{"id":13238,"date":"2023-08-07T02:31:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T02:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13238"},"modified":"2023-08-07T02:31:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T02:31:19","slug":"harris-rise-gives-california-a-shot-at-serious-national-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13238","title":{"rendered":"Harris’ rise gives California a shot at serious national power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the first time since Ronald Reagan, a politician from the Golden State is on a major party ticket.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by<\/em> David Siders<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Kamala Harris wasn\u2019t picked for geographic reasons. But in the perpetual power struggle between the East and West, her ascent carried all the signs of a rebalancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time since Ronald Reagan, a Californian is on a major party presidential ticket \u2014 the first time ever for a California Democrat. And as Harris was introduced by Joe Biden as his running mate last week, the West reveled in the prospect of newfound relevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Northeast has basically run America since its inception,\u201d said Gray Davis, the former California governor. But California \u201cis going to be a big part of charting America\u2019s future,\u201d he said, expecting Harris\u2019 rise to \u201caccelerate the speed with which ideas move West to East.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is easy to see how that might happen. If Biden beats Donald Trump and Harris becomes vice president, California\u2019s massive technology, science and entertainment enterprises will gain a more familiar ear in the White House than they\u2019ve had in decades. Even before taking office, Harris would help Biden stand up a government with a Rolodex compiled in the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s only the beginning. Harris is just 55. To the extent that California\u2019s political arc is reflected in her trajectory, it is likely to outlast her tenure as vice president. Fourteen vice presidents have gone on to become president, and Biden \u2014 despite previous failed runs such as Harris now has behind her \u2014 entered the 2020 primary as a favorite almost singularly because of the name recognition and goodwill he built as Barack Obama\u2019s No. 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris, likewise, will almost certainly be considered a frontrunner in the next contested presidential primary, whether in 2024 or 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be hard to be so bullish on the West if Harris wasn\u2019t drawing such feverish public attention and helping Biden to raise millions of dollars in her first days on the ticket. The vice presidency itself, as John Nance Garner once reputedly put it, isn\u2019t \u201cworth a pitcher of warm piss.\u201d And even a president from California could not fully level a power structure that has always bent toward the East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nation\u2019s media and political centers are on the East Coast. Time zone differences force bleary-eyed politicians in the West to rise at 3 a.m. for morning television hits. Flights to Washington are long, and direct flights to other important cities are hard to come by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For California politicians, in particular, there is the state\u2019s own limited attention span for politics to overcome. Before Trump\u2019s election, it was easier for many House members from Los Angeles to get on MSNBC than the local news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For most people in California, said Rose Kapolczynski, a Democratic strategist and adviser to former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, Harris\u2019 predecessor, where the vice president comes from is likely not \u201ctop on the list of their concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Harris may be uniquely qualified to straddle the Western and the Eastern reaches of the United States. She was as much a national figure as a Californian even before a presidential run that Californians, like Democrats elsewhere, never warmed to. Harris was called the \u201cfemale Barack Obama\u201d as long ago as 2010, when she first ran for California attorney general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her rise to prominence in the Senate came as an adversary to Trump, not as a guardian of the state\u2019s more parochial concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Harris truly is the \u201clast voice in the room,\u201d as Biden suggested she would be when he introduced her in Delaware on Wednesday, her influence \u2014 and California\u2019s \u2014 could be profound. Reagan brought Caspar Weinberger, Ed Meese and Lyn Nofziger from California to Washington. And in heavily Democratic California, there are far more Democrats where those figures came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCalifornia has been too often irrelevant in national politics since Ronald Reagan left in 1988,\u201d said Ace Smith, who was a top strategist on Harris\u2019 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a major Californian ascending in a national office, that just has ripple effects,\u201d he said. \u201cMy prediction: More Californians in higher positions in the coming decades than you\u2019ve seen literally since the Reagan era.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In California this week, Democratic politicians who disliked Harris resigned themselves to her success, privately recasting their criticisms of her in more favorable lights. Those who have supported her for years saw their prospects improve. Everyone imagined a Washington that might not sneer at the state\u2019s energy or water challenges, or suggest its wildfires could be prevented by raking<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Describing what he called a Washington \u201cprejudice against California\u201d \u2014 a recoiling from the state\u2019s economic and cultural status in the world \u2014 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said, \u201cI think with a vice president from California, you\u2019re not going to see that kind of disinterest or disdain for the West.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always had, at least in the last half-century, tremendous legislative power,\u201d Schiff said. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, among other influential lawmakers, come from California. \u201cBut what we\u2019ve lacked is power in the executive branch, and with Kamala, we will now have both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not just California poised to gain influence if Biden and Harris win. Though the state is hardly representative of every state west of the Rockies, it does anchor the liberal coast. In Washington, Jamal Raad, a veteran Democratic strategist who advised that state’s governor, Jay Inslee, in his presidential campaign last year, said, “It’s frankly preposterous that it’s taken this long for someone from the West to be chosen for the ticket.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Republicans, the idea of a California Democrat in the White House is a nightmare. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel called Harris \u201can extreme San Francisco liberal,\u201d recalling years of criticism in which Republicans have put down Democrats by yoking them to the liberal reputation of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even that practice is no longer as effective for the GOP as it was a decade ago, when California was in the throes of its budget crisis and its liberal approach to issues such as gay marriage and marijuana were not so broadly accepted elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a tacit acknowledgment of the changing landscape, Trump campaign officials privately expressed before Harris\u2019 selection that they would have preferred Biden pick another contender. Susan Rice, the former national security adviser, would have allowed Trump to relitigate the Benghazi scandal, a major feature of the 2016 presidential campaign. A more progressive selection, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, would have done more than Harris\u2019 California pedigree to paint Biden as beholden to the party\u2019s left flank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geography certainly didn\u2019t factor into Biden\u2019s thinking. California is so heavily Democratic that Biden could have carried the state in November with a stuffed animal as his running mate. And though campaign strategists have largely abandoned the idea that a vice presidential nominee can deliver a major battleground state, had Biden thought he needed a geographical lift, he could have selected Rep. Val Demings of Florida, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, California got Harris. And if she becomes vice president, said Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, \u201cWe\u2019ll have somebody in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019ll benefit California,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is her base.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

David Siders is a national political correspondent for POLITICO.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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