8A — THE OBSERVER
THuRSday, auguST 13, 2020
NATION
Biden picks Kamala Harris as running mate
By Kathleen Ronayne
and Will Weissert
Associated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. —
Joe Biden named California
Sen. Kamala Harris as his
running mate, making his-
tory by selecting the first
Black woman to compete
on a major party’s presi-
dential ticket and acknowl-
edging the vital role Black
voters will play in his bid
to defeat President Donald
Trump.
In choosing Harris,
Biden embraced a former
rival from the Democratic
primary who is familiar
with the unique rigor of
a national campaign. The
55-year-old first-term sen-
ator, who is also of South
Asian descent, is one of the
party’s most prominent fig-
ures. She quickly became
a top contender for the No.
2 spot after her own White
House campaign ended.
She appeared with Biden
for the first time as his
running mate at an event
Wednesday near his home
in Wilmington, Delaware.
In announcing the pick
Tuesday, Biden called
Harris a “fearless fighter
for the little guy, and one of
the country’s finest public
servants.” She said Biden
would “unify the Amer-
ican people” and “build an
America that lives up to our
ideals.”
The president told
reporters Tuesday he was “a
little surprised” that Biden
picked Harris, pointing to
their debate stage disputes
during the primary. Trump,
who had donated to her pre-
vious campaigns, argued
she was “about the most
liberal person in the U.S.
Senate.”
“I would have thought
that Biden would have tried
to stay away from that a
little bit,” he said.
Harris’s record as Cal-
ifornia attorney general
and district attorney in San
Francisco was heavily scru-
tinized during the Demo-
cratic primary and turned
away some liberals and
younger Black voters who
saw her as out of step on
issues of racism in the legal
system and police bru-
tality. She declared herself
a “progressive prosecutor”
who backs law enforcement
reforms.
Biden, who spent eight
years as President Barack
Obama’s vice president,
has spent months weighing
who would fill that same
role in his White House.
He pledged in March to
select a woman as his vice
president, easing frustra-
tion among Democrats that
the presidential race would
center on two white men in
their 70s.
Biden’s search was
expansive, including Mas-
sachusetts Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a leading progres-
sive; Florida Rep. Val Dem-
ings, whose impeachment
criticism of Trump won
party plaudits; California
Rep. Karen Bass, who leads
the Congressional Black
Caucus; former Obama
national security adviser
Susan Rice; and Atlanta
Mayor Keisha Lance Bot-
toms, whose passionate
response to unrest in her
city garnered national
attention.
A woman has never
served as president or vice
president in the United
States. Hillary Clinton was
the Democratic presiden-
tial nominee in 2016. Two
women have been nomi-
nated as running mates on
major party tickets: Dem-
ocrat Geraldine Ferraro in
1984 and Republican Sarah
Palin in 2008. Their parties
lost in the general election.
The vice presiden-
tial pick carries increased
significance this year. If
elected, Biden would be 78
when inaugurated in Jan-
uary, the oldest man to ever
assume the presidency. He’s
spoken of himself as a tran-
sitional figure and hasn’t
fully committed to seeking
a second term in 2024.
Harris, born in 1964 to a
Jamaican father and Indian
mother, spent much of her
formative years in Berkeley,
votes of the primary were
cast.
One standout moment
of her presidential cam-
paign came at the expense
of Biden. During a debate,
she said Biden made “very
hurtful” comments about
his past work with seg-
regationist senators and
slammed his opposition to
busing as schools began to
integrate in the 1970s.
“There was a little girl in
California who was a part
of the second class to inte-
grate her public schools,
and she was bused to school
every day,” she said. “And
that little girl was me.”
Shaken by the attack,
Biden called her comments
“a mischaracterization of
my position.”
The exchange resur-
faced recently with a report
that one of Biden’s closest
friends and a co-chair of
his vice presidential vetting
committee, former Con-
necticut Sen. Chris Dodd,
still harbors concerns about
the debate and that Harris
hadn’t expressed regret.
The comments attributed to
Dodd and first reported by
Politico drew condemna-
tion, especially from influ-
ential Democratic women
who said Harris was being
held to a standard that
wouldn’t apply to a man
running for president.
Some Biden confidants
said Harris’ debate attack
did irritate the former
vice president, who had a
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friendly relationship with
her. Harris was also close
with Biden’s late son, Beau,
who served as Delaware
attorney general while
she held the same post in
California.
But Biden and Harris
have since returned to a
warm relationship.
“Joe has empathy, he has
a proven track record of
leadership and more than
ever before we need a pres-
ident of the United States
who understands who the
people are, sees them where
they are, and has a genuine
desire to help and knows
how to fight to get us where
we need to be,” Harris said
at an event for Biden earlier
this summer.
At the same event, she
bluntly assailed Trump,
labeling him a “drug
pusher” for his promo-
tion of the unproven and
much-questioned malaria
drug hydroxychloroquine as
a treatment for the corona-
virus. After Trump tweeted
“when the looting starts, the
shooting starts” in response
to protests about the death
of George Floyd, a Black
man in police custody,
Harris said his remarks “yet
again show what racism
looks like.”
Harris has taken a
tougher stand on policing
since Floyd’s killing. She
co-sponsored legislation in
June that would ban police
from using chokeholds and
no-knock warrants.
Are You Hard of Hearing?
John Minchillo/AP file photo
In this Oct. 15, 2019, file photo, then-Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Har-
ris, D-California, speaks during a Democratic presidential primary debate in Westerville,
Ohio. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden has chosen
Harris as his running mate.
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California. She has often
spoken of the deep bond
she shared with her mother,
whom she has called her
single biggest influence.
Harris won her first
election in 2003 when she
became San Francisco’s dis-
trict attorney. In that post,
she created a reentry pro-
gram for low-level drug
offenders and cracked down
on student truancy.
She was elected Cali-
fornia’s attorney general
in 2010, the first woman
and Black person to hold
the job, and focused on
issues including the fore-
closure crisis. She declined
to defend the state’s Prop-
osition 8, which banned
same-sex marriage and was
later overturned by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
After being elected to
the Senate in 2016, she
quickly gained attention for
her assertive questioning of
Trump administration offi-
cials during congressional
hearings.
Harris launched her
presidential campaign in
early 2019 with the slogan
“Kamala Harris For the
People,” a reference to her
courtroom work. She was
one of the highest-profile
contenders in a crowded
Democratic primary and
attracted 20,000 people to
her first campaign rally in
Oakland.
But the early promise
of her campaign eventu-
ally faded. Her law enforce-
ment background prompted
skepticism from some pro-
gressives, and she strug-
gled to land on a consis-
tent message that resonated
with voters. Facing fund-
raising problems, she
abruptly withdrew from
the race in December 2019,
two months before the first
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