Breaking: news: Joe Biden chooses Kamala Harris as his running mate to run for vice president, Harris the first Black woman to run on a major party presidential ticket in America....Sen. Harris will give the keynote speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest
CLEVELAND, Ohio-U.S. Sen Kamala Harris of California, the only Black woman to seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, was chosen yesterday by presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to run for vice president on his presidential ticket, Harris the first Black woman to run on a major party presidential ticket in America.
A native of Oakland and a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, Harris became the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.
The announcement comes less than a week before the Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug 17 in Milwaukee, and less than three months before the Nov 3 presidential election where Biden faces incumbent president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
Harris is slated to give the keynote speech at the convention, Democratic National Committee officials said Tuesday.
"I am deeply honored and excited," Harris said via a Biden campaign video presentation on Tuesday after Biden chose her as his running mate.
After saying previously that he welcomed Harris on Biden's ticket, Trump tweeted Tuesday that the federal lawmaker is " the most liberal person in the U.S. Senate,' an indication that the president is gearing up his conservative Republican base to take on Harris as too progressive for American values.
A new Monmouth poll of registered voters has Trump lagging behind Biden by 10 points, 41 percent to Biden's 51 percent.
A former longtime U.S. senator who served as vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, Biden said that " Sen. Harris has the capacity to be anything she wants to be."
He said the junior senator out of San Francisco and the only Black woman senator in Congress, is solid and "can be president someday herself."
Former president Barack Obama commented on twitter that Harris, an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., one of the nation's most prominent Black sororities, is a prime choice for vice president and that she "spent her career fighting for the Constitution and for those who needed a fair shake."
Celebrities like LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers weighed in too.
"Congrats and well-deserved Sen Kamala Harris," James said on twitter. "Love to see and support it."
The daughter of Indian and Jamaica immigrants and a former California attorney general, Harris, 55, was selected among more than 10 women aspiring to become vice president that caught the former vice president's eye.
Biden promised to choose a female running-mate during the 11th Democratic Debate on March 15 in Washington, D.C as pressure subsequently mounted by Black leaders and Democrats, and even some mainstream media, for that woman to be a woman of color, preferably a Black woman.
Others on Biden's short list for vice president, most of them Black women, were U.S. Sen Tammy Duckworth, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rep. Val Demings of Florida, former national security adviser Susan Rice, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep Karen Bass of California.
Bass appeared to be a last moment favorite but caught criticism relative to comments about former Cuban president Fidel Castro, though a fraction of key Democratic insiders, including Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and nearly 400 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, lobbied on her behalf, obviously to no avail.
Harris brings a Jewish husband to the White House if she and Biden win in November over President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and two grown stepdaughter and stepson, both of them Jewish also.
An Obama ally, Harris was a known pick in political circles to be the one both Biden and Obama favored, as well as the moderate wing of the Democratic Party.
Hailing from the nation's post populous state, she was the best known on Biden's narrowed list for his vice president choice.
Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee tweeted that "I have tears in my eyes, and I know that women around the nation, women of color, and yes Black women, can see their equal status in this nationally finally. Thank you vice president [former vice president], Biden."
U.S. Rep Marcia Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose 11th congressional district includes Cleveland and a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, endorsed Harris for president, Fudge also a former chair of the CBC.
Whether Harris truly believed she could win the Democratic nomination for president when she entered the race last year is questionable, pundits say, her performance and likability on the campaign trail a plus in winning a slot on her party's 2020 Democratic ticket.
She suspended her presidential campaign last December after fundraising difficulties and consistently low poll numbers in the months leading up to her departure, the senator polling at just 2-4 percent in some polls, a drop from when she surged to second place at 22 percent and within five percentage points of Biden following her spectacular performance during the First Democratic Debate in Miami, Florida.
Upon dropping out of the race for president she told supporters in an email that she could no longer afford the pursuit of the presidency due to a lack of money but that she will continue to fight.
“My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Harris wrote. “But I want to be clear with you: I am still very much in this fight.”
Most notably on the campaign trail for president, Harris raised eyebrows when she took on Biden during the first Democratic debate on race, saying he has fraternized with segregationists and that he should not have opposed court-ordered public school busing plans, busing a 1970s, 80s and 90s phenomenon in place to seek to remedy racial disparities and intentional discrimination against Black children in America's general largely Black public school districts.
And while she may have surged in the polls regarding her dispute with Biden on race during the First Democratic Debate, some Democratic voters, mainly Whites, simply did not like her attacking Biden, 77, her supporters saying she did what debaters do to win.
How quickly we forget, some of those critics now excited about her run for vice president.
Black political pundits said Harris had an uphill battle from the get go to win the presidency because she is both Black and female, and the country has never entertained a woman for president, not to mention a Black woman.
Despite her general appeal and good looks, and her commitment to the Black community on public policy matters of significance, she could not gain inroads into the Black community like Biden to edge toward winning the Democratic nomination, as Biden enjoys widespread support from Black voters, particularly among older Blacks and southern voters.
Running for vice president is a different animal, pundits have said, and Harris fits the profile that U.S Rep James Clyburn originally told CNN that he wanted on the ticket, a woman and "preferably an African-American woman."
A seasoned and respected congressman, Clyburn is Black too, and is credited with reviving Biden's then failing campaign by endorsing him for South Carolina's primary, which Biden won, and never looked back, his campaign saying also that he did not necessarily expect to win in the earlier primaries like in Iowa and in New Hampshire, White voters territory without a doubt.
And while Harris has some baggage regarding some policies she has pushed and positions she may have taken as a former California attorney general from 2011-2017 and Biden wants to distance himself from criticism regarding the 1994 anti-Black crime bill he backed as a then U.S. senator when Bill Clinton was president, pundits say she has the stamina, stage presence and campaign experience to walk with Biden on the campaign trail, and to compliment the Democratic ticket as a candidate for vice president.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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