Kamala Harris would roast Mike Pence. Is she Joe Biden’s best pick for vice president?
Sen. Kamala D. Harris has returned to the 2020 campaign – as a candidate for vice president.
Twin stories in Politico and the New York Times indicate that Harris’ supporters are executing a stealth campaign to make her Joe Biden’s running mate. While Harris remains above the fray, her influential backers are advocating for her selection behind the scenes.
The stories appeared a week after San Francisco Chronicle columnist Willie Brown wrote that Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar would likely get the VP slot. But Biden is still vetting his options.
I was skeptical of Harris’ White House bid and see her VP chances as a longshot. But this is 2020. VP is a different job and – let’s face it – Biden needs backup.
He’s basically invisible. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been disastrous for President Donald Trump, it has also allowed him to hog the media spotlight. Trump’s opponents see his constant outrages as a sure sign he’ll lose, but 2016 exposed such optimism as foolish.
Betting odds favor Trump, and Biden’s narrow polling lead inspires little confidence. Worse, Biden’s rare appearances often produce gaffes that Trump’s supporters turn into vicious attacks. Further complicating Biden’s path: ugly sexual assault allegations from a former staffer.
A strong VP pick will boost the campaign’s power and visibility. What’s the case for Kamala?
First, she’s a woman of color. Biden pledged to pick a woman running mate, and progressive activists have pushed for him to make history by picking a woman of color. Harris’ supporters say her selection would electrify key Democratic constituencies.
Politico’s Christopher Cadelago and Natasha Korecki, casting Harris as an “early Biden VP favorite,” reported that influential donors are “seeing the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica as the most logical choice to balance a ticket led by a white man in his late 70s.”
Why do Democrats need a woman of color on the 2020 ticket?
“Well, it’s important for Democrats to win,” said Steve Phillips, host of Democracy in Color with Steve Phillips, a political podcast. “What Democrats need, and what they lacked in 2016, is large and enthusiastic turnout by voters of color in general and African Americans in particular.”
Phillips, who supports Georgia’s Stacey Abrams for the VP slot, said Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign wrongly assumed that her strong support from Black voters would make it safe to “run an all-white ticket.” The mistake proved fatal, he said, by lowering Black voter turnout.
“That accounts for the loss in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – and, ultimately, the White House,” Phillips said. “For Biden to win in November, he’s not just going to need the support of people of color, he’s going to need large turnout of voters of color.”
“It’s important to have a diverse ticket,” said Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, a Harris supporter. “Kamala represents a lot of the electorate.”
Second, Harris has a strong, loyal and vocal base of supporters who see her as an American icon uniquely suited to help Biden take on Trump.
“She’s very charismatic,” said Wicks. “When you see Kamala, you think of the future of the party. She has a youth and a charisma that I think it’s very important for the Biden ticket to have.”
Harris has a highly-engaged audience of social media “stans” – a.k.a. superfans – who hype her every utterance. She has also a stellar meme game, which is not something you can say about Klobuchar.
“I think that Joe Biden would be hard pressed to explain why he would not offer something substantial to Kamala Harris, given her popularity,” Rev. Al Sharpton told Astead W. Herndon of the New York Times.
Third, Harris’ supporters believe she’s uniquely qualified to help unify American voters behind Biden. While progressives questioned her record during the fractious primary, general elections tend to focus on swing-state voters.
“Some of the things that play against her for California progressives work towards her advantage with Midwestern moderates,” said Wicks. “I think she has an ability to speak to both sides in a way that’s very helpful in these battlegrounds like Florida and Ohio.”
Harris’ accrued strengths failed to deliver victory in the primary, but candidates who lose the nomination often become VP picks. Case in point: Biden.
Then there’s the sticky question of Harris’ merciless attempt to kneecap Biden during a Democratic debate last June.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said, ripping Biden’s former stance on school integration busing. “That little girl was me.”
But the recent stories suggest that Dr. Jill Biden – who took the attack personally – has forgiven Harris. In a no-holds-barred battle for the White House, the Bidens might want a politically ruthless former prosecutor on their side. In a debate, Kamala would roast Mike Pence like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Biden doesn’t need Harris to win in blue California. Former President Barack Obama seemed to give a clear nod to Sen. Elizabeth Warren when he mentioned “real structural change” while endorsing Biden last month.
But “that little girl was me” becoming VP does have a nice poetic ring.
Likely? No. Possible? Entirely.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Kamala Harris would roast Mike Pence. Is she Joe Biden’s best pick for vice president?."