[Kamala Harris\2020 Election]
Spencer Critchley: “Kamala Harris has a very substantive background…Her relative youth helps with concerns about Biden’s age. I would expect her to be very effective in debates, including in the traditional VP candidate role of attack dog.”
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Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate in the 2020 election–making her the first Black female vice presidential pick for a major political party.
And Barack Obama campaign adviser Spencer Critchley called it long ago, having worked alongside Biden in Obama’s 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns.
Critchley, author of Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and How We Can Reunite, knows exactly what won Biden over — and what Biden and Harris have to do to choose to win voters over this November.
“Kamala Harris has a very substantive background as a San Francisco DA, California Attorney General, and Senator, and has shown her skills to the national audience in Congressional hearings and in the primaries. Meanwhile, she has a strong nonverbal presence as well, and it helps that she’s relatively young and — it matters whether we want it to or not — good-looking,” Critchley says.
“Her relative youth helps with concerns about Biden’s age. I would expect her to be very effective in debates, including in the traditional VP candidate role of attack dog. It also helps that having her give up a Senate seat doesn’t put it at risk of being taken over by a Republican, which could happen with other Senators.”
Still, it won’t be a cakewalk for the pair, Critchley warns.
“Her possible disadvantage is that she sometimes seems not to trust her natural charisma and can come across as having over-thought her presentation, which can register to voters as insincerity,” he said. “Her Twitter presence, for example, has always struck me as sounding like someone planning to run for president, even long before she announced.”
