奥巴马与贺锦丽：志趣相投、投桃报李

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奥巴马与贺锦丽：志趣相投、投桃报李

KATIE ROGERS2024年8月21日贺锦丽和奥巴马的关系可以追溯到2004年，当时贺锦丽帮忙主持了奥巴马的一场参议院竞选筹款会。 Kenny Holston for The New York TimesOn New Year’s Eve in 2007, Kamala Harris, then the district attorney of San Francisco, prepared to spend the holiday more than a thousand miles away from her native California. She had flown to Iowa for the first time, touching down in Des Moines during one of the wettest winters on record.2007年跨年夜，时任旧金山地区检察官的贺锦丽打算在加州老家一千多英里外的地方过节。那是她第一次来到艾奥瓦州，飞机在德梅因降落时，正值有史以来最为潮湿的冬季之一。Ms. Harris turned up in a dingy campaign field office, wearing a puffy coat and boots. Near a tangle of power cords, someone had propped an “African Americans for Obama” poster against a wall. In the midst of that bleak Midwestern winter, Ms. Harris was there to knock on doors for Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois mounting a long-shot bid for the presidency.她穿着宽松的大衣和靴子，来到一间昏暗的竞选现场办公室。有人靠墙放了一张“非裔美国人支持奥巴马”的海报，旁边垂下来一根电源线。在阴冷的中西部冬日里，贺锦丽要去挨家挨户上门给贝拉克·奥巴马拉票，后者当时是伊利诺伊州的一位资浅参议员，正在进行一场希望渺茫的总统竞选。“To be here is worth 1,000 Champagne bottles and firecrackers,” Ms. Harris told a reporter on New Year’s Day, surrounded by campaign detritus. “It’s equal to that, in terms of the thrill, the excitement and the promise for tomorrow.”“能够来到这里，堪比1000瓶香槟和烟花，”元旦那天，贺锦丽站在竞选活动留下的一片狼藉中对记者说。“从引起的震颤、兴奋和未来的希冀来说，两者是等值的。”Supporting Mr. Obama was a political risk. Ms. Harris was one of the rare Californians holding elected office — and one of few in the Democratic Party writ large — to endorse him for the presidency. Most of the party’s institutional heft had been thrown behind Hillary Clinton, a senator from New York who had a powerful surrogate in her husband, former President Bill Clinton.在当时，支持奥巴马是一场政治冒险。贺锦丽是极少数支持他的加州民选官员之一——这样的人在整个民主党都不多。党组织的资源大部分都投向了纽约州参议员希拉里·克林顿，她的前总统丈夫比尔·克林顿将是她的一个强大的代言人。But Ms. Harris’s early bet paid off, and Mr. Obama has never forgotten it.然而贺锦丽的这场早期的赌博赌对了，奥巴马一直记在心里。“She was just a rock-solid supporter of the president at a time the entire political establishment was not with him,” said Buffy Wicks, a California State Assembly member who was the 32nd person hired by Mr. Obama’s campaign. “She set aside significant time and energy to help get him elected, and that was greatly appreciated by him.”“当整个政治建制集团都不支持他的时候，她选择坚定地站在他身边，”加州州议员巴菲·威克斯说，她是奥巴马竞选团队的第32位成员。“她投入了相当多的时间和精力来帮他竞选，对此他充满了感激。”On Tuesday evening at the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Obama will return the favor, delivering a speech he has been working on for at least three months, according to a person briefed on his preparations. Of course, he has in recent weeks retooled his remarks to fit a different nominee — but one who has aligned herself politically with him for two decades. The two share a view of politics that is defined by offering economic and social opportunities to people who have been historically cut off from them.在周二晚的民主党全国大会上，奥巴马投桃报李，据了解他之前的工作的人说，这场演讲他已经准备了至少三个月。当然，在过去几周里，他对讲稿做出了改动，以适应新的提名人——而二十年来这位提名人和他在政治上一直保持一致。两人的政治观出发点是一样的，他们都希望给那些一直以来得不到机会的人带来经济和社会机遇。“It is a sense that politics is not about you,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “It’s about building a movement.”“感觉就是政治的重点不是你，”曾任奥巴马高级顾问的丹·费弗说。“而是发起一场运动。”After Mr. Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June 2008 and the presidency that November, Ms. Harris surfed a tide of flattering headlines and favorable comparisons to the party’s new leader. She declared a run for attorney general of California shortly after Mr. Obama was sworn in.奥巴马在2008年6月获得民主党总统提名，11月成功当选，此后一段时间贺锦丽得到媒体的盛赞，将她和党的新领袖放在一起谈论。她在奥巴马宣誓就职后不久宣布竞选加州总检察长。2011年贺锦丽和刚刚抵达旧金山的奥巴马。“There’s an Obama halo that, you know, he shined the light on her,” said Brian Brokaw, who ran her campaign for attorney general. “The comparisons came naturally and fast.”“她戴着奥巴马的光环，他的光芒照耀着她，”贺锦丽的总检察长竞选负责人布莱恩·布洛卡夫说。“把两人放在一起比较是很自然的，很快就开始了。”Back then, Mr. Obama thought she was “smart as hell,” he would remark to his aides, praising her abilities as a political performer and her toughness as she waged her unlikely campaign to become California’s top law enforcement official. Still, he had unquestionably become the bigger star, and her support of his campaign took her only so far.当时奥巴马认为她“聪明绝顶”，他会跟助手谈起她，称赞她是个优秀的政治表演者，在竞逐加州最高执法官员职位的过程中表现出了顽强的作风，赢下了一场不被看好的竞选。然而他无疑成了一个更耀眼的明星，而贺锦丽对他的竞选支持给她自身带来的帮助终归是有限的。He did not endorse her until after she won the primary race. For a president to support a candidate in a down-ballot state race would have been unusual, but even after winning, she had to ask for the endorsement, Mr. Brokaw recalled.他在她赢下初选后才宣布支持她。总统通常很少在州一级低端职位选举中表态支持谁，但据布洛卡夫回忆，即使在获胜后，她还是得主动提出请求得到他的背书。On another occasion, Mr. Brokaw added, Ms. Harris tried to attend an event headlined by Mr. Obama in San Francisco only to be turned away at the door for not having the correct invitation. She told the police guarding the event that she was the district attorney, and they let her in to see the president.布洛卡夫还说，有一次贺锦丽想要出席旧金山的一场以奥巴马为重磅嘉宾的活动，结果因为没有正确的邀请函而被拒之门外。她跟负责警戒的警察说她是地区检察官，他们才放她进去见总统。Still, when Ms. Harris visited the White House, she was received “with open arms” by Mr. Obama, recalled Ms. Wicks, who worked in the Obama administration as deputy director of the White House office of public engagement.不过在访问白宫的时候，她还是得到了奥巴马的“热情接待”，曾在奥巴马政府任白宫公众参与办公室副主任的威克斯回忆说。“They met, they clicked and they have over the years developed a very close friendship,” said Valerie Jarrett, one of Mr. Obama’s closest friends and a senior adviser to him when he was president.“两人认识后一拍即合，几年来建立了相当亲密的友谊，”奥巴马的密友之一、在他任总统期间当过高级顾问的瓦莱丽·贾莱特说。Their relationship dates back to 2004, when Ms. Harris helped host a fund-raiser for Mr. Obama’s Senate run in a San Francisco hotel ballroom. Ms. Jarrett added that Mr. Obama and Ms. Harris quickly bonded over their cultural backgrounds, finding comforting commonalities with each other in a political world dominated by white politicians.两人的关系始于2004年，当时贺锦丽帮忙主持了奥巴马的一场参议院竞选筹款会，是在旧金山一家酒店的宴会厅里。贾莱特还说，奥巴马和贺锦丽很快靠着彼此的文化背景建立起了联系，在一个白人主导的政治世界里，两人找到了一些令他们感到宽慰的共同点。Both are mixed-race Americans, born to parents who came from different parts of the world, a shared experience that led them both “to believe you can find something in common with just about anybody.”他们都是多族裔身份的美国人，父母来自世界各地，两人的经历让他们都“相信可以跟任何人找到共通之处”。In 2007 and 2008, Ms. Harris, the daughter of an Indian scientist and a Jamaican economics professor, became not just a powerful surrogate for Mr. Obama’s policies but also an ambassador for his cultural background, explaining the complexities of his identity to voters who had never contemplated a presidential candidate like him before.作为一位印度科学家和一位牙买加经济学教授的女儿，贺锦丽不仅在2007和2008年成为奥巴马的政策的强势代言人，还成了他的文化背景大使，向选民解释他的身份的复杂性，毕竟选民们以前从未面对过像他这样的总统候选人。“A lot of us tend to oversimplify political labels,” Ms. Harris said in 2007. “He’s much more interesting and complex than those normal categories.”“我们很多人倾向于简单粗暴的政治标签，”贺锦丽在2007年说。“他远比那些常用的分类更有趣、更复杂。”2008年，在竞选活动上的奥巴马。在对贺锦丽有了更多了解后，他称赞她作为政治表演者的能力以及她的顽强。Their shared brand of politics is based on the idea that the ascent of people with racial and cultural backgrounds like theirs is a testament to the country’s strengths, rather than a rejection of its values.两人同属的这个政治品牌建立在这样一种理念之上，那就是与他们有着类似种族和文化背景的群体的崛起，是在彰显这个国家的优势，而不是否定它的价值观。They have spent their careers making the case to a predominantly white country that “a skinny kid with a funny name,” as Mr. Obama called himself as a Senate candidate at the 2004 Democratic convention, and Ms. Harris, “a daughter of Oakland” raised in Berkeley by a single mother, could help Americans build cultural bridges to one another and transcend political differences.他们自从政以来一直努力让一个以白人为主的国家接受“一个有着搞笑名字的瘦子”——这是正在竞选参议员的奥巴马在2004年民主党大会上对自己的形容，以及由单亲妈妈在伯克利带大的“奥克兰女儿”贺锦丽，让他们相信这有助于让美国人超越政治分歧，在彼此间搭起文化桥梁。At the beginning of their political relationship, Ms. Harris argued that Mr. Obama’s background — his mother was a white Kansan and his father was from Kenya — was an asset, the sort of identity that a growing number of Americans would regard not as a threat to the status quo but as a welcome feature of living in a diverse democracy.在他们的政治关系开始之初，贺锦丽认为奥巴马的背景——母亲是堪萨斯白人，父亲来自肯尼亚——是一种资产，越来越多的美国人不会将这种身份视为对现状的威胁，而是生活在多元化民主国家的一个受欢迎的特征。Their relationship has been defined by their mutually beneficial political trajectories, according to people who know them both. But Mr. Obama also apparently saw something else. In 2013, he found himself at the center of a media storm for praising Ms. Harris’s physical appearance at a fund-raiser in California.据了解他们的人说，他们的关系是由他们互惠互利的政治轨迹决定的。但奥巴马显然还看到了别的东西。2013年，他因为在加州的一个筹款活动上称赞哈里斯的外表而成为一场媒体风暴的中心。“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” Mr. Obama said at the time. “She also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country.”“首先，你必须小心地说，她很聪明，她很敬业，她很坚强，她正是你想要的那种执法者，确保每个人都得到公平的对待，”奥巴马当时说。“同时，她恰好又绝对是这个国家最漂亮的检察长。”Mr. Obama had not known immediately that he had made a mistake, according to two former White House aides who worked for him at the time. But one of them, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the delicate situation that followed, remembered wishing “for the earth to  Year-to-date (YTD) me whole” to avoid questions from reporters after Mr. Obama made the comment. Mr. Obama later apologized to Ms. Harris. She did not express any anger or annoyance about the comment to the Obama camp, according to the former White House aide.据当时为奥巴马工作的两名前白宫助手说，他并没有立即意识到自己犯了错误。但其中一位不愿透露姓名的人描述了随后的微妙情况，他记得，在奥巴马发表评论后，为了躲避记者的提问，他曾希望“地球把我整个吞下去”。奥巴马后来向贺锦丽道歉。据这位前白宫助手说，她没有对奥巴马团队表达任何愤怒或烦恼。“She made it clear he was a friend trying to compliment a friend,” said Gil Durán, who worked as an aide to Ms. Harris when she was attorney general.“她说得很清楚，他是一个朋友，想要赞美一个朋友，”吉尔·杜兰说，她是贺锦丽担任检察长期间的助手。The episode did no real harm to their relationship. In fact, Ms. Harris was floated as a possible replacement for Eric H. Holder Jr. in 2014 as he prepared to leave his post as U.S. attorney general. Mr. Holder called and asked if she was interested, according to her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold.” She made a list of pros and cons on a legal pad, ultimately deciding against pursuing the position: “When it came to the work that mattered most, I wasn’t finished yet.”这件事并没有对他们的关系造成真正的伤害。事实上，2014年，当小埃里克·霍尔德准备辞去美国司法部长一职时，贺锦丽曾被认为是接替他的可能人选。根据霍尔德2019年的回忆录《我们持有的真相》(The Truths We Hold)，霍尔德打电话问她是否有兴趣。她在一本法务拍纸本上列出了利弊清单，最终决定放弃这个职位：“关于最重要的工作，我还没有完成。”Over regular phone calls and occasional meals, Mr. Obama’s involvement in her career ramped up during Ms. Harris’s vice presidency. When things were rocky, he offered support and suggestions.在贺锦丽担任副总统期间，通过定期电话和偶尔聚餐，奥巴马对她职业生涯的介入越来越多。遇到困难时，他会提供支持和建议。奥巴马和贺锦丽在2021年拜登总统的就职仪式上。成为副总统后，奥巴马一直在政治信息和人事方面为她提供建议，包括选择竞选伙伴。Over a year ago, one of his former advisers, Stephanie Cutter, began working with Ms. Harris. Ms. Cutter’s role in the 2008 presidential campaign was to shape Michelle Obama’s public image — and to help her avoid unseen pitfalls that came with being the first Black spouse of the first Black presidential candidate. Ms. Cutter is now a senior adviser on Ms. Harris’s campaign.一年多前，他的前顾问之一史蒂芬妮·卡特开始与贺锦丽合作。卡特在2008年总统竞选中的作用是塑造米歇尔·奥巴马的公众形象，并帮助她避免作为第一位黑人总统候选人的第一位黑人配偶所带来的隐患。卡特现在是贺锦丽竞选团队的高级顾问。When President Biden made the decision to end his 2024 campaign and informed the vice president, she had a round of calls to make. The first several went to family members, including Doug Emhoff, her husband. But out of more than 100 people the vice president spoke with that day, Mr. Obama was third or fourth on her list, according to a person briefed on her calls.当拜登总统决定结束2024年的竞选并通知副总统时，她有一轮电话要打。前几个电话打给了她的家庭成员，包括她的丈夫道格·埃姆霍夫。但据一名了解她通话情况的人士透露，在当天与副总统交谈的100多人中，奥巴马排在第三或第四位。Since then, Mr. Obama has helped advise her on political messaging and personnel, including her selection of a running mate. And it is no accident that Ms. Harris’s campaign has focused on the ideas of joy and freedom, 16 years after Mr. Obama’s campaign promised hope and a new start.从那以后，奥巴马一直在政治信息和人事方面为她提供建议，包括选择竞选伙伴。在奥巴马竞选承诺希望和新的开始16年后，哈里斯的竞选关注的是快乐和自由的理念，这并非偶然。“They’re both really joyful, optimistic spirits,” said Ms. Jarrett, who flew with Mr. Obama from Martha’s Vineyard to the convention in Chicago on Monday afternoon. “That’s something they were born with. That hasn’t changed over time.”“他们都是非常快乐、乐观的人，”贾莱特说。周一下午，她和奥巴马一起从玛莎葡萄园岛飞往芝加哥参加大会。“这是他们与生俱来的东西。这一点一直没有改变。”Kitty Bennett对本文有研究贡献。Katie Rogers是《纽约时报》白宫记者，在过去十年的大部分时间里，她专注于报道总统、第一家庭和华盛顿的生活，此外还报道了一系列国内和外交政策问题。她著有一本关于第一夫人的书。点击查看更多关于她的信息。翻译：杜然、晋其角点击查看本文英文版。

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