As soon as it became clear that Vice President Harris was going to emerge as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, a certain knowing joke emerged almost simultaneously on social media: images of various \u201cwhites\u201d \u2014 white wines, white paint chips, white crackers \u2014 with captions implying that these were Harris\u2019s vice-presidential choices.<\/p>\n
\u201cKamala\u2019s VP options,\u201d posted one user on X, above an array of cream-colored paint samples labeled \u201cTrustworthy Whites: 40 of our best whites.\u201d \u201cKamala looking for a VP,\u201d wrote another, above a photo of bottles of supermarket white wines labeled with an \u201cInteresting Whites\u201d sign. \u201cKamala\u2019s menu of potential VPs,\u201d posted a third, above a menu featuring descriptions ranging from \u201clight crisp dry whites\u201d to \u201crich whites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d got in on the gag, repurposing the photo of Harris receiving the 2020 call from then-candidate Joe Biden that he had chosen her as his No. 2, with the caption: \u201cHello, is this the Midwest White Guy Emporium?\u201d<\/p>\n
If the tone was wry, it also reflected the near-instantaneous assessment that hardened among lawmakers in Washington, strategists and operatives throughout the country, as well as ordinary voters: that Harris, who is Black and Indian American and if elected would make history as the first female president, must choose someone White as her running mate \u2014 and preferably a White guy.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear who Harris will ultimately alight on as her No. 2. Though the list of would-be contenders is heavy with White men \u2014 Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, to name a few \u2014 a few more diverse options, such as Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, have also appeared.<\/p>\n
But the degree and speed with which the conventional wisdom took hold \u2014 that if she wants to win, Harris must choose a White man as her vice president \u2014 reflects, at its most cynical, that the nation will tolerate only so much deviation from its White male founding, even as the overall political world is more diverse than ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not surprising that the conventional wisdom would be we\u2019ll put a woman at the top of the ticket, but there has to be \u2014 and I\u2019m putting it in quotes here \u2014 \u2018balance,\u2019 which is always part of the equation,\u201d said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.<\/p>\n
When it comes to a barrier-breaking selection, however, Walsh added that a sense of continuity with the past often becomes more important.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor decades, no one worried that there were two men at the top of the ticket. For decades, no one worried that the two people at the top of the ticket were White,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in these moments when you\u2019re looking at a first, I think it is the conventional wisdom to reassure people, to have them think maybe the world isn\u2019t changing quite as fast, to at least see that kind of gender and race \u2014 again, in quotes \u2014 \u2018balance.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In interviews at Harris\u2019s first major campaign rally Tuesday near Milwaukee, many of her supporters said they expected her to pick a White man as her running mate \u2014 reasoning that would give the ticket the broadest appeal.<\/p>\n
Betsy Rowbottom, 53, an interior designer from Milwaukee, said she would love to see Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.),who is Black, or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, as her vice president, but she doesn\u2019t think either has a shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a straight White man from a swing state. I think that\u2019s the balanced ticket, if you will. I think that it\u2019s something that people will want,\u201d Rowbottom said.<\/p>\n
Colette Frederick, a 56-year-old registered nurse from Milwaukee, predicted that Harris would choose Shapiro \u2014 a choice that she would be happy with. She believes Harris will have to choose a straight White man.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just look at what I see America looks like,\u201d Frederick said. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to like this; they\u2019re not going to like that. That\u2019s just my gut. She needs to pick someone that they consider to be acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kimberly Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights for America, a group focused on mobilizing and electing Black women, said that because of racism and sexism \u2014 both latent and overt \u2014 a \u201cWhite statesman as a validator\u201d can help buoy a historic first as the nominee. She pointed to Barack Obama\u2019s selection of Biden as his running mate in 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of the voter\u2019s race \u2014 it is both White voters, voters of color \u2014 there is something comforting or reassuring about having something that looks familiar to what we\u2019ve had for the last 250 years in our nation\u2019s history of elected leadership,\u201d Peeler-Allen said.<\/p>\n
The risk, she added, is that narrowing the candidate pool in that way omits a ton of potential talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is, of course, unfortunate because that framework would rule out a good number of qualified people of color,\u201d Peeler-Allen said. \u201cI think there is a lot of excitement and interest in a possible all-woman ticket, but there is also the possibility that that would be unnerving to some, because we\u2019ve never had a woman president, let alone a woman president and vice president at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, most unofficial lists of whom Harris should pick include few non-White men. There have even been whispers in some corners that Shapiro \u2014 one of the would-be running mates who many Republicans say they privately most fear \u2014 might not be an ideal choice because of his adamant support of Israel in the Gaza conflict, or that being gay could disqualify Buttigieg, who ran for president himself in 2020 and is widely considered one of his party\u2019s best communicators.<\/p>\n
The Atlantic magazine cheekily dubbed this period \u201cKamala Harris\u2019s White-Boy Summer,\u201d offering readers a primer on potential No. 2\u2019s like Democratic Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, and Tim Walz of Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant and co-founder of Purple Strategies, said Harris needs to broaden her appeal, and choosing someone different from herself as her running mate helps her do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Kamala picked someone like her \u2014 another woman \u2014 the message it\u2019s sending is that this campaign is only about this, and that\u2019s too narrow,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s running for president for all of America, not just the women of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that her campaign should not be \u201ca DEI commercial,\u201d using an acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion, and noted that \u201cI do think a little toxic masculinity would help her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s defined a great deal by women\u2019s issues and Black issues, and that\u2019s great, but is she more than that?\u201d Castellanos said. \u201cHow does she make the case that she\u2019s more? By broadening the appeal of her ticket, by adding a male, by adding centrist moderate Democratic credentials, like maybe a Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro.\u201d<\/p>\n
For some, the notion that Harris needs to choose a White male is a practical reality for a party that wants to appeal to a broad swath of voters and have its ticket reflect the entirety of the nation.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director on Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign, pointed to Biden\u2019s pledge that he would choose a woman as his running mate, as well as his pledge during the same period to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that it would bother me more if the calculus had been that Biden also could have picked a White guy, but you need to have balance these days,\u201d Palmieri said. \u201cI have been pleasantly surprised that a lot of male political professionals in the Democratic Party have said they think two women on the ticket would be powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
She concluded: \u201cI actually don\u2019t feel a lack of progress there. If it\u2019s a guy at the top of the ticket, it has to be a woman, and if there\u2019s a woman at the top of the ticket, it has to be a guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wells reported from West Allis, Wis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As soon as it became clear that Vice President Harris was going to emerge as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, a certain knowing joke emerged almost simultaneously on social media: images of various \u201cwhites\u201d \u2014 white wines, white paint chips, white crackers \u2014 with captions implying that these were Harris\u2019s vice-presidential choices. \u201cKamala\u2019s VP options,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}