Oprah Winfrey departs after speaking on stage during the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug. 21, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Democrats have their opponents on the run now that Kamala Harris has become their party’s standard bearer. And they’re making no secret of it.

How can you tell?

Not because of the dollars pouring into the Harris campaign. Supporters will open their wallets for a lost cause if they get caught up in the moment.

And not because of the excitement that poured out of the Democratic National Convention this week. Activists drum up false enthusiasm even when their side faces crushing defeat.

Rather, you can tell top Democrats think the vice president is on her way to a promotion because of what they’re saying about themselves. A series of speakers at the DNC tried to give the impression Harris is a continuation of their legacy.

President Joe Biden not only portrayed the VP as an extension of his successes, he described picking her as “the best decision” of his lengthy career.

Hillary Clinton characterized Harris as her successor in the fight for women’s advancement. Clinton’s failed presidential bid in 2016 elevated Harris right up against the “glass ceiling” holding female leaders down. Harris just needs help pushing through the cracked surface.

The Obamas spoke as though their rivals still run the country. Hope was “making a comeback,” Michelle Obama asserted, after having been “buried too deep for far too long.” She didn’t even mention the sitting president. Her husband briefly thanked Biden, but then relegated him to the history books. Kamala was a kid with a funny name, like Barack, who would extend “Obamacare” reforms. Harris was picking up his torch.

To paraphrase an old saying: Failure is an orphan, but success has many parents. Those old pols want a piece of the action because they smell success.

But they’re flattering themselves. The Democrats look strong not because of continuity, but instead thanks to an aggressive makeover, one that distances Harris from the baggage of those who preceded her. Having far-left progressives mad at the Biden-Harris administration only made that transformation easier.

The Democrats began this year saddled with a dismal public image.

Like Biden, they were too focused on stopping Donald Trump, not enough on what they’d deliver. Harris, though, without being obvious about it, is campaigning more as challenger than incumbent. She promises to fight problems like inflation and illegal immigration that worsened on Biden’s watch.

Like Clinton, Democratic elites were viewed as aloof intellectuals, dismissive of the “deplorables” in middle America — a party of scolds, of buzzkills obsessed with the country’s imperfections. The Republicans were poised to be the party for “normies” who wanted to have fun, take care of their families, and feel pride in their country.

Kamala Harris with her toothy grin and oft-mocked laugh — aided by the GOP’s fearful negativity — managed to flip the script to become the candidate not of killjoys but of joy. Toss in running mate “Coach Walz,” former National Guardsman from Minnesota, and Democrats could lean into patriotism, family, and Friday Night Lights while dismissing the GOP as the party of “weird.”

If any politician on the DNC stage earned a right to claim co-authorship of the Harris-Walz rebranding, it might be Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. A series of DNC speakers, including Harris herself, echoed Beshear’s promise to look beyond political conflict and solve everyday problems that transcend party and ideology. Beshear and fledgling activist Hadley Duvall foreshadowed how Democrats could exploit abortion to become the party of freedom, the party of “mind your own damn business.”

Still, if I had to pick one DNC speaker who embodies the sales job Kamala Harris now needs to pull off — the person on that Chicago stage with the best claim for having passed a torch — she wasn’t a politician. My nomination goes to Oprah Winfrey, who didn’t even claim credit for Harris.

President Obama sought to represent not red states or blue states but united states. He seemed to promise a purple-state blend, yet the country plunged into division during the first two years of his leadership, and he presided over the half-decade collapse of the Democratic Party. That’s a legacy Harris must avoid.

Oprah, on the other hand, presided over a vast media empire for a quarter century. She united red and blue America into an audience as purple as the outfit she wore for her DNC speech. When I would call one relative of mine, a Southerner who hasn’t voted Democrat since Jimmy Carter, she always had advice handy from Oprah’s doctor or nutritionist. That’s the crossover appeal Harris must offer swing voters.

Obama would speak with the uplifting cadences of a preacher, but often his sentiments sounded more appropriate to the teachers’ lounge. He once pushed back against the idea of “American exceptionalism,” an unforced error that dogged him for years. Oprah showed no such qualms about embracing the country’s uniqueness during an interview before her DNC appearance. Only in America, she said, would her success have been possible.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, similarly, offered his family as proof that “America, uniquely, holds the promise of a place where everyone can belong.” Celebrating the best of America lets Democrats sound genuinely patriotic.

Unlike Obama, Oprah understood how to escape the false choice that often faces celebrities of African descent: between suppressing their race and letting their public image be dominated by it. Harris must repeat that trick, holding on to Biden’s white support while exciting voters of color who were drifting.

Polls suggest that Kamala Harris is pulling off the Oprah Gambit so far, especially in battleground states most likely to move this year.

Even if it persists, would that marketing success carry over to “flyover” states, such as Beshear’s Kentucky? Probably not.

To move en masse, voters usually need more than words. They need to see positive outcomes. At most, Democrats might hope for a clean sweep of the states currently in play, giving them a landslide Electoral College victory.

Still, they have a popular message. Trumpsters have signed over to them most advantages Republicans used to bring into a national election: law, order, patriotism, pride, freedom, the American Dream. If the Democrats can recruit candidates consistent with the new brand — avoiding the flaws of powerful Democrats who narrowed their party’s appeal — they might make gains in places previously thought unobtainable.