So, Again, Why Did Joe Pick Kamala For VP In 2020?

We saw yesterday that, although the conventional wisdom says Joe made a deal with Rep James Clyburn to choose an African-American woman in return for Clyburn's endorsement in the South Carolina primary, Clyburn's version of events was that before the primary, his only ask was that he commit to nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court. CBS News gave another Clyburn account in August 2020, after Joe announced Kamala as his pick:

"I was part of the vetting. Then they were doing polling and I said to him, when all of that's over, you let your head and your heart take a look and you go with that" Clyburn told CBSN anchor Anne-Marie Green. "I spoke to him the day before he reached his conclusion and he said to me at the time, 'I am having a little war between my head and my heart. When that is reconciled, I will give you a call and let you know what my decision is.'"

Clyburn, a close ally of one of Biden's VP candidates Representative Karen Bass, said he supported all 12 women on the short list, including the four African-American women who were "seriously considered."

Again, there's no reference to any specific tit-for-tat here. On March 17, 2020, Politico reported on the early selection process:

Joe Biden’s confirmation of the biggest open secret in politics — that he would pick a woman as his running mate — was just the start of a thorny selection process that touches not only on gender but race, geography, experience and personal chemistry.

The array of choices in play, according to Biden advisers and allies, reflects the competing forces bearing down on Biden as he looks to the general election. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren are top names. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto are also in the mix.

There’s a powerful current of thought in Democratic circles that Biden needs to choose a black woman after African American electorate indisputably revived his campaign in South Carolina and the South. But it’s by no means a certainty.

“I think it’s necessary for it to be a woman and I prefer an African-American woman. That’s my preference,” Majority Whip Jim Clyburn told POLITICO in an interview. Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden before South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary was a transformative moment for the Biden campaign.

But it's hard to avoid thinking the list of all those potential candidates was mostly for public consumption. After Joe annouinced Kamala as his choice in August, CNN had this analysis:

Harris, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year, had been the front-runner to be Biden’s pick for months because, well, she simply made sense.

It goes on with a list of blah-blah reasons, she's experienced, she's from California, she has national exposure, young, historic, blah blah blah. But it continued,

See, if you are Joe Biden, making your third run for president and ahead in virtually every swing state and nationally over President Donald Trump, every day between now and November 3 you want to do nothing that threatens to change the underlying dynamics of the race.

. . . What Biden did is make the pick that maximized his chances of continuing to make the race a straight referendum on Trump while also selecting someone, in Harris, whose resume suggests will be ready to step in if and when Biden decides to step aside.

Reports from that time, though, all suggest Kamala had been the front runner all along. The references to Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, or Gretchen Whitmer were never anything but polite. I also think that in his interviews later in the selection process, Clyburn is probably giving himself more credit than he deserves for influencing Joe's decision -- what we know about Joe at this point is that he's not very smart, and with what intelligence he has, he's not an independent thinker.

In particular, according to Forbes, Kamala had a 20-year alliance with Barack Obama:

Harris endorsed Obama in his primary against Hillary Clinton and volunteered for his campaign, including knocking on doors for him in Iowa, according to multiple outlets.

Days before Obama’s inauguration, comparisons between Harris and Obama gained national attention when journalist Gwen Ifill appeared on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” and said Harris “has a bright future and they call her the ‘female Barack Obama.’”

. . . Harris is floated as a potential replacement for Holder after he announces he’s stepping down; though she publicly said in 2014 she wasn’t interested in the job, Holder told the Post Obama discussed her in 2015 as a possible successor, and the then-attorney general called Harris to “gauge her interest” in the role.

. . . Harris met with Obama twice during her first presidential run in the 2020 primaries and spoke with him by phone, according to CNN, though Obama never formally endorsed a candidate in the race until now-President Joe Biden became the presumptive nominee.

The alliance between Nancy Pelosi and Kamala isn't as clear, but according to USA Today, they both came up through the California Democrat machine:

San Francisco, like many cities, has core political families that shape the political landscape. Harris and Pelosi would both come through what locals call the “Burton-Brown machine.”

Former Democratic Rep. Phil Burton organized a coalition made up of labor, civil rights leaders, and gay and Asian voters to win control of the city from Republicans in the 1950s.

. . . When Burton died of heart failure in 1983, his wife, Sala Burton, succeeded him. Four years later, on her own deathbed, Sala Burton made it clear who she wanted to replace her: Nancy Pelosi.

. . . A few years later, Harris would begin making a name for herself in political circles. A prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney's office, she formed friendships and developed allies within the local political world. Those friendships led to a position in the San Francisco district attorney’s office and a short-lived romantic relationship with Brown, along with several state board positions and involvement in local campaigns.

Harris was elected California attorney general in 2010. Six years later, when Democrat Barbara Boxer retired from the U.S. Senate, Harris ran for that seat and won, placing her in the same office where she interned under Sen. Alan Cranston of California during college.

None of these steps would have taken place without Pelosi's approval as head of the California machine. It's hard for me to avoid thinking Kamala was both Obama's and Pelosi's choice for Biden's running mate in 2020, and this was transmitted to Joe, well before any public announcement.

As we've been seeing, Kamala was regarded by insiders as the front-runner to be vice president nominee in 2020, and she was the front-runner to replace Joe when Joe was forced out last July. Kamala was wired iin as Joe's replacement, as far as I can see, at least from the start of the 2020 primary season. But this raises its own question: Kamala was a disastrous candidate in that same priomary season. She withdrew from the race in December 2019.

Why was she so well-regarded by Pelosi and Obama that they'd wire her in as Joe's presumptive successor from the start?