By Jo Freeman

Kamala Harris is a first in many ways as her party's pick as a Vice-President and 'woman of color' being another obvious difference.

What's different this time is the general assumption that she will be the Democratic Party nominee in 2024, with a real possibility of becoming the first woman President. Biden won't run in 2024, whether due to death, defeat, or just age.

Consequently, she will be scrutinized even more thoroughly than Hillary was; especially her appearance. Some men seem to believe that how a woman looks is more important than how she thinks or what she does. 

Kamala Harris during the Kavanaugh hearings for Supreme Court Justice; photo by Jo Freeman, Public Seminar

A long path that led up to this day. The first woman to be nominated for Vice President at a Democratic Convention was Mrs. Leroy Springs of South Carolina. She received 18 delegate votes. Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman governor (WY 1925-27) received 31 delegate votes for Vice President in 1928. Over the decades, other women were similarly honored, which often (not always) gave them a chance to make a speech to the entire convention. 

In 1984 the Democrats finally put a woman on the ticket. 

By then the women’s liberation movement had enveloped the country, changes in convention rules meant women were 50 percent of the delegates and powerful feminist organizations and the women's caucus within the Democratic Party wanted a woman on the ticket. Mondale received the same intense lobbying to choose a woman that Biden encountered to choose a black woman. Both men listened.

Polls before the convention indicated that Geraldine Ferraro would help Mondale win the Presidency, but polls afterwards said she had little impact on the outcome. In reality, it's very unusual for the VP candidate to make much of a difference in the election. At best, the VP candidate brings his or her home state into the electoral college (e.g. LBJ may have brought Texas in 1960). But California is a true-blue state, so that won't happen this time.

It's possible Harris will bring an increase in black votes. Obama got a minority bump in 2008 and 2012. The bump went down when Hillary was the nominee in 2016, even though Obama campaigned for her. Bumps only matter in battleground states.

The choice of Kamala Harris was an inspiration, but the reality is that bold moves by the Democratic ticket won't win this election. Bad moves by the Republican ticket will lose it.

©2020 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com

Jo has published 11 books, including three on women and politics. She has been to 15 Democratic Conventions and 11 Republican Conventions and written about most of them. She won’t be going to the 2020 conventions.

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