評論
打印
It is bad form to be dour, doubting or dissenting at a coronation. And Democrats are a well-behaved lot.
在加冕典禮上，面色陰沉、表示懷疑或提出異議都是無禮之舉。而民主黨人是一群舉止得體的人。
On July 21st President Joe Biden abandoned his bid for re-election, less than a month before he was to be formally nominated at the party's convention in Chicago.
7月21日，總統喬·拜登放棄了競選連任，而此時距離他在芝加哥舉行的黨代會上正式獲得提名不到一個月。
One day later, his anointed successor, Vice-President Kamala Harris, had secured the spot before any simulacrum of a contest could even begin.
一天后，他指定的繼任者、副總統卡瑪拉·哈里斯未參加任何模擬競選就獲得了提名。
Mr Biden transferred his whole campaign infrastructure immediately; his campaign renamed itself "Harris for President" within hours.
拜登立即轉移了整個競選資源；他的競選團隊在數小時內更名為“哈里斯競選總統”。
Her mooted opponents went prostrate: every sitting Democratic governor had endorsed her within a day. The switch was not regarded with scepticism, but with relief.
她的對手們都俯首稱臣：每一位現任民主黨州長都在一天之內表示支持哈里斯。這一轉變并沒有引起懷疑，反而讓人松了一口氣。
The party watched in agony as Mr Biden tried to salvage his candidacy after his debate disaster on June 27th.
6月27日，拜登在美國總統大選首場辯論中表現糟糕，之后試圖挽回自己的候選人資格，這令民主黨人失望透頂。
All the while, Republicans were completely united around Donald Trump, who had surged in the polls and appeared messianic after an assassination attempt nearly took his life.
與此同時，共和黨人完全團結在唐納德·特朗普周圍，特朗普的民調支持率飆升，在一次暗殺未遂后，他似乎成了救世主。
Relieved of the albatross of Mr Biden's bid, Democrats have entered a state of collective euphoria.
擺脫了拜登競選的沉重負擔后，民主黨人集體歡呼。
"It's the future versus the past now," says Jake Auchincloss, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts.
“現在是未來與過去的較量，”來自馬薩諸塞州的民主黨眾議員杰克·奧金克洛斯說道。
"Seventy percent of Americans said we want the top of both tickets to change…Democrats just did it and Republicans didn't."
“70%的美國人表示，我們希望兩黨的頭號候選人都能改變……民主黨做到了，共和黨沒有。”
Gargantuan sums of money are pouring into Ms Harris's campaign accounts: $81 million arrived within 24 hours of Mr Biden's announcement, the most lucrative day in the history of presidential fundraising.
巨額資金涌入哈里斯的競選賬戶：拜登宣布退選后24小時內，哈里斯吸金8100萬美元，創下總統籌款的紀錄。
The vice-president was once an object of mockery on social media for her word-salads, undying devotion to Venn diagrams and quirky quotes.
這位副總統曾因胡言亂語、對維恩圖和古怪名言的執著而成為社交媒體上的嘲笑對象。
She was quickly transformed into an object of veneration.
她很快就變成了人們崇拜的對象。
It is a remarkable reversal of fortune for a vice-president who was not thought of as particularly accomplished while in that office,
對于一位在任期間沒有特別成就的副總統來說，這是一個驚人的命運逆轉，
and who seemed to have squandered the goodwill built up during a short Senate career on a misbegotten campaign for the presidency in 2020 that actually ended in 2019.
她似乎在2020年的總統競選中浪費了在短暫的參議院生涯中積累的善意，而這場競選實際上在2019年就結束了。
Ms Harris has many attributes that explain the newfound enthusiasm.
哈里斯的許多特質可以解釋選民對她的熱烈支持。
At 59, she counts as young compared with gerontocrats like Donald Trump, who is 78. She can complete her sentences, often with vigour.
59歲的她比與78歲的唐納德·特朗普等老年政治家年輕。她可以完整發表講話，而且往往很有活力。
She could appeal more than Mr Biden could to disaffected young voters or to African-Americans veering to the right.
她可能比拜登更能吸引心懷不滿的年輕選民或右傾的非裔美國人。
But after the euphoria fades—perhaps in a week, perhaps after the Democratic convention concludes in one month's time—Democrats might consider asking themselves exactly who has been placed at the top of their presidential ticket.
但在興奮消退之后——也許是一周后，也許是一個月后民主黨全國代表大會結束后——民主黨人可能會考慮問問自己，究竟誰被列為總統候選人的首位。
Ms Harris has adopted several avatars over her political career. As she was coming up the ranks in California she was once a tough-on-crime prosecutor and then a progressive prosecutor.
哈里斯在其政治生涯中曾擔任多個職務。在加州晉升時，她曾是一名嚴厲打擊犯罪的檢察官，后來成為一名進步派檢察官。
She ran well to Mr Biden's left in the last presidential campaign, sharply attacking him in one debate for opposing racial integration through busing, only to settle comfortably into the position of his running-mate.
在上一次總統競選中，她向拜登的左翼靠攏，在一次辯論中抨擊拜登反對通過校車實現種族融合，但最終她還是成為了拜登的競選搭檔。
Her portfolios as vice-president have included securing voting rights, tackling the root causes of illegal immigration (unsuccessfully) and defending the right to abortion, on which she has been an effective messenger.
作為副總統，她的職責包括確保投票權、解決非法移民的根源（但沒有成功），以及捍衛墮胎權，在這方面她一直是一位富有成效的宣傳者。
As the world's most prominent understudy, her policy disagreements with Mr Biden are hard to decipher.
作為世界上最杰出的替補，她與拜登的政策分歧很難理解。
When progressives were at their strongest in the Democratic Party, Ms Harris embraced their flashy ideas like Medicare for All, a single-payer health-care system; the Green New Deal, a utopian proposal for climate-infused statism; and decriminalising illegal border-crossing.
當進步派在民主黨中勢力最強大時，哈里斯接受了他們那些華而不實的想法，比如全民醫保（一個單一支付者的醫療保健系統）；綠色新政（一個將氣候治理貫穿各個領域的國家主義的烏托邦式提案）；將非法越境合法化。
But those positions may be uninformative about the current Ms Harris.
但這些立場可能對當前的哈里斯沒有幫助。
Ask Democrats or diplomats where they think she diverges from Mr Biden on economic and foreign policy, and most will simply shrug their shoulders.
問問民主黨人或外交官，他們認為她在經濟和外交政策上與拜登有何分歧，大多數人只會聳聳肩。
"We want to make sure that she runs as a Biden-Harris Democrat and doesn't drift to the left," says Matt Bennett of Third Way, a centrist think-tank.
“我們希望確保她以拜登-哈里斯民主黨人的身份參選，而不是左傾，”中間派智庫第三條道路的馬特·貝內特（Matt Bennett）說道。
"She needs to ignore the voices of the advocacy groups telling her to soften on immigration and crime."
“她需要忽略倡導團體在移民和犯罪問題上放寬的要求。”
In the coming weeks, Ms Harris will have the opportunity to sketch out her own vision for America.
在接下來的幾周里，哈里斯將有機會勾勒出她對美國的愿景。
The first speech she gave as the presumptive nominee, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 23rd, had plenty of vim and vigour—more in 15 minutes than Mr Biden had mustered in the past 15 weeks—much of it directed at Mr Trump for being a fraud, a predator and a criminal.
7月23日，她在威斯康星州密爾沃基市作為推定候選人發表的首次演講充滿活力和干勁——15分鐘的演講內容比拜登過去15周的演講還要長——大部分演講都針對特朗普，指責他是個騙子、掠奪者和罪犯。
She was energetic in her defence of the right to abortion.
她積極捍衛墮胎權。
But she ticked through other policy priorities swiftly: passing a ban on assault weapons, subsidising child care and health care, creating a paid family-leave programme.
但她迅速通過了其他優先政策：通過了攻擊性武器禁令、補貼兒童保育和醫療保健、創建帶薪探親假計劃。
Mr Biden himself had filled out only a sparse ledger of ideas for a second term, usually under the banner of "finishing the job", leaving plenty of room for his successor.
拜登本人只提出了一些關于第二任期的想法，通常打著“完成工作”的旗號，為他的繼任者留下了足夠的空間。
