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There were times when the two spoke more to each other than to their families.
Kamala Harris was the California Attorney General and Beau Biden held the same position in Delaware, where many of the banks she was fighting were headquartered. At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, over a million California households caught in the foreclosure crisis were struggling to keep their homes. For Harris to assist any of them, she needed support from Biden, who oversaw Wilmington, Delaware, the banking industry’s quiet capital. This partnership helped Harris emerge as one of the few political leaders in the country viewed as holding bankers accountable for predatory practices.
Beau Biden stood by Harris until his untimely death in 2015 at the age of 46. Five years later, the man Beau called “Pop” selected Harris as his running mate, forming one of the most improbable partnerships in Democratic politics. When President Joe Biden decided to forgo the nomination this year and pave the way for Harris, it was a payoff for an accidental alliance formed in the early 2010s when two rising Democratic stars aligned and, to the point it has become a well-known fact, actually became genuine friends.
Beau Biden was foremost in Harris’ mind last month when she accepted the elder Biden’s endorsement to be the next President. “I first came to know President Biden through his son, Beau. We were friends from our days working together as attorneys general of our home states,” Harris said. “The qualities Beau revered in his father are the same qualities, the same values, I have seen every single day in Joe’s leadership as President.”
Cliché? Certainly. But it happens to be true.
Up until Beau Biden’s passing, Joe Biden long believed his son had the potential to outshine his own impressive political career. So when the elder Biden picked Harris four years ago this month, it was in no small part due to her true friendship with the younger Biden. As I reported at the time, one question hung over his deliberation more than any other: What Would Beau Do? That’s how Biden arrived at yes for Harris, despite his primary rivalry with her and a skepticism that she truly believed in the vision for America she was pitching in her own White House run.
“I first met Kamala through my son Beau,” Biden said during his roll-out of Harris. “He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought a lot about that as I made this decision. There is no one’s opinion I valued more than Beau’s, and I’m proud to have Kamala standing with me on this campaign.”
Four years later, Joe Biden stepped aside to give Harris her best chance yet at winning the top job in global politics. In big and small ways, it was a moment set up by Beau Biden, who in the early 2000s connected with his colleague in California and decided they would be great partners—and, perhaps, the future of their shared Democratic Party. One succumbed to brain cancer and the other is currently leading Donald Trump in most national polls. What began as a check on banking excesses now stands to be the driving force behind Democratic politics. And, from the outside, it looks like a not entirely bad level of match-making.
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