GET READY FOR A VERY DIFFERENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

…Joe Biden & Kamala Harris.  They are already referred to as the: “Dynamic Duo”

Kamala won big in her Senatorial race, beating her competition by taking 54 of 58 counties in California.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden this week picked Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate. Harris will be the first Black woman and first Asian American to run for vice president, representing a historic choice at a moment when our country is grappling with a pandemic and both its racial past and its future.

Biden made his announcement in a text and tweet, as he elevated a former presidential candidate whose most electric campaign performance came when she criticized Biden’s record on school integration during a presidential debate.

“Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau,” Biden tweeted, referring to his late son, then the attorney general of Delaware. “I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”

Harris is 55, that’s over two decades younger that Biden and she will bring a different attitude to the campaign and a potential 4 years in the White House.  She is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. The first-term senator previously served as San Francisco district attorney and then California's Attorney General.  (The largest AG office in the nation.)

Kamala was endorsed by President Obama and Joe Biden when she ran for the open seat of the retiring California Senator, Barbara Boxer.  Kamala won big in that race beating her competition by taking 54 of 58 counties in California.

Kamala married Douglas Emhoff in 2014.  Emhoff is Jewish and an attorney from Hasting Law School at UC Berkley.  Kamala immediately became a step mother to Emhoff’s two children.  Cole Emhoff graduated college in 2017, and the daughter, Ella, is a senior in high school. 

Kamala’s parents were divorced when she was 7 year old, so she understands how important developing a working relationship is with her two step children.  She was raised primarily by her mother.  She has said that she has been very careful in her role as the step mother and has a good relation ship with both young adults.  She has stressed how important it is to not alienate children when entering into their lives.

Last January, Harris was appointed to the Senate Judiciary Committee after the resignation of former Senator Al Franken.  Later that month, Harris questioned Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for favoring Norwegian immigrants over others.  In April and May, Harris questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook’s misuse of user’s data, and whistleblower Christopher Wylie.  This was on reports that Cambridge Analytica misappropriated the data from 87 million Facebook users to suppress the votes of African Americans.  She also questioned the extent to which Facebook violated the privacy of its users.

Joe Biden and Harris are scheduled to appear together, in person, today for the first time as a ticket, following the debut of a new logo for the two of them as well as a new campaign website.

The move puts Biden, who served as vice president to the nation’s first Black president, in a history-making role in naming the nation’s first Black woman vice-presidential nominee. He has also pledged, if elected, to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court.

This decision carries major implications not only for the November election but for the future of the Democratic Party.  Biden, 78 years old by Inauguration Day, would be the oldest president ever and has said he considers himself “a transition candidate.” The choice places Harris at the forefront of the party’s future and a potential presidential candidate in 2024.

Following a months-long process, which included vetting nearly a dozen women as potential nominees, Biden began informing some of the others that they were not chosen.

Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, who was among the finalists, quickly put out a statement congratulating Harris.

“Senator Harris is a tenacious and trailblazing leader who will make a great partner on the campaign trail,” Rice wrote. “I am confident that Biden-Harris will prove to be a winning ticket.”

Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), who was also under serious consideration, reflected on the historic nature of the pick.  “To see a Black woman nominated for the first time reaffirms my faith that in America, there is a place for every person to succeed no matter who they are or where they come from,” she said.

Harris also has built a reputation in Washington as a sharp questioner in Senate hearings, particularly of Trump administration nominees. She has been a forceful advocate for Black families during the novel coronavirus pandemic.  She also helped draft a bill ending qualified immunity for all police. Some of those who were skeptical of her during her campaign have softened their views in recent months.

Harris kicked off her presidential campaign little more than two years after joining the Senate, with an electrifying Oakland, CA. rally that drew more than 22,000 supporters.

Harris and Biden have known each other for several years, and as the former vice president noted in his announcement, Harris worked closely with Beau Biden when both served as attorneys general.

That made it all the more shocking to Biden and his team when, at the first Democratic primary debate, Harris went after Biden for his nostalgic talk about working with two segregationist senators.

“It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country,” Harris said during the debate. She also took Biden to task for his opposition to mandatory busing.

On the debate stage, she described a little girl who had benefited from her city’s busing program. “And that little girl was me,” she said. Within hours, her campaign was selling shirts emblazoned with the words and a childhood picture of Harris.

Biden’s wife, Jill, has described that moment as being “like a punch to the gut.” But since then, the two have publicly made up, with Harris acting as a surrogate for Biden and appearing with him and his wife in campaign events.

In a June appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Harris jokingly defended her performance, saying: “It was a debate! The whole reason… literally, it was a debate. It was called a debate.”

“I’d be honored, if asked, and I’m honored to be a part of the conversation,” Harris told Colbert. “Honestly, let me just tell you something: I will do everything in my power, wherever I am, to help Joe Biden win.”

In late July, Biden was photographed with notes he had written to himself about Harris on his personal stationery. Included were: “talented,” “great help to campaign” and “do not hold grudges.”

President Trump, in the aftermath of Harris’s presidential candidacy announcement, was said to be impressed with the size of the crowd she attracted. But within 30 minutes of the announcement of her selection, the president tweeted a 30-second ad created by his campaign that criticized Harris for some of her more liberal positions, including a willingness to embrace Medicare-for-all.

The bogus ad said: “Voters rejected Harris. They smartly spotted a phony… but not Joe Biden, he’s not that smart,” the narrator on the ad says. “Biden calls himself a transition candidate. He is handing over the reins to Kamala while they jointly embrace the radical left. Slow Joe and Phony Kamala.”

As usual, it's an ad with multiple false statements.

Biden had promised months ago to pick a woman, reflecting the dominance of female voters in the party and his effort to make a historic choice.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) once looked like a front-runner, but the killing of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people put a spotlight on her record as a prosecutor, which has drawn criticism from Black activists. Klobuchar eventually removed herself from the running, saying that Biden should pick a woman of color for the ticket.

Biden also faced pressure to delay the pick until closer to the Democratic convention, which begins Aug. 17, to build a sense of momentum for an event that will largely be virtual, lacking the balloon-and-bunting atmosphere of the traditional convention celebrations.

In normal times, the two running mates would barnstorm around the country after the announcement, trying to lift the enthusiasm level of their own partisans and potentially attract new supporters. But Biden has held no large events since March, and has none planned.

Harris will formally be nominated at the national party convention. She is then scheduled to debate Vice President Pence on Oct. 7 in Utah.  With her background for being a stern prosecutor, she is expected to give the Vice President a very hard time.  It should be interesting.

The presidential debates… three are currently scheduled…will begin in September, barring any adjustments to the schedule. Two of them have already changed locations after the original host colleges determined it was unsafe to sponsor the event.

This will be a very different kind of presidential election, and hopefully we will be saying good-bye to Mr. Trump.

Copyright G. Ater 2020