Biden’s running mate pick an ‘enormously important moment’

In the bicentennial summer of 1976, Houston Congresswoman Barbara Jordan stepped to the podium at the Democratic National Convention in New York City to extended applause and reminded a national TV audience of the uniqueness of the moment.

“There is something different about tonight. There is something special about tonight. What is different, what is special — I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker,” said Jordan, the first African American woman to deliver a keynote address at a party convention.

It was a different era. The delegates gathered in person, which won’t be the case during this summer’s party conventions because of concerns about COVID-19. Some of the attendees were smoking inside, to boot. But the message Jordan delivered was one that still resonates.

“My presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American dream need not forever be deferred,” said Jordan, who was also the first Black woman from the South elected to Congress. If that was a moment to remember, so was Tuesday, when former Vice President Joe Biden announced that he had asked California Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate — the first Black woman on a major party ticket.

In recent years, many may have had occasion to wonder if the American dream that Jordan spoke of was always just that — a vision, a fiction, a story about what the world might be like, if untethered from what the world actually is. But Biden’s announcement revived the hopes of many.

“Excitement, excitement, excitement, excitement,” said Cynthia Ginyard, the chairwoman of the Fort Bend County Democratic Party, summarizing the reactions she had heard from friends and family.

“We are pleased that we have a woman on the ticket,” Ginyard continued. “We are very, very pleased about that. We are

pleased that we have a person who can cut the mustard — who can handle it, who’s been out there, who’s been in the trenches, so she knows what that’s like.”

“Also, we are pleased that it is a woman of color,” added Ginyard, who is Black, noting that Harris is Asian American as well as Black; her father was an immigrant from Jamaica, her mother from India.

Ginyard wasn’t the only Texas Democrat feeling this way. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, the longest-serving African American and woman in Texas legislative history, described herself as “elated” in a statement.

“Senator Kamala Harris is an outstanding, reputable leader who is bound to make history not only as the first Black Woman Vice President, but as an unprecedented fighter for Americans all across our country,” said Thompson, who is also a potential contender for Texas House speaker should Democrats retake control of the chamber this fall.

Harris, 55, certainly has the kind of resume one would look for in a vice president. A prosecutor by background, Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco prior to becoming attorney general of the nation’s most populous state.

She has earned a reputation for intelligence and toughness since being elected to the Senate in 2016, including a memorable grilling of Attorney General William Barr over his characterization of the Mueller report. And when she announced her own bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, even her detractors acknowledged she was a credible and formidable candidate.

Although Harris struggled with fundraising and messaging, ultimately dropping out of the crowded field before voting began, she did make a splash. In a June 2019 debate, she directly challenged Biden over his record of having once opposed the federally mandated busing of children to schools, as a way to desegregate them.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day,” said Harris, at the Democratic debate in Miami. “That little girl was me.”

The exchange left Biden flustered, and led many pundits later to discount Harris’ chances of joining the ticket. Indeed, according to reports, some of Biden’s advisers argued against Harris on the basis that she was “too ambitious” — an accusation that any woman who aspires to high office can expect to have leveled against her.

To Biden’s credit, he ultimately wasn’t fazed or threatened by Harris’ confidence.

“The selection of Senator Harris is about more than checking off the right boxes,” said Sonia Van Meter, a Democratic political consultant based in Austin. “It also indicates that Vice President Biden wants to bring a sense of unity back to the United States. In picking the opponent who came for him hardest during the primary, he’s reminding us that after the political battles are over, we’re still one nation.”

It’s hard to imagine President Donald Trump putting a former rival in a position of power in his administration, or otherwise sending that same message.

With the presidential election less than three months away, Harris can expect fierce attacks from the right and intense scrutiny of her record. Already, Republicans — and Democrats — have raised questions about her record on civil liberties while serving as a prosecutor and as California’s top law enforcement official. Trump on Tuesday tweeted out a campaign video saying said she was part of the “radical left.”

On Tuesday, however, observers took a moment to reflect on other aspects of Harris’ selection. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, told CNN that it had been a day of reflection — and tears.

“Today it is evident that there is an affirmation, not only of Black women, but women of Southeast Asia, women of color, that they have finally reached a status where they are affirmed in this nation as equal partners. And this mountain that we have all been trying to climb, Kamala has now taken us to the mountaintop,” Jackson Lee said. “It is an enormously important moment”

Harris is of course not the first woman to serve on a major party ticket as running mate. The late New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fell short in her 2008 bid on the GOP side for the office that Biden ultimately won.

The difference between those years and now is Biden has been leading in national polls for some time, making the chances of electing a female vice president very real.

Republicans, dyspeptic as they are about their party’s prospects in November, may think that Biden’s choice of Harris is nothing more than rank identity politics, but they should be aware that representation actually does matter.

“It takes those Barbara Jordans to tread the path, so the Kamalas of the world can walk through the path,” Ginyard said Thursday evening.

“All I can say is, she must be smiling from above, because Kamala and so many of us are standing on her shoulders. I know she is saying, ‘Job well done.’”