BIDEN – HARRIS: A TICKET FOR THE AGES?

It’s done. Former Vice President Joe Biden

named California Senator Kamala Harris his vice presidential running mate. We tapped Harris as the favorite in our July 13 posting of odds on the contenders. Her selection didn’t come as a surprise, despite its historic nature. Now, she and Biden face two and a half months of campaigning in the weird world of a pandemic and resulting economic devastation against an unpopular, but cunning incumbent who’ll likely do anything to keep power.

The Person

The 55-year old Harris checks many boxes for a spot on a national ticket – elected three

times to statewide office in California, administrator of the second largest justice agency in America, experience on key senate committees (Judiciary and Intelligence). That experience and her education immunize her against tokenism charges. She ran for president in 2020 and acquitted herself well in the early debates, though she faded and dropped out before the primaries started. 

Harris represents several firsts. No black woman has been on a national ticket before nor has an Indian-American person of either gender. She’s the first graduate of a

historically black university (HBCU), Howard University, on a national ticket. Its alumni and former students include novelist Toni Morrison, civil rights leader Vernon Jordan, actors Phylicia Rashad and Chadwick Boseman, and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.  She’s the second black person nominated by a major party for national office. If she and Biden win, she’d become the first female vice president. 

The Biden Connection

A long-standing connection exists between Harris and the Biden family. In her campaign

memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Harris wrote glowingly  of her working relationship with Joe Biden’s now-deceased son, Beau, then attorney general of Delaware. While Harris held that position in California, they worked together on lawsuits against predatory mortgage lenders who precipitated the 2007 housing crisis. Harris called Beau Biden an “incredible friend and colleague” and “a man of principle and courage.” Joe Biden, in announcing he’d chosen Harris, alluded to his son’s high opinion of her.

Some thought her attack on Joe Biden in the first debate last summer might fray the relationship and keep him from picking her. She went after the former vice president over how he’d opposed busing in the 1970s. He demonstrated his political maturity by picking her anyway, noting recently that he doesn’t hold grudges.

The Politics

Much of the immediate discussion about Harris’s selection focused on what impact she might have on the race. Her graduation from

Howard and membership in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and connection to  similar sororities offered the possibility of a massive mobilization of professional black women, the acknowledged backbone of the Democratic Party.  Some thought she might benefit from the “exotic factor” of Jamaican and Asian parentage, something akin to Barack Obama’s Africa-Kansas heritage. Others cautioned that Harris isn’t at the top of the ticket like Obama and the thrill of a person of color on a national ticket might be gone.

Calculating the impact of Harris’s prosecutorial background also occupied a lot

of attention. Some  progressives, especially African  American ones, regard  many prosecutors

with skepticism. Some give Harris credit for reforms while she headed the San Francisco district attorney’s office, but others don’t.

One certainty exists. Trump will try demonizing Harris. Right after Biden announced her selection, Trump labeled her “nasty” and “mean.” His campaign ran an ad claiming she’s a radical leftist who’d abolish police forces, raise taxes, and destroy the oil and gas industry. Some thought her selection, potentially putting her a heartbeat away from the presidency, will motivate Trump’s base to vote in larger numbers. 

Harris embodies many things Trump and his backers love hating – a woman, black, daughter of immigrants, progressive, and an

advocate of the rule of law. She faces the challenges women face in American politics. She must thread the needle between aggression and passivity, the classic cognitive dissonance dilemma.

The Bottom Line

In our May 11 post, we suggested Biden first focus on “what, not who” in the matter of a running mate. We noted the importance of picking someone “ready to play,” selecting a candidate compatible with him (we asked “Are they on the same page?”), and the need for choosing someone who could help heal a fractured, divided nation left in shambles by a historically inept president. We called that “Restorative Capacity.”

Despite the political analysis concerning the pick, we think Biden might have selected Harris because she best met the criteria we laid out. She had the most positives, given her combination of executive and legislative experience in government.  She also had the fewest negatives. Most of the things we can pick at her about are small or fixable.

Biden and whoever he picked, if they win, will have a huge job, much of it about things other than political ideology. The pandemic will likely remain with us when they take office.

They must dig the nation out of the economic hole the pandemic and Trump’s ineptitude indealing with it have caused. They have to restore respect for the rule of law and our basic institutions. They face a massive chore in reclaiming America’s standing in the world, beginning with repairing our alliances. Then there’s the racial divide the George Floyd case exposed. The list goes on.

We suspect Biden probably believes Christopher Devine and Kyle Kopko when

they said in their book Do Running Mates Matter that vice presidential candidates don’t yield many votes. But, given his own experience as Barack Obama’s wingman, Biden also knows they can make a big difference in governing. Maybe that’s why he picked Kamala Harris.   

  

The List: A Critique of Trump's Proposed Presidential Agenda

Donald Trump took the oath of office last week as the 45^th President of the United States amid pomp and circumstance, celebration by part of America, but trepidation, foreboding, protest, and fear by other parts.  His 40% approval rating represents the lowest ever for a new President, so Trump has his work cut out for him.  We won’t say we wish him well because, frankly, such a platitude from us seems meaningless and insincere given our attitude toward some things Trump has said he wants to do, like dismantling the Affordable Care Act, banning Muslims, giving new tax breaks to billionaires, and getting into bed with Vladimir Putin and the Russians. As patriotic Americans who deeply love this nation, we’ll just say we wish the country well and leave it at that.

A number of thorny issues fill Trump’s plate for the foreseeable future.  Some he put there himself in his zeal, and that of his fellow Republicans, to undo the policies of the previous administration.  Others he campaigned on, meaning the electorate will judge him on how he does with them. Some are there because they’re there for every President. We can think of dozens of things Trump needs to deal with, but we’ll hone in on seven that will likely move front and center during the early weeks and months of his tenure. Most have a domestic tilt, a few fall within the international realm, and some overlap.  All this presupposes Trump doesn’t face an early, unexpected foreign policy crisis or a domestic trauma we can’t now predict. 

Affordable Care Act Repeal   Republicans moved at warp speed in the early days of the current session of Congress to repeal the ACA. What they’re going to replace it with remains a major mystery. People who understand this issue know one thing: keeping the “goodies” in the ACA that even Republicans like, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions and letting young people stay on their parents’ policies until they’re 26, seems exceedingly difficult without the taxes and mandates the GOP hates.

Infrastructure/Jobs   Trump’s promise to bring jobs back to the rust belt may have won him the election. Can he now deliver? During the campaign, he talked about a major infrastructure program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, airports, water systems, and other public works.  Passing a major infrastructure bill, especially one that puts significant federal dollars, and not just tax credits, into play probably requires Democratic votes in Congress since Republicans usually detest such programs.  Will Trump propose something with real meat that Democrats could vote for? Or will he take the path of least resistance and offer up a tax credit scheme Republicans will support, produces profits for Trump’s wealthy corporate friends, but yields few improvements in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and even fewer jobs.  

Russian Hacking/Intelligence   The new President will have a hard call once Congressional committees finish their review of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia attempted to swing the 2016 election to him through computer hacking of his political opponents. Does he ignore a clear attack on American sovereignty and democracy? Does he reverse course and move to punish the Russians as his predecessor did? Can he repair his relationship with the intelligence agencies?  The questions bear on U.S. national security and our concept of the nation.

Supreme Court   Trump said he’d put up a nominee for the Scalia seat that’s been vacant almost a year about two weeks after he takes office. Does he propose a moderate conservative at least some Democrats could vote for or does he put up a right wing zealot, thereby inviting a bruising Senate confirmation battle? Which way he goes may signal something important about how he plans to govern.

Syria/Middle East   Trump never really said during the campaign what he thought about Syria except that it was a “disaster” and he offered vague, almost incoherent ramblings about Assad and the Russians being better for Syria than ISIS. Does Trump have a Syria policy or doesn’t he?  Maybe we’ll find out soon.

Immigration   Will Trump follow through on three promises he made (at least at times he seemed to promise them) during the campaign: (1) banning Muslims from entering the United States; (2) starting mass deportation of undocumented persons in the country illegally; and (3) building a wall between the U. S. and Mexico that would keep out illegal immigrants.  These ideas have legislative and legal components and Trump may not have the last word on them. 

Criminal Justice Reform   Trump didn’t campaign on this issue and it isn’t a high priority for his core supporters. Many of them, in fact, may oppose efforts to reduce incarceration levels and eliminate race based sentencing disparities. His business allies probably like it that private prison companies reap more and more tax dollars from warehousing inmates.  Communities of color, however, care passionately about this, and that concern presents a potential political opportunity for Trump.  He won’t ever get the lion’s share of black and Latino votes, but he could score major points with those groups, and some moderate to progressive whites, by going against type and taking on an issue outside his natural wheelhouse. It would resemble Richard Nixon, the unrepentant cold warrior, visiting China.

Trump and the country, of course, have things other than these seven issues to worry about, including the President’s business conflicts, ISIS, trade policy, voting rights, and many others.  But these seven issues represent headaches and opportunities. Minefields, and a few safe harbors, lie within this constellation.   Your ideas?