San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Why Biden couldn’t go wrong picking Harris as running mate
Joe Biden has offered a oneword job description for his vice presidential running mate. “Simpatico.”
What he means is someone to fill the role he enjoyed with President Barack Obama.
Sitting in his West Wing office one day, he explained that role quite graphically. He gestured behind him to the Oval Office around the corner. He said that “five times a day” the president would call him in to get his thinking on something.
This is Joe Biden’s notion of the vice presidency, a fellow politician who has the president’s comfort and trust to help him make the right decisions.
You’ll find none of this in the U.S. Constitution, which had the veep serving mainly as president of the Senate.
President Abraham Lincoln didn’t meet his first vice president until both of them had been elected In 1860. As vice president, Richard Nixon never had an office near the White House but instead spent his days in the Senate Office Building across the hall from Sen. John F. Kennedy.
It was Nixon who changed the vice presidential geography. He put Spiro Agnew in the Executive Office Building across the narrow avenue from the West Wing. It was there that the former Maryland governor was still receiving those manila envelopes with the payoffs from state contractors.
Walter Mondale was the first vice president to have an office in the West Wing itself, and the role of consigliere that comes with it.
In filling that role for the next four years, Joe Biden has had to ask himself a couple of key questions.
First, can he trust the person with his confidence? My old boss, Speaker Tip O’Neill, used to warn us that “the walls have ears.” What’s said in the backroom needs to stay there, he was warning us.
Whoever Biden picks must be capable of keeping his candid remarks in that room. Second, comfort. Joe and Barack had a good chemistry. Despite the gaffes, Obama seemed to appreciate what Biden gave him. That was more than his insight into the personalities of the U.S. Senate. Perhaps more important, it was the streetlevel savvy of a regular middleclass guy from the suburbs.
For these reasons, I believe he will pick Sen. Kamala Harris, DCalif. He didn’t like the way she came at him on the busing issue in their first debate last year. But he has sent clear signals that was last year.
Declaring upfront he will pick a woman was a vital first step. It showed early on his respect for the country’s changing culture. A Democratic ticket composed of two men would miss the chance to show that Joe Biden “gets” it.
The most important signal is what he’s said recently about his late son Beau having become friends with Harris when they were their states’ attorneys general. What Beau felt carries tremendous weight on those issues of trust and comfort.
What’s also important is the statement his selection makes.
Declaring upfront he will pick a woman was a vital first step. It showed early on his respect for the country’s changing culture. A Democratic ticket composed of two men would miss the chance to show that Joe Biden “gets” it.
Picking a woman of color would, of course, make added history. That’s something he’s already displayed the proclivity for. It was Biden, recall, who beat Obama in declaring for samesex marriage. This would be another political breakthrough.
Most important, of course, is what his choice of vice president will say about Joe Biden.
I remember when Obama picked him. What struck me then, with some real emotion, was that finally someone
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who grew up like me, a Catholic guy from the middleclass neighborhoods, had been elevated so high.
What that said about Barack Obama was also memorable. He told the voter that he knew what he had and what he lacked.
A man with an unusual background — an African father and name — could choose this IrishAmerican guy you’d see commuting on the Amtrak. It showed that Obama, who could come off as Ivy League and aloof, could respect a regular Joe.
Biden can do the same. If he picks someone of another gender, another generation, another ethnic background, he will make very much the statement Barack Obama made in picking him.
All this, together, is what I think Joe Biden means when he says “simpatico.” This is why I believe he has already decided to pick Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Chris Matthews, a former San Francisco Chronicle columnist, hosted “Hardball” on MSNBC for 20 years.
You can his weekly column, along with additional commentary, at sfchronicle.com/opinion
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