Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown has some advice for Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.: If Joe Biden asks you to be his running mate, say no.
In an opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend, Brown — who once dated Harris when he was still married — argued that the vice presidential job would lead nowhere for her.
"Harris is a tested and proven campaigner who will work her backside off to get Biden elected. That said, the vice presidency is not the job she should go for — asking to be considered as attorney general in a Biden administration would be more like it," Brown wrote.
"Historically, the vice presidency has often ended up being a dead end. For every George H.W. Bush, who ascended from the job to the presidency, there's an Al Gore, who never got there."
He added that if Biden defeats President Donald Trump in the November election, "the Democrats will be moving into the White House in the middle of a pandemic and economic recession. The next few years promise to be a very bumpy ride. Barack Obama and the Democrats saved the nation from economic collapse when he took office, and their reward was a blowout loss in the 2010 midterm elections.
"On the other hand, the attorney general has legitimate power. From atop the Justice Department, the boss can make a real mark on everything from police reform to racial justice to prosecuting corporate misdeeds. And the attorney general gets to name every U.S. attorney in the country. That's power."
Harris served as San Francisco's district attorney from 2004 to 2011 and then was California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017 before she took office in the Senate. She is on Biden's list of potential running mates.
Brown said if Harris becomes Biden's attorney general, she would have "enough distance from the White House to still be a viable candidate for the top slot in 2024 or 2028, no matter what the state of the nation."
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