Kamala Harris doesn't scare Republicans, but Mark Kelly absolutely should

If you’re a conservative, it’s not presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris you fear. It’s her running mate.

That is, of course, if she chooses the right running mate.

And it’s beginning to look like she could.

Mark Kelly is on the short list of names for the No. 2 spot, and he’s rapidly rising as the popular choice.

On Monday, Karen Tumulty, the long-respected political writer and commentator for the Los Angeles Times and now The Washington Post, wrote that Harris’ "smartest selection would be Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.”   

CNN’s special correspondent Jamie Gangel said the Harris team had given her names. The first she mentioned was Kelly, “who I am told (Harris) likes a lot, knows very well, and as we saw ... he has already come out to endorse her publicly. That happened very quickly, and I know their camps speak to each other quite often.” 

Mark Kelly's first careers launched him

Kelly’s third career would not bring much to the ticket. He’s a neophyte politician, a first-term senator just beginning to create a record.

Even so, his mind-bending first and second careers as a Navy fighter pilot and a NASA astronaut are his ticket to ride. They earned him entrée to the U.S. Senate in his initial run for office.

Those are extraordinary things to have done in one’s life, and they bulk up his profile and make him a legitimate contender for the vice presidential spot. If he gets it, he might one day fly wing to the first woman president of the United States. 

Kelly fought in aerial combat. He flew multiple space missions. He married a U.S. congresswoman and then devoted his life to her rehabilitation after she was shot in the head and nearly killed.

He has become an evangelist for better gun laws and a safer country, even as he owns guns and shoots for recreation.

Any of that would seem exceptional, but there’s something more about him that makes him not only a powerful antidote to what ails Harris and today’s Democratic Party, but also makes him a formidable foe to Republicans. 

His mom and dad were cops.

Democrats' problem: They went soft on crime

There’s a reason Donald Trump has risen from what seemed certain political death after he refused to accept that he lost the 2020 presidential election and provoked the U.S. Capitol debacle on Jan. 6, 2021.

Across America, you sense that the social contract is broken, that Democratic presidents, governors, mayors and district attorneys have grown far too lenient on those who flout our laws.

A loud and influential minority of progressive Democrats constructed an insidious ideology on the altar of identity politics that they used to club police officers across this country. Wokeness pretends America’s nearly 1 million cops are the real culprits in our society and must be humiliated and defunded.

Who will Harris pick for vice president?Why Shapiro and Whitmer aren't the answers.

That brought us – for a time – soaring murder rates in the nation’s biggest cities, and the metastasizing vagrancy and tent cities that can never be swept out. 

When you do that in big blue cities, you infuriate your own constituents, and moderate Democrats are rising up with independents to recall the progressive district attorneys who created this dystopia. 

They demand less crime, cleaner streets and more cops. 

Kelly shines in a law-and-order election

And they have helped set the mood for the 2024 election. This is a law-and-order election that favors the Dad party – the Republicans. 

We’re tapped out on Mom, who sees every malcontent as victim and every victim as child who must be swaddled and smooched by Mom’s generous big government.

We’re done with that. We’re done with all the word play and feel-good therapy.

It doesn’t work, for starters. It makes the country more angry and more divided. We can’t afford it, and there are larger problems on the horizon that need our attention.

There is no way the son of two police officers from West Orange, New Jersey, is ever going to denigrate cops.

His mother, a cop, heavily shaped him

Kelly is particularly proud of his mother, who grew up in the Bronx to become the first woman to pass the physical fitness test at the West Orange Police Department. Soon after, she became its first woman officer. 

And she kept that habit of being first, West Orange Police Chief James Abbott told NJ.com in 2012: “She would be the first one through the door. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She’d be the first one in and she always had your back.” 

This was the person who had the greatest influence on Kelly’s life. She shaped him.

Harris' VP options:Republicans, pay attention to who Harris picks for VP. One of them should scare us.

I don’t expect that to turn him into the brass band for American police officers, but you can see in him a steadiness that is anchored in traditional American values that are admired by both Republicans and Democrats. 

If Kelly were the nominee, America would know there would be someone in the Harris White House who understands police officers and believes in their mission.

When the Trump-Vance campaign accuses Harris of hating cops, Kelly could stand up and say, “I’m the son of cops, don’t educate Americans on something you know nothing about.” 

Mark Kelly can take on Trump in ways Harris can't

That understanding of law and law enforcement would also bolster Kelly on other fronts.

When the Republicans attack the Biden-Harris record for mass illegal immigration, Kelly could shoot back, “Where have you been? I’ve lived in border states much of my adult life. I’ve fought for a stronger border.” 

“We will solve our border problems without surrendering our decency. You have to live in the Southwest to know this, but we’re not going to deport 15 million people. That’s sheer madness. That would be the real border crisis."

Republicans are giddy at the thought of crushing Kamala Harris in November. They need to get a grip. 

If Harris chooses the Arizonan as her running mate, you can call the Democrats soft. But Americans will look at Mark Kelly and see a rock.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with the Arizona Republic, where this column originally appeared. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com