If you’re a conservative, it’s not Kamala Harris you fear. It’s her running mate.
That is, of course, if she chooses the right running mate.
And it’s beginning to look like she could.
Mark Kelly is on the short list of names for the No. 2 spot, and he’s rapidly rising as the popular choice.
On
Monday, Karen Tumulty, the long-respected political writer and
commentator for the Los Angeles Times and now Washington Post, wrote
that “Harris’ smartest selection would be Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.”
Mark Kelly's first careers launched him
Kelly’s third
career would not bring much to the ticket. He’s a neophyte politician. A
first-term senator just beginning to create a record.
But his mind-bending first and second careers as a Navy fighter pilot and a NASA astronaut are his ticket to ride. They earned him entrée to the U.S. Senate in his initial run for office.
Those are
extraordinary things to have done in one’s life, and they bulk up his
profile and make him a legitimate contender for the vice-president spot.
If he gets it, he might one day fly wing to the first woman president
of the United States.
Kelly fought in aerial combat. He flew multiple space missions. He married a United States congresswoman and then devoted his life to her rehabilitation when she was shot in the head and nearly killed.
He has become an evangelist for better gun laws and a safer country, even as he owns many guns and shoots for recreation.
Any
of that would seem exceptional, but there’s something more about him
that makes him not only a powerful antidote to what ails Kamala Harris
and today’s Democratic Party, but makes him a formidable foe to
Republicans.
His mom and dad were cops.
Democrats' problem: They went soft on crime
There’s
a reason Donald Trump has risen from what seemed certain political
death after he provoked the Jan. 6 debacle and refused to accept an
election he lost.
The Democrats also lost their minds.
Across America, you
sense the social contract is broken, that Democratic presidents,
governors, mayors and district attorneys have grown far too lenient on
those who flout our laws.
A
loud and influential minority of progressive Democrats constructed an
insidious ideology on the altar of identity politics that they used to
club police officers across this country. Wokeness pretends America’s
one million cops are the real culprits in our society and must be
humiliated and defunded.
That
brought us — for a time — soaring murder rates in the nation’s biggest
cities, and the metastasizing vagrancy and tent cities that can never be
swept out.
When you do that in big blue cities, you infuriate your own constituents, and moderate Democrats are rising up with independents to recall the progressive DAs who created this dystopia.
They demand less crime, cleaner streets and more cops.
Kelly shines in a law-and-order election
And
they have helped set the mood for the 2024 election. This is a
law-and-order election that favors the Dad party — the Republicans.
We’re
tapped out on Mom, who sees every malcontent as victim and every victim
as child who must be swaddled and smooched by Mom’s generous big
government.
We’re done with that. We’re done with all the word play and feel-good therapy.
It
doesn’t work, for starters. It makes the country more angry and more
divided. We can’t afford it, and there are larger problems on the
horizon that need our attention.
There is no way the son of two police officers from West Orange, N.J., is ever going to denigrate cops.
His mother, a cop, heavily shaped him
Mark
Kelly is particularly proud of his mother, who grew up in the Bronx to
become the first woman to pass the physical at the West Orange Police
Department. Soon after, she became its first woman officer.
And she kept that habit of being first, West Orange police chief James Abbott told NJ.com in
2012. “She would be the first one through the door. She wasn’t afraid
of anything. She’d be the first one in and she always had your back.”
This was the person who had the greatest influence on Mark Kelly’s life. She shaped him.
Forget Mark Kelly: This GOP senator should be Harris' VP
I
don’t expect that to turn him into the brass band for American police
officers, but you can see in him a steadiness that is anchored in
traditional American values that are admired by both Republicans and
Democrats.
If Kelly were the
nominee, America would know there would be someone in the Harris White
House who understands police officers and believes in their mission.
When
the Trump-Vance campaign accuses Harris of hating cops, Kelly could
stand up and say, “I’m the son of cops, don’t educate Americans on
something you know nothing about.”
He can take on Trump in ways Harris can't
That understanding of law and law enforcement would also bolster Kelly on other fronts.
When
the Republicans attack the Biden-Harris record for mass illegal
immigration, Kelly could shoot back, “Where have you been? I’ve lived in
border states much of my adult life. I’ve fought for a stronger
border.”
“We
will solve our border problems without surrendering our decency. You
have to live in the Southwest to know this, but we’re not going to
deport 15 million people. That’s sheer madness. That would be the real
border crisis."
Republicans are giddy at the thought of crushing Kamala Harris in November. They need to get a grip.
If
Harris chooses the Arizonan as her running mate, you can call the
Democrats soft. But Americans will look at Mark Kelly and see a rock. [SOURCE]
