Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris may appear historic, but how does she help politically?

Now that the virtual confetti from Joe Biden’s selection of a ticket mate has been virtually swept away, what, if anything, special does his pick of Kamala Harris mean?

It is August, after all, a steamy summer month of vacations when the absence of real news can easily distort the judgment of media managers. Full disclosure: I once wrote an article about a dog who returned a lost wallet to its owner. And it got on page one — in August.

“Remember,” former Vice President Biden declared some years ago, “no one decides who they’re going to vote for based on the vice president. I mean that literally.”

Biden is trying that anyway, plucking Harris from his binder of 11 women. And judging from the adoring coverage of his predictable pick, including enormous front-page photos of Harris, her candidacy really matters. To that media anyway. Some are already excitedly describing Biden’s busy first days in office undoing Trump deeds.

The Harris nod can indeed appear historic. She’s only the fourth female ever on a major party ticket (the other three lost). She’s the first such candidate of Indian and Jamaican descent. She’s a stepmom married to a white man, additional characteristics that set her apart from every other vice presidential nominee in U.S. history.

Such a unique selection doesn’t seem likely to happen in the historically bigoted America we’ve heard decried so much as the reason for the “largely peaceful” recent riots in cities run by Democrats. But here’s a news flash: 21 of the last 24 Democratic presidential nominees have placed senators in the No. 2 slot. That’s pretty predictable. And having been vetted and expected, Harris is also the safe choice.

Biden at 77 and Trump at 74 are the two oldest major party nominees ever. So, more attention goes to their vice presidential partners. Harris is 55. Mike Pence is 61.

Don’t expect the Harris honeymoon to end anytime soon in the media. A stark contrast to, say, the piranha-like pursuit of Palin family news in 2008. Of course, Sarah Palin was young (44), white and Republican.

In a real sense, Biden painted himself into a political corner during the primaries, announcing that he would for sure pick a woman as his running mate. Pressure, including a public warning letter from 100 Black male leaders, pretty much forced the presumptive nominee to pick a Black woman.

David Axelrod, the Chicago reporter turned political strategist who steered the Obama-Biden ticket to a 10-million vote victory over Palin and John McCain in 2008, wrote that Biden “reportedly clicked well with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, but she would not have fulfilled the desire of those who prioritized a candidate of color.”

Whitmer has an accomplished executive political résumé that includes county prosecutor, state representative, state senator and now governor of a crucial state that Hillary Clinton lost and Biden must win. At 48, Whitmer is even younger than Harris. But she’s not Black.

Harris helps Biden duck blowback from those who wanted a person of color on the ticket, but she gets him nothing politically. She was not an impressive primary campaigner. Her team was riven with dissension. And California’s 55 electoral votes have been Democratic gimmes since 1992. Hillary Clinton was an awful candidate in 2016, but still took the state by 30 points, the third recent election that Democrats won more than 60% of the popular vote in the most populous and least popular state.

But the Golden State governor is a Democrat. So, a Harris Senate vacancy would be filled by another Democrat.

Speaking of golden, Biden was so excited about his selection that he missed a glorious opportunity to drive home Harris’ executive qualifications to be one heartbeat away from the nuclear launch codes. That might seem like an important point in a campaign to elect the No. 2 behind the oldest president ever, who at 78 would be seven years beyond the average lifespan of a male born in 1942.

For one thing, as California attorney general, Harris ran the country’s second-largest justice department. But instead, Biden slid into his party’s predictable identity politics, as if this were some blue-state primary and not a national election during an economic and health crisis.

“This morning,” Biden declared, touting Harris’ race and gender instead of her professional qualifications, “all across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little Black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities.”

A swell thought but maybe not the top priority for grownup factory workers in the Midwest who went for Trump big-time four years ago. Their families deeply appreciated Trump’s surging recovery until the pandemic, and they might be ready for a bluster-free alternative but suspect that Biden’s immense new tax plans and government mandates would produce the same fictitious “shovel-ready” jobs the former vice president so frequently promised would surely come next month throughout 2010.

Biden’s candidacy is unusual by modern standards. Most every other White House wannabe in the age of TV has had some charisma, some electricity in their political persona. We may grow tired of it after 43 tumultuous months. But it gets attention and crowds.

Biden seems satisfied to speak from his Delaware home or a nearby high school gym without an audience. Now comes the party’s national convention with speakers on Zoom in front of carefully arranged bookshelves that connote a serious person but do not distract.

Perhaps by staff design or dumb luck, Biden’s drab campaign presents a stark contrast with the loud incumbent on national TV every afternoon. It’s so crazy, it just might work. At least until the debates, unless the ex-vice president can duck them, too.

But hiding Biden with a cooperative media can’t mask all of his ongoing flubs. “I am very willing,” he told one recent interviewer with impeccably awful timing, “to let the American public judge my physical and mental filt...my physical as well as my mental filt...fitness.”

This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris may appear historic, but how does she help politically?."