By Shachi Kurl, President
Dear readers, a confession. For only the second time this year (or at least only the second time I’ll admit it), I have been wrong.
A mere month ago, I sat across from a friend over dinner and openly expressed doubt as to whether Democrats in America would truly throw their support behind Kamala Harris. A woman. A Black woman. A South Asian woman.
The events of the last four weeks lead me to cheerfully regret my error. In the coming days, she will take the stage in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention as the presumptive nominee who quickly put to rest any question of a brokered nomination, who has brought back big bundling donors and inspired smaller individual ones, and who is packing stadiums with enthusiastic supporters feeling a renewed sense of purpose.
The purpose for those supporters, of course, is blocking another term for Donald Trump. And therein lies the big difference between campaign 2016 and campaign 2024, both led by women, both facing the same Republican presidential candidate. Whereas eight years ago so much of the conversation was centred around the glass ceilings soon to be shattered and the moments of history soon to be savoured, this year’s feels less blithely hopeful and more business-like.
And so it should be, because over the last eight years, in the U.S. and in Canada, we are under far fewer doubts around the challenges that female candidates for high political office face.