The broad themes of the first stage of Kamala Harris’s Presidential campaign are as follows. The country is at an inflection point. Justice and truth are two foundational American concepts that need to be restored or reinvented for the current political moment. The country needs a middle-class tax cut, along with a fifteen-dollar-an-hour minimum wage, Medicare for All, and a new way to discuss education. Climate change is a real threat to this country, and so are racism, sexism, and other forms of hate. This is a time for a fight. She discussed all of these topics this weekend in Iowa, the first caucus state, where her itinerary included, among other commitments, two town halls; an appearance at an event, in Des Moines, for the Iowa Democratic Party Black Caucus; and an onstage “community conversation,” in Cedar Rapids, with the hosts of the Political Party Live. It was her second trip here in the four weeks since she officially announced her campaign.

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Harris, a senator from California, and that state’s former attorney general, is warm on the stump. She doesn’t seem to like too much time to pass without allowing herself a laugh. On Saturday, at a town hall in a suburb of Des Moines, she told the crowd,“This is going to be a marathon, but I ask you to stick with it, and make it fun.” (She meant Presidential campaigns, not town halls.) When she mentioned President Donald Trump, it was only obliquely—talking about truth and justice, pledging “to not conduct foreign policy by tweet.” The line got laughs. The audience didn’t really mention Trump either, and no one asked about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. The questions were about health care, foreign policy, climate change, the national debt, and what distinguishes her from the other Democrats in the race. Granted, it was a self-selected group, with the kind of people who turn up to ask questions of primary candidates a year before the actual vote takes place. But an eagerness to move on, not just from Trump but from the entire political moment, is in the air.

It’s early days. Harris has a working stump speech—one riff is built around a repeated mantra, “Let’s speak the truth”; another might be termed the Middle of the Night routine, about the commonality of stresses that wake Americans up in their beds. That she’s being discussed as a leading contender for the 2020 nomination is in part due to how quickly and confidently she’s jumped into her campaign. At times, though, she is still searching for language.

An hour into the town hall, the moderator called on a young man in a black jacket. His question had a bit of a setup. “I want to paint a very simple hypothetical: so, it’s 2021 and there’s unified Democratic control in Washington”—the crowd interrupted him to clap and cheer—“so, you’re the head of that, and in the Senate it’s fifty-two, fifty-three seats, best-case scenario, right?” Here came the question: “Would you advise the Senate Majority Leader to abolish the filibuster or to keep it?” There were some murmurs in the crowd, and nervous chuckles. There is a discussion on the left about the filibuster, the rule in the Senate that makes many matters subject to a sixty-vote threshold for passage rather than a simple majority. Some writers and activists are arguing that really committing to an ambitious agenda—as so many 2020 Democratic hopefuls are—should also mean committing to procedural reforms that would make the passage of such an agenda possible.

“That’s a great question!” Harris said. “Let’s change the subject!” She laughed, and added, “That’s a difficult one, and, actually, I’m conflicted, to be honest with you.” She spoke for a few moments about the significance and responsibility of appointing Supreme Court Justices—a topic that is filibuster-adjacent, but not directly an answer to the question. “At the same time, there is something that I value also about upholding the integrity of the system,” she said. She spoke of the battle over the Affordable Care Act in the last Congress, where the filibuster closed off certain pathways to Republicans who wanted to undo the law. She didn’t dismiss the idea, but didn’t endorse it, either. “It’s a great question, and I’m happy to have the conversation more extensively,” Harris said. “Sorry I can’t give you more than that right now.”