Joe Biden has taken the safest road in choosing Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential running mate and it will make Donald Trump’s task of winning the November election more difficult.
Of the roughly six females shortlisted for the job, the Californian Senator was by some distance the best qualified for the role.
Unlike the other VP contenders, Harris is a senator from a large state who has substantial legislative and law and order experience and who does not have obvious skeletons in her closet.
Although the 55-year-old Harris presents these days as a progressive, she is much more moderate than the populist lunatic fringe of the party as personified by Bernie Sanders.
Even so the Trump campaign has already launched a campaign ad portraying her as a member of the ‘radical left’ and phony.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2020
However, many liberal Democrats are uncomfortable with Harris because of her “top cop” reputation as a former California Attorney-General where they thought she was too tough on law and order issues.
This tough-on-crime record will help rather than hurt the Democrat ticket in an election campaign where Trump has pledged to make law and order a central issue and has portrayed Democrats as soft on crime and anti-police.
Harris, the telegenic daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is also a former prosecutor and is a strong interrogator who is widely known on the national stage.
But she will need to be more disciplined than she was during her failed run for the Democratic ticket when her mixed message failed to break through and she dropped out early.
During that campaign she lost momentum after she embraced and then reversed her support for Medicare for All, leaving voters wondering what she really stood for.
Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau. 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.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 11, 2020
The only time she briefly flew high was – ironically – when she rose in the polls after attacking Biden on the debate stage about his support for the policy of bussing black children to white schools.
The attack was such that Biden’s wife Jill called it a “punch to the gut” raising doubts about whether it might have cruelled her VP prospects.
But Harris gives Biden what he wants in that she is much younger, black and a woman at a time when Biden is seeking to tick the boxes of diversity that his party is looking for.
The Biden camp will hope that her appointment helps encourage a strong voter turnout among both blacks and women, two groups that Trump is struggling to attract.
But the appointment of a liberal black senator from California may not resonate as strongly among the white working class males in the swing states of the Midwest who abandoned the Democrats for Trump in 2016.
I’ve known Senator @KamalaHarris for a long time. She is more than prepared for the job. She’s spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. This is a good day for our country. Now let’s go win this thing. pic.twitter.com/duJhFhWp6g
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 11, 2020
Harris, who is married to a Californian corporate lawyer and has two step-children, has avoided controversy or extreme positions during her professional life.
This no doubt gave her an advantage over some of the other candidates whom Biden was closely considering.
One of these was former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, an African American with whom Biden worked at the White House. Although Biden is close to Rice, she had never run for office and would have given the Trump camp much ammunition over her sloppy statements about the Benghazi attacks.
Another contender Elizabeth Warren, at 71, did not provide a generational contrast to Biden and her staunch left wing anti-business mantra would have left her open to attack.
A fourth contender, California Congresswoman Karen Bass, an African American, had a strong legislative record but had several obvious skeletons such as her previous support for the Church of Scientology and the kind words she delivered for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro upon his death.
All up, Harris is a far better choice for a running mate than her rivals and one which Biden was wise to make.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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