Politico: “In 1984, Walter Mondale lagged incumbent president Ronald Reagan 16 points in the polls when he decided to ‘shake things up,’ as he later put it, by picking three-term New York congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. Ferraro—the first ever female VP nominee of a major party—gave Mondale an initial boost, but the pair crashed to defeat after a bruising campaign with just 13 electoral votes in November. In 2008, Senator John McCain had been consistently trailing newbie Senator Barack Obama when he chose little-known Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his No. 2. It was a gambit, a ‘Hail Mary’ pass, recalls Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics—one that thudded to the ground on Election Day.”

“But this time is different. Unlike Mondale and McCain, Joe Biden is leading President Donald Trump in the polls and has a decent chance of winning in November. His choice of Harris is not a desperate ploy to save a flailing campaign. And this time, no one is hoping for her to pull off an impossible salvage job. In fact, as historic as Harris is—she’s the first women of color on a major party presidential ticket—Biden’s reasoning in picking her was fairly conventional: The choice is a nod to (and an attempt to energize) very important segments of the Democratic base, a signal about the future of the party, a recognition of what he’s lacking and a statement of his own values. Those are fairly standard VP checkboxes; for once, a female running mate has been approved by the same criteria that have boosted white males for centuries. ‘In those other two races it felt like a novelty,’ says Walsh. ‘And this time around it felt like, ‘Of course this is what he needs to do.’'”