A Thought Regarding the White Dudes for Harris Zoom Call

A Preview of the Potential Vice Presidential Nominees for Kamala Harris

This past Monday, I attended the controversial “White Dudes for Harris” zoom meeting. And this week I received a “White Dudes for Harris” t-shirt, which I plan to wear with pride.

Frankly, I think the reaction to it on social media has been rather overwrought and completely off the mark.¹

Let’s just be clear. It was not a “segregated” event. The event was open to all Kamala Harris supporters, regardless of race or sex (something that was clear on the promotional materials for the event). No white man who supports Kamala Harris was required to attend the event or prohibited from attending other events for her.

Nor was it a Robin DeAngelo style “Struggle Session” where we were lectured about the evils of white men for which individuals bear collective responsibility for crimes they have not committed. And if it had been, I would have quickly logged off.

Instead, the White Dudes for Harris zoom call functioned effectively as an online telethon fundraiser for the Harris campaign. It also served as a morale boost to white men who are supporting Kamala, a call to arms for white men voting for Kamala to help support the campaign, and a campaign strategy session of sorts.

A good write up of the event was authored by

Mark Sutton

in his recent article "White Dudes for Harris". Only 32% of white men voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Kamala Harris needs to match that number if she’s going to have any chance of defeating Trump. As Sutton points out, if she is able to increase that number, even slightly, it greatly increases her chances of winning.

While some of the speakers on the 3 hour and 20 minute call were race essentialists and spouted off DEI-nonsense talking points (views that they are entitled to have btw), most speakers talked about why they supported Kamala (reasons having little to nothing to do with race or sex) and discussed strategy for persuading other voters, including but not limited to voters who happen to look like them.

As I watched the unhinged response online to White Dudes for Harris, it occurred to me that the six (6) top contenders for Vice President (if the media reports are correct) are all white men.

They are:

1. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro²

2. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

3. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear

4. Arizona Senator Mark Kelly

5. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker

6. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

Whoever is chosen will effectively be a member of White Dudes for Harris (at least four of the contenders spoke on the call).

One of the most important duties that the Vice Presidential nominee will have is persuading voters to vote for Kamala while also avoiding the political landmines of the campaign trail. A Vice Presidential candidate can easily blow up the campaign by veering away from the Presidential candidate’s message or policy platform or by making controversial comments that turn off voters.

As Kamala gets ready to pick one of these white men to be her running mate, I hope she will pick one who has met a key but often overlooked prerequisite for a Presidential candidate to be successful.

Has the Presidential candidate, at some point in their political career before running for President, won an election to an elective office that a candidate from the opposition party had won in the previous election?

What does this mean?

For example, at some point in their political career, a Democratic Presidential candidate ran for the job of City Dog Catcher where in the previous election, voters had elected a Republican to be the City Dog Catcher. Or vice versa.

Alternatively, has a Presidential candidate, at some point in their political career before running for office, won an election to an elective office that a candidate from a different competing ideological wing of that same party had won in the previous election?

This is an equivalent experience pre-requisite for candidates who originally hail from one-party jurisdictions.³

Simply accomplishing the feat of taking a seat from the opposition (a regular political occurrence in a functioning democracy) doesn’t mean that one will one day become President. But having met this basic prerequisite is important for any Presidential candidate who has previously served in elected office before and will likely determine whether one will be successful running for President.⁴

Every elected President since Calvin Coolidge, who held elective office before running for President, has met this pre-requisite.

• Calvin Coolidge (R) - Defeated Democratic incumbent Massachusetts State House Representative Moses M. Bassett for re-election to the 1st Hampshire District in 1906.

• Franklin Roosevelt (D) - Elected to the 26th State Senate District of New York in 1910 replacing Republican State Senator John Schlosser.

• Harry Truman (D) - Defeated Republican incumbent Senator Roscoe Patterson (R-Missouri) for re-election to the United States Senate in 1934.

• John F. Kennedy (D) - Defeated Republican incumbent Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Massachusetts) for re-election to the United States Senate in 1952.

• Lyndon Johnson (D) - Won the 10th Congressional District of Texas in a 1937 special election in 1937. Although he succeeded a fellow Democrat, LBJ was a staunch supporter of FDR’s New Deal, while the predecessor in the seat, Congressman James P. Buchanan (D-Texas), had been a conservative Democrat who opposed much of the New Deal.

• Richard Nixon (R) - Defeated Democratic incumbent Congressman Jerry Voorhis (D-California) for re-election in 1946. He also won the open United States Senate seat held by Democratic Senator Sheridan Downey (D-California) in 1950.

• Jimmy Carter (D) - Won the Governorship of Georgia as a progressive Democrat and anti-segregationist candidate in 1970. In the previous election, a conservative pro-segregation Democrat, Lester Maddox, had won the Governorship.

• Ronald Reagan (R) - Defeated Democratic incumbent California Governor Pat Brown for re-election in 1966.

• George H.W. Bush (R) - Won the 7th Congressional District of Texas in 1966, which had been notionally won by a Democrat in 1964.

• Bill Clinton (D) - Defeated Republican incumbent Arkansas Governor Frank White for re-election in 1982.

• George W. Bush (R) - Defeated Democratic incumbent Texas Governor Ann Richards for re-election in 1994.⁵

• Barack Obama (D) - Won a United States Senate seat in Illinois that had been won by Republican Peter Fitzgerald in 1998.

• Joe Biden (D) - Won the 4th District of the New Castle County Council in 1970, which had been notionally won by a Republican in 1968. He also defeated Republican incumbent Senator J. Caleb Boggs (R-Delaware) for re-election in 1972.

This may seem like a random factoid of useless political trivia. Perhaps it is nothing more than a strange coincidence. However, when looking at Presidential elections over the past several election cycles, this pre-requisite appears relevant to the chances of a Presidential candidate.

In the past 50 years, which Presidential candidates had never won a seat from the political opposition prior to being the Presidential nominee for their party?

• Hillary Clinton (Lost the 2016 General Election)

• Mitt Romney (Lost the 2012 General Election)

• John McCain (Lost the 2008 General Election)

• John Kerry (Lost the 2004 General Election)

• Walter Mondale (Lost the 1984 General Election)

• Gerald Ford (Lost the 1976 General Election)

Each one of them had succeeded incumbents of their same party when they originally won election to office.

Some might note that Kamala Harris has technically never taken a seat from the opposition. This is technically true but she does have an equivalent experience. In overwhelmingly Democratic San Francisco, there is a divide in local politics between Democrats who are grouped by ideology. In San Francisco, Kamala Harris was considered part of the “conservative” wing of the local Democratic Party.

When she ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, she ran on a platform of running a professional District Attorney’s office that focused on prosecuting criminals. She faced two-term progressive incumbent Terry Hallinan who had the formal endorsement of the San Francisco Democratic Party.⁶

Defeating Hallinan in a general election was the equivalent of taking a seat from the opposition party.

I am not enough of a political scientist to fully understand why this is such an important prerequisite or why it has gained more prominence in recent elections.⁷

But my best guess is that it tests whether one has persuasive abilities to actually convince the electorate to change its mind. While anyone can talk about how that can be done, there’s a difference for candidates who actually do it.

Of the Vice Presidential candidates rumored to be under consideration, 5 out of 6 have taken seats from the opposition:

• Josh Shapiro - Won a Republican held Montgomery County Pennsylvania Council seat in 2011 that was held by the Republicans (and flipped control of the Montgomery County Council from Republican control to Democratic control for the first time).

• Mark Kelly - Defeated Republican incumbent Senator Martha McSally (R-Arizona) for re-election in 2020 (a Senate seat that had been won by Republican John McCain in 2016).

• Tim Walz - Defeated Republican incumbent Congressman Gil Gutknecht (R-Minnesota) for re-election in 2006.

• Andy Beshear - Defeated Republican incumbent Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin for re-election in 2019.

• J.B. Pritzker - Defeated Republican incumbent Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner for re-election in 2018.

I don’t know who Harris will pick. But if she picks any of the above five choices, she will pick someone who meets that all-important pre-requisite and has accomplished what she did.

They will have demonstrated the ability to persuade voters to change their minds and come to a different conclusion than they did at the last election. And they have demonstrated their own political experience in surviving the political landmines of the campaign trail.

But what are your thoughts?

Who do you think Kamala Harris should pick as her Vice Presidential running mate? Who on this list is your favorite and who is your least favorite? Is there someone else who’s not on the list who she should pick instead? Who do you think she will pick as her Vice Presidential running mate?

Please let me know in the comments below!

1. The author of this article is an attorney licensed to practice in the State of California and the District of Columbia. This article and all of the works on this Substack page are statements of the opinions of the author, only, and do not constitute legal advice; they are not intended to be relied upon by any individual or entity in any transaction or other legal matter, past, pending, or future. A paid subscription to this Substack page supports the author’s scholarship and provides access to research that the author has compiled, but does not establish an attorney-client relationship. The author does not accept unsolicited requests for legal advice or representation, and this Substack page is not intended as legal advertising. The opinions expressed on this Substack page reflect the personal views of the author only.

2. I acknowledge that there are those who argue that Jews are not “white”. Before we get sidetracked into this debate (and while acknowledging that there are many Jews who are in fact, not white, especially in Israel), I believe Governor Shapiro is an Ashkenazi Jew who identifies as white and that is sufficient for purposes of this article’s analysis.

3. In the old pre-Civil Rights Era deep south, most states tended to only elect Democrats. Today, in most major big cities, only Democrats can get elected. However, there are still often competitive elections where ideology on major issues divides Democrats.

4. This rule obviously does not apply to politicians who run for President who have never sought office before like Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Donald Trump.

5. For those who remember the controversial 2000 election and may be wondering, Al Gore won an election to the U.S. Senate in Tennessee in 1984 that had previously been held by Republican Lamar Baker)

6.

7. In the past, a number of previous infamous Presidential election losers had met this pre-requisite including Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, and Bob Dole.