Oakland: Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris says she’s the kind of leader who can unify the country and would fight for the needs of all Americans. The first-term California senator, who announced her candidacy on Monday, planned a speech at a rally in Oakland, her hometown, later Sunday, as she outlines her campaign and introduces herself to the nation. “I’m running for president because I love my country. I’m running to be a president by the people. Of the people. For all the people,” according to prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press.
The appearance at a plaza outside City hall was intended to portray her candidacy as the latest chapter in a lifetime of advocating for all people and to promote a message of unity. She began her career as a prosecutor in Oakland and later became California’s attorney general. “My whole life, I’ve only had one client: The people,” Harris says in her prepared remarks, echoing the words she has used in courtrooms and has adopted as her campaign’s slogan.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, has drawn deeply from symbolism as she has rolled out her campaign. She entered the race on Martin Luther King Jr Day. Campaign aides say she has drawn inspiration from Shirley Chisholm, who in 1972 became the first African-American woman to run for president from a major party. If Harris were to win the White House, she would be the first African-American woman and first person of Asian descent to be president. Her first news conference as a candidate was on the campus of Howard University, the historically African-American college in the nation’s capital that she attended as an undergraduate.
