U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris
At President Joe Biden‘s State of the Union address last Thursday night, many viewers noticed Vice President Kamala Harris seated behind Biden’s right shoulder, looking radiant, mature, and even presidential. This visual was a good reminder that the time for Democrats to raise Vice President Harris’ profile, and to boost her future presidential prospects, is now.
First, it should be noted that being Vice President is often a thankless job. Nearly 100 years ago, then-Vice President John Nance Garner stated that the vice presidency “isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit,” although many historians have indicated that the real word Garner used was not “spit.” More recently, biographer Robert Caro described in detail how Lyndon Johnson went from being one of the most powerful people in America as U.S. Senate Majority Leader, to being left out of nearly all important meetings and decisions as Vice President under President John F. Kennedy.
However, according to Caro, Johnson accepted the job of Kennedy’s vice presidential running mate in large part because he researched and determined that a significant number of presidents did not complete their full terms, usually because they died in office, and that, accordingly, numerous vice presidents had succeeded to the presidency. That is in addition to the vice presidents who went on to win election for president after their predecessors completed their terms. This is exactly what happened to Lyndon Johnson in November 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated. Johnson served the remainder of Kennedy’s term, then went on to win re-election in 1964 by a huge landslide. Since Johnson’s presidency, one Vice President, Gerald Ford, automatically became president in 1974 when President Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment and removal by Congress, and another Vice President, George H.W. Bush, won the presidency after serving two terms in his job. Joe Biden also was elected president after he had completed two terms as vice president under President Obama, with Donald Trump‘s single term taking place after the Obama presidency.
All of this is relevant because, if and when President Biden gets re-elected this November, he will be 81 years old, turning 82 that same month (it should also be noted that Trump is almost the same age, turning 78 this June). Therefore, as a simple actuarial matter, Kamala Harris needs to be prepared for the possibility that she might be called on to step into the presidency at a moment’s notice sometime before January 20, 2029. Additionally or alternatively, Harris will be the likely Democratic presidential front-runner in the 2028 elections.
Therefore, even before the 2024 election takes place, it would behoove Democratic voters to turn some of their attention to Kamala Harris, and raise her profile and status. For starters, VP Harris came to the job with impressive government experience. She was a successful San Francisco District Attorney, followed by two terms as Attorney General of California, then she served as U.S. Senator from California. Harris is known to be very smart, quick-thinking and articulate. Although she and Joe Biden clashed as competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, Biden paid Harris the ultimate compliment after winning the nomination by asking her to join his team as vice presidential running mate, and of course their team went on to win the election handily.
While the media’s cult of the presidency often keeps the spotlight on President Biden, Harris has been given plenty of important jobs as vice president, and likewise has many responsibilities in the current election campaign. One crucial area for Harris is abortion. Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Democrats have fought hard, including at the voting booth, to preserve women’s freedom of choice. VP Harris has led on this issue, fighting for abortion rights as part of “individual freedom” for women, and targeting Donald Trump and the Republicans in the process. Now, Harris is taking a further step: as part of her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, she visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota yesterday, becoming the first U.S. vice president to pay a public visit to a clinic that provides abortion services (note: the vast majority of Planned Parenthood’s services are other types of women’s health services, such as preventive cancer screenings).
Democrats are extremely lucky to have Kamala Harris as a very capable vice president, a forceful advocate for Democratic causes, and a likely 2028 presidential candidate. Now is the time to recognize and publicly support her efforts.
Photo by Maryland GovPics, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/BUNA8v
