Kamala Harris Deserves Better Than Sexist Criticism About Her Personal Life

The 2020 presidential candidate has faced down creepy gossip about a past relationship for 20 years. It should stop — now.
By Joan Walsh

Democratic women had a lot to cel­e­brate this week­end. With the for­mal entrance of California Senator Kamala Harris to the 2020 pres­i­den­tial race, it was offi­cial: Three of the top prospects are women. Although Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have mere­ly said they’re explor­ing a run, both women drew big crowds on their first trip to Iowa, which holds its first-in-the-nation cau­cus­es next February 3. (Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard has also announced, but she has yet to hold a cam­paign event or con­firm hir­ing staff.) Warren’s strong start led The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs to anoint her as the Iowa “fron­trun­ner,” even as nation­al polls show for­mer vice pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the lead.

Kamala Harris, at least tem­porar­i­ly, blew by Warren on Sunday, draw­ing a crowd of more than 20,000 to her home­town of Oakland, California, for her offi­cial announce­ment. To be fair, since nei­ther Gillibrand nor Warren has declared, they have not yet invest­ed the mon­ey or advance work into stag­ing this kind of super-event. It wasn’t just the ador­ing crowds, though: I’ve been cov­er­ing Harris for 16 years, since her first race for San Francisco dis­trict attor­ney in 2003, and I’ve nev­er seen her so inspir­ing, quot­ing Frederick Douglass and Bobby Kennedy.

“When we have chil­dren in cages cry­ing for their moth­ers and fathers, don’t you dare call it bor­der secu­ri­ty,” she declared mid-speech. “That’s a human-rights abuse and that’s not our America.” I don’t have a can­di­date; I hope to stay neu­tral in this thrilling and his­toric 2020 race at least until 2020 — but Sunday was a great day for Democratic women, who­ev­er you sup­port.
Except when it wasn’t: The day began with the right wing buzzing over a sup­posed bomb­shell from for­mer San Francisco may­or Willie Brown, “con­firm­ing” what has nev­er been a secret, in his gad­fly week­ly col­umn for the San Francisco Chronicle: that he dat­ed Harris in the mid-1990s, when he was run­ning for may­or. “Extramarital affair with Kamala Harris?” Fox News blared. “Former San Francisco Mayor, 84, admits it hap­pened.” Townhall, RedState, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker and a host of oth­er wingnut sites piled on, some more per­vy than oth­ers (I won’t give them the traf­fic by link­ing). But main­stream out­lets picked up the news, too. “Willie Brown on Kamala Harris: ‘We dat­ed. I influ­enced her career,’” USA Today told us. NBC polit­i­cal reporter Jonathan Allen con­fessed on Twitter that “both Republicans & Democrats have whis­pered ‘Willie Brown’ to me in recent weeks when the sub­ject of Harris’ run has come up. That’ll hurt her, they say.” Allen, cor­rect­ly, went on to pre­dict the whis­pers will “back­fire” on Harris’s oppo­nents. But the whis­per­ing — and shout­ing — is appalling, on so many levels. 

For one thing, it shows the short mem­o­ries and/​or dis­turb­ing lazi­ness of many polit­i­cal reporters: Brown can’t “admit” to any­thing that’s been well known in San Francisco polit­i­cal cir­cles since it was going on, in the mid-1990s. Harris’s rela­tion­ship with Brown came up fre­quent­ly when she ran for DA in 2003. In fact, it was an enor­mous issue: She faced down charges that he’d helped her career — and he prob­a­bly did; what suc­cess­ful pol hasn’t had help from some­one pow­er­ful? — and giv­en her two plum state-com­mis­sion assign­ments. Worse than that were the lurid rumors about their rela­tion­ship I heard “on back­ground” — from oth­er Democrats. It was sex­ist and appalling — the sex lives of California Democrats like Brown him­self, and many of his con­tem­po­raries, bur­nished their leg­ends. Harris’s roman­tic past was sup­posed to shame and side­line her. It sick­ened me, and I wrote that at the time. In the end, it was her own work in the San Francisco and Alameda County DA’s offices, not Brown’s “help,” that con­vinced vot­ers to take a chance on Harris, and reject the aging pro­gres­sive incum­bent Terence Hallinan (who was him­self accused of sex­u­al harass­ment by sev­er­al women while he served on the Board of Supervisors; he set­tled with one out of court).
Now, some are claim­ing that Harris is hid­ing her past with Brown; appar­ent­ly, she didn’t men­tion him in her new book, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. Newsflash: This hap­pened almost a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry ago. She was around 30. No one has an oblig­a­tion to dis­cuss the men they dat­ed that long ago. Early in her career, she was open about it: She had to be. The night Brown was elect­ed as may­or she shared the stage, and famous­ly pre­sent­ed him with a base­ball cap embla­zoned “Da Mayor.” (You can eas­i­ly find the pho­to on the Google.)

Others are tak­ing a mor­al­iz­ing approach: Brown was “mar­ried,” so she con­duct­ed an extra­mar­i­tal affair. Newsflash: While liv­ing in the San Francisco Bay Area and even work­ing under Speaker Willie Brown in the California State Assembly, it took me years to learn that the Democratic leader was still mar­ried. That’s because he was a noto­ri­ous wom­an­iz­er, who used to joke that his age, com­bined with his girlfriend’s, could nev­er break 100 (at 84, he bet­ter have relaxed those rules, lest he breaks the law). He nonethe­less remained close to his wife; he report­ed­ly promised he would nev­er divorce her. Still, the late, leg­endary colum­nist San Francisco colum­nist Herb Caen even pre­dict­ed Brown and Harris would mar­ry.
Read more here: https://​www​.then​ation​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​k​a​m​a​l​a​-​h​a​r​r​i​s​-​w​i​l​l​i​e​-​b​r​o​wn/