propelled Johnson to a smashing electoral victory. His personal evolution on social justice, in addition to his centrist positioning, have been simply as essential. During his vice presidency, Johnson had expanded his understanding of the civil rights disaster and the pernicious results of racism in America, deepening his concern for the deprived and his want to elevate up the downtrodden. Both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act of that very same yr—a measure Johnson might declare as his personal—testified to his liberal bona fides.
Yet, regardless of his liberal achievements, Johnson additionally positioned himself as a mainstream politician—a compassionate but business-friendly candidate at dwelling and a steadfast, although rational, Cold Warrior overseas. It was a profitable mixture: Johnson reassured the party trustworthy of his dedication to liberalism, whereas steering away from its extra radical voices; and his adherence to finances ceilings and bipartisan options ushered into the Johnson camp centrists and average Republicans repelled by GOP candidate Barry Goldwater and his extremist stances on nuclear weapons and the welfare state.
Read More: President LBJ Wrestled With Social Justice, War, and Unrest. His Legacy Is Still Relevant
Like Johnson, Harris has labored in her position as vice chairman. She was assigned the daunting challenges of regional migration and border safety and has struggled to current an air of competence in these areas. Reports of dysfunction inside her workplace even have solid doubt on her administration abilities. While Harris was forceful in efforts to safe voting rights, opposition to filibuster reform from Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin doomed the hassle. Nevertheless, she has been the Administration’s main voice on reproductive rights, a problem Democrats have used successfully in statewide contests to rally supporters.
But with Biden’s current departure from the presidential race, Harris has stepped into the highlight with a newfound sense of vigor and confidence. The Democratic Party’s speedy embrace of her candidacy little doubt buttressed that picture. But like Johnson, Harris has had the prospect to chart her personal path, to champion the insurance policies and positions she holds most pricey, and to stump for them in a voice extra convincing and genuine than beforehand out there. The affect has been electrical: her polling numbers have improved dramatically, she has raised extraordinary quantities of money, and the party heads into its conference coalescing round their new candidate.
To make sure, the 1964 parallels—like all parallels—are inexact. Johnson and Harris introduced very completely different baggage to their campaigns, they usually grew to become their party’s normal bearers below wildly dissimilar circumstances. But in rising from the shadows in a second’s discover, each figures embraced the chance to take middle stage and reintroduce themselves to voters in full.
Harris’s job is difficult by the delicacies of serving a sitting president. Yet, right here too, the parallel with Johnson is instructive. Though he obtained to promote his program from the Oval Office reasonably than because the quantity two, Johnson remained burdened by the mystique of Camelot, together with lingering doubts about his liberal sympathies. But as soon as empowered to pursue his dream of a “Great Society,” Johnson rode that imaginative and prescient to electoral victory, vanquishing his Republican opponent, who supplied a darker, much less inclusive, and extra divisive method to nationwide and worldwide life.
The classes of Johnson’s victory for Harris are clear. She must proceed to amplify themes and insurance policies that lower to her core like prison justice and reproductive freedom. But she’ll additionally have to challenge centrist positions on a number of issues, from border safety, to well being care, to vitality, to gun management. That will allow her to string the needle like Johnson did, to mobilize the Democratic base— together with those that have been disillusioned with Biden and planning to take a seat out the race altogether— and enchantment to independents and Republicans turned off by Donald Trump’s fashion and darkish imaginative and prescient. Though Harris solely has 100 days to make her case, the instance of Lyndon Johnson illustrates that the chance to take action is there for the taking.
Marc J. Selverstone is professor and director of Presidential Studies on the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is the creator most lately of The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam (Harvard University Press, 2022).
Made by History takes readers past the headlines with articles written and edited by skilled historians. Learn extra about Made by History at TIME right here. Opinions expressed don’t essentially mirror the views of TIME editors.
