Biographer tells Club of Vice President Harris's little-known trait: empathy 

One trait of Vice President Kamala Harris that is not well known is that she is empathetic and reaches out to people who are feeling some type of pain, veteran California journalist Dan Morain said Jan. 25.

Discussing his new biography, "Kamala’s Way: An American Life,” Morain told a virtual National Press Club Headliners Book Event that Harris has many unscripted moments off camera that people are not aware of.

For example, Morain said, when Harris was the San Francisco district attorney, a law school classmate asked her to write a note to a woman who had supported her campaign and was near death. Instead, Harris went to the nursing home and sat and held the woman’s hand for 20 minutes, Morain said.

Morain added that she also finds time to call people who have lost loved ones on the anniversaries of their deaths.

Morain, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and former editorial director for the Sacramento Bee, has been covering Harris since 1994. He said that one “key ingredient in her rise” from San Francisco district attorney to vice president was her relationship with key Democrats in San Francisco.

As far back as 2007, Morain said, “you could tell she was a star.” She was very charismatic, and she lit up a room when she walked in. The perception of her, he said, was that  she was “overly cautious.” She didn’t take stands on key issues, picked her fights carefully, was strategic, and thought multiple steps ahead, he said, adding that these qualities that set her apart from other politicians and helped her rise.

In 2010 when she ran for California attorney general “you could tell that would not be her final stop,” Morain said. He noted that her opponent, Steve Cooley (R), the Los Angeles County district attorney, was more experienced and a lot of people thought he would win.

The race became nationalized, according to Morain, when a Republican PAC spent more than $1 million to “knock her off" and President Barack Obama held a fundraiser for her. “Clearly people were thinking if she won she would be in play. The assumption was she would run for governor,” said Morain, but Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., retired so Harris ran for the US Senate.

Morain said Harris and Obama had a mutually beneficial relationship in which they helped one another. She organized a fundraiser when he ran for U.S. Senate and he helped her in the attorney general race. Morain said they talked before she decided to run for President. “I don’t know if their relationship helped President Joe Biden pick her for vice president,” but “I sense Obama talked to Biden,” he said.

In discussing Harris’s relationship with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, Morain said that about a year after Beau died his father Joe went to California to address the Democratic State convention. During his speech Biden said Beau and Kamala, whose alliance dated back to her first year as attorney general, were close allies and that mattered to him. He endorsed Harris for Senate over Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif.