In her new book, former Vice President Kamala Harris said her first choice for a running mate was Pete Buttigieg, but felt it was “too big of a risk.”
In the soon-to-be-released book “107 Days,” Harris recounts her attempt to reach the Oval Office in what ultimately became the shortest campaign in modern history. In it, the former vice president reflects on the choices she made on the trail and how those decisions, in part, shaped her outcome.
According to the Atlantic, Harris considered her friend Pete Buttigieg — a former naval intelligence officer, mayor, and transportation secretary — as a possible running mate.
Early excerpts reveal that Buttigieg was her “first choice,” but she ultimately decided that, as a Black woman, running with a gay man would be asking too much of the American electorate.
Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man,” Harris wrote in a passage shared by political commentator Jonathan Lemire in the Atlantic. “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness.”
Harris went on to choose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for her presidential bid, which ultimately ended in defeat to Donald Trump.
In his article offering an early look at Harris’s book, Lemire noted that she revealed more about her political decision-making than most memoirs typically do. He even described Harris as “much more candid than I usually see in political memoirs.”
“He is a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them,” Harris wrote about Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a Rhodes scholar.
“I love Pete,” she continued. “I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.”
Buttigieg has since responded to Harris’ claims, and told Politico that he was “surprised” by her feelings towards his identity.
“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg said. “You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them. Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.”
Buttigieg also went on to day that his sexuality was “not something that we ever talked about.”
Set for release on Sept. 23, “107 Days” will surely be viewed by some as a first step toward another possible campaign.
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