"By the time Biden announced his withdrawal, that Sunday afternoon, a scramble was already under way, largely out of public view. Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state representative who helped Harris secure the nomination, told me...
'We weren’t going to do this bullshit that other people were asking for,' he said. In his view, an open convention was a way to 'skip over Kamala.' After Biden’s call, Harris had summoned aides to her house, and a dozen or so people gathered around a table.... In the hours that followed, her team undertook an operation that was less an improvisation than a culmination of years spent cultivating allies.... Harris never had time to change out of her sweats. By the following morning... she had endorsements from a majority of Democrats in Congress, two large unions, and a growing number of state delegations.... David Axelrod, who was the chief strategist for both of Obama’s Presidential campaigns, told me, 'There was an argument that she would be strengthened by a competition, but she showed a mastery of the internal politics, which is one test of a potential candidate. People respond to competence, and that was a very competent operation.' He compared it to a rapid military strike.
'She didn’t get handed this nomination,' he said. 'She took it.'... By gaining the nomination so late, Harris spared herself the obligation of courting the orthodox wing of her party in primaries. But a short run has risks; it left her little time to explain what she believes and what she would do in office... "
Writes Evan Osnos, in
"Kamala Harris’s Hundred-Day Campaign/Three months ago, the Vice-President was fighting for respect in Washington. Can she defy her doubters—and end the Trump era?" (The New Yorker).
Little time to explain what she believes? Little time to arrive at beliefs.