CHICAGO —
Politicians never forget the ones who stood with them from the start, when success felt far from assured. So it is with Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.
The former president and vice president now running for the White House bonded in 2007, when Harris became one of the relatively few Democratic elected officials to endorse the first-term senator from Illinois in his long-shot bid to overtake that year’s prohibitive presidential favorite, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Though only the district attorney of San Francisco at the time, Harris already looked like a hard charger, willing to take the occasional political gamble to help her allies and help herself. Her early support of Obama, including hours of door-knocking and speechifying in chilly Iowa, created a lasting bond.
Obama will again cement that alliance Tuesday night when he delivers the marquee speech on the second night of the Democratic National Convention. The former president, who turned 63 this month, is expected to present Harris, 59, as a change agent and fighter for progressive causes and a more hopeful politics. He’s likely to present that as a stark contrast with former President Trump and his warnings of a bleak future should he lose.
Obama and Harris have drawn frequent comparisons. Both are biracial. Both moved up the political food chain with unusual speed. Though they haven’t been in sync on all issues, Democrats view both as progressives, but not on the left wing of the party, occupied by figures like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
Obama’s admiration of his California colleague went viral in 2013, when he described her as “by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country” at a San Francisco fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.
Some people described the remark as sexist and, just hours after the comment, Obama called Harris to apologize. (Obama had also called California’s attorney general “brilliant,” “dedicated” and “tough.”)
“They are old friends and good friends and he did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general’s professional accomplishments and her capabilities,” spokesman Jay Carney told the media at the White House briefing a day later.
Obama will also anchor the program Tuesday, one night after President Biden delivered the last in a long night of speeches. The extended program may push Obama’s address past 8 p.m. on the West Coast and 11 p.m. in the East, outside the prime-time window that political convention planners traditionally aim for. Organizers moved the start of Tuesday’s session to 5:30 p.m. Central time, 30 minutes earlier than previously planned, to try to ensure that as many television viewers as possible are still awake when Obama takes the stage at the United Center.
The 44th president will be preceded by a long lineup of speakers, including Republicans who will describe their disillusionment with Trump.
The night’s other headliners are Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who will speak about Harris’ family focus, and former First Lady Michelle Obama, who may reprise her admonition of years past — for Democrats to “go high” in counter to her view that Republicans “go low.”
Early in Tuesday’s proceedings, the convention heard admonitions from scions of two Democratic presidents that Harris will carry on the legacies of John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.
Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson and a close relative of potential 2024 spoiler candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., told thousands of delegates gathering for their party’s national convention that his assassinated grandfather is his “hero.”
The youngest child of Caroline Kennedy said, invoking the words of JFK, said: “The torch has been passed to a new generation, to a leader who shares my grandfather’s energy, vision and optimism for our future.”
Jason Carter, 49, compared the humility of Harris and his 99-year-old grandfather, who is in poor health, but hoping to vote for the vice president this fall. “She knows what is right, and she fights for it” Carter said. “She understands that leadership is about service, not selfishness.”
The audience also heard from a series of Republicans and former Trump allies, who depicted him as mean-spirited and callous to the needs of everyday people.
Perhaps the most powerful testimony came from onetime White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who described herself as a former Trump “true-believer,” forced to reconsider her loyalty after observing his behavior outside the public eye, including times when he would mock his supporters as “basement dwellers.”
On one visit to a hospital, with people dying in an ICU, Trump cared only that his show of concern was being captured on camera, Grisham said, when, in fact, “He has no empathy. No morals. And no fidelity to the truth.” She said Trump used to tell her: “It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough, and people will believe you.”
Rainey and Pinho reported from Chicago, and Miller from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Seema Mehta, in Chicago, contributed to this report.