Joe Picks Kamala

I wanted to share a few thoughts on the Kamala Harris pick.

My first thought is that as with much else about Biden it is – for this moment – a thoroughly conventional pick. She compensates for Biden’s relative lack of demographic match for the coalition that he leads. Biden is old, male and white. Harris is young (at least as presidenting goes), female and black. She also has a recent immigrant background from South Asia. Joe needs a lot of compensating and she provides a lot. Critically, she has run and won three statewide races in the largest state in the union, in addition to running a major presidential primary campaign. So few surprises.