CHICAGO (Reuters) – After Kamala Harris secured the Democratic presidential nomination in an unprecedented party upheaval, she got some advice from former President Barack Obama: Tap the campaign talent pool that is out there; you can have anyone you want.
Within days, Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe and other high profile alumni from Obama’s 2008 and 2012 election efforts joined her nascent campaign.
He just wanted her to know that she was in a position to recruit anyone she thought they needed,” said a source familiar with Obama’s and Harris’ conversation.
Democrats have coalesced around Harris as opinion polls swing in the party’s favor, but a month ago some were openly questioning whether she was the right choice to beat Republican candidate Donald Trump when President Joe Biden was forced out of the race after a halting debate performance.
Obama waited to endorse Harris for several days, planning to stay above the fray in case there was a competitive nominating process. When it was clear no significant challengers were coming, he jumped in.
Ex-Obama advisers, including Plouffe and 2012 deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, quickly joined Harris’ campaign, cementing the former president’s imprint on her political operation and underscoring his support for her and his continued influence within the party she now leads.
Obama, 63, the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, has known Harris, 59, for two decades, aides say. They first met at a California fundraiser in 2004.
Both rose in local politics, she as a prosecutor and he as a community organizer and state senator, before entering the U.S. Senate. Both have represented historical firsts – he as the first Black U.S. president, and she as the first woman and first Black and South Asian person to serve as vice president.
Harris was an early supporter of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign when she was San Francisco district attorney, showing up at his campaign launch in Springfield, Illinois, and knocking on doors for him ahead of the Iowa caucus that helped propel him to the nomination.
He admired her work in California, viewing her as tough, but created a stir in 2013 by calling her “by far the best-looking attorney general in the country” at a fundraiser they both attended.
He phoned her later to apologize.
Obama backed Biden’s pick of Harris as vice president, according to a Democrat briefed on Biden’s deliberations. He has kept in regular touch since the 2020 election, aides say. The former president and his wife Michelle have shared dinner with Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, at least a couple times.
