Joe Biden came close to picking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to be his running mate instead of Sen. Kamala Harris after a bumpy...
Joe Biden came close to picking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to be his running mate instead of Sen. Kamala Harris after a bumpy campaign during which he condemned her attack on him as 'f***ing bulls***,' according to a new book.
The two women were the only ones to meet twice with Biden as he whittled down a shortlist of six, according to Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Trump by Edward-Isaac Dovere, which was published Tuesday.
But the process dragged on as Biden worried about a lack of chemistry with Harris.
'Two days before Biden announced Harris, he called [Rep. Jim] Clyburn," Dovere wrote.
'A decision that he originally said would be made the first week in August had drifted already well into the second week.
Joe Biden almost picked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to be his running mate, according to a new insider account of his campaign, which claimed he feared Kamala Harris's attack on his race record might prevent them having the sort of close relationship he had enjoyed with President Barack Obama
During a heated exchange during the primary debate in Miami in June 2019, Kamala Harris said she didn't think Joe Biden was 'racist', but suggested he supported racist policies. She also reminded the stage that she benefited from busing as a child
Biden agonized for weeks over his decision and although he was able to forgive Harris for her attack, said the book, he feared it would get in the way of a strong bond
'He knew, he knew, Biden told Clyburn, and though he was almost there, he was struggling.
'"I’m torn," he said, "between my head and my heart.'"
His advisers and the data all pointed to Harris as the best candidate but Biden felt an affinity with Whitmer, who had endorsed Biden by describing how her mother died from the same brain tumor that took the life of his son Beau.
Biden, the book said, wanted to recreate the close relationship he enjoyed with President Barack Obama.
And Biden and Harris had campaign history to get past.
He had been infuriated by her attack on him during a 2019 Democratic primary debate, when she criticized him for describing how he had found common ground during the 1970s with segregationist senators and his opposition to school busing.
She said she found his position 'hurtful.'
'There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,' she said. 'And that little girl was me.'
The book details that during a commercial break, Biden leaned over to then-candidate Pete Buttigieg and said after the exchange with Harris: 'Well, that was some f***ing bulls**t'
Nearly a year later, when Biden became the Democratic nominee, he chose Harris as his running mate and she soon thereafter became the first minority woman to hold the office of vice president. The first and second couples appear here on November 7, 2020 – shortly after winning the election
Biden defended himself but when the producers cut to a commercial break, he leaned over to Pete Buttigieg, the book reports, and said: 'Well. That was some f***ing bulls***.'
A week later, his wife Jill Biden fumed to supporters on a phone call.
'With what he cares about, what he fights for, what he’s committed to, you get up there and call him a racist without basis?" she reportedly said. "Go f*** yourself."
Nor was it forgotten a year later as decision day loomed.
A bitter aide announced on a campaign phone call: 'You know what today is? It’s the one-year anniversary of ‘That Little Girl Was Me."'
Biden was able to forgive Harris for the attack but worried their past would get in the way of the intimate, family-style relationship he wanted to recreate with his VP.
It took Barack Obama to remind him that Biden had called him 'unqualified to be president' during the 2008 campaign.
Eventually he announced he was picking Harris, but not before the tortuous process left some of the candidates feeling as if they had been part of a beauty parade.
'Biden's vision had been to use the vetting process to elevate as many women as possible, boost their careers,' Dovere wrote.
'Because it dragged on so long, with political reporters stuck in lockdown with nothing else to do and no other story to chase, many of the women were left feeling the veepstakes were more like a pageant.'
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