Opinion | Mark Kelly stands out among potential VP choices for Harris

It’s simple to make an argument for any of them, however I feel Harris’s smartest choice could be Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

Kelly’s credentials start along with his dazzling biography as a combat-tested Navy pilot and NASA astronaut who commanded shuttle missions aboard each the Discovery and Endeavour and traveled greater than 20 million miles in house.

He has additionally turned out to be a supremely skillful politician in a troublesome state the place the Biden-Harris ticket has been operating behind. Kelly received an in depth race in 2020 to fill the unexpired time period of John McCain (R) after which rotated to win it once more two years later — this time, with a extra comfy five-point margin towards a hard-right Republican election conspiracy theorist endorsed by Donald Trump. Kelly considerably outperformed late polls exhibiting him behind within the race. (If Kelly have been to be elected vice chairman, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, would appoint a substitute to function senator till a particular election in 2026.)

Selecting Kelly, who at 60 is roughly the identical age as Harris, would assist inoculate her in areas the place she is more likely to be weak. That begins with immigration. Trump’s marketing campaign has already made clear this could be a line of assault towards Harris. The previous president has labeled her Biden’s “border czar,” an inaccurate description of her portfolio coping with the basis causes of migration from Central America.

Kelly has been crucial of his celebration’s hesitance, till just lately, to take a powerful stand on border safety. However he additionally calls out Republicans for wanting to attain factors on the problem relatively than making progress.

“Once I first acquired to Washington, it didn’t take me lengthy to appreciate that there are a number of Democrats who don’t perceive our southern border and a number of Republicans who simply need to speak about it, don’t essentially need to do something about it, simply need to use it politically,” he informed me shortly after his 2022 victory. “So my strategy has been — to the extent that we may and may — to make progress on securing it, but additionally doing it in a means that’s in accordance with our ethics and our values, to not demonize individuals.”

Kelly retired from NASA and the Navy after a 2011 assassination try at a Tucson grocery retailer left his spouse, then-Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, severely disabled and 6 others lifeless. Whereas overseeing her care as she slowly regained a few of her capability to talk and stroll, Kelly developed a brand new understanding of how this nation’s gun legal guidelines work — and don’t.

“I used to be a gun proprietor, supporter of the Second Modification, as I nonetheless am,” he informed me in a July 2022 interview for a profile I used to be writing about Giffords. “However I didn’t actually know the small print.” The couple based a company that has helped cross wise gun legal guidelines in practically each state.

What many Second Modification supporters don’t notice, Kelly informed me, is “how we make it very easy for criminals and home abusers and people who find themselves dangerously mentally sick to get entry to weapons like no different nation on the planet. No one else does this. Due to it, we’ve got a extremely excessive price of individuals getting shot and other people die.”

Kelly stays a gun proprietor who’s comfy speaking concerning the concern in a means that different Democrats are usually not. I as soon as requested him what number of firearms he has. “In all probability have extra weapons than the common Arizonan,” he replied.

Gun security is a matter that ought to acquire extra prominence once more after a 20-year-old with entry to an AR-style rifle tried to kill Trump at a rally on July 13. Corey Comperatore, a former fireplace chief who was within the viewers, was killed whereas attempting to guard his household, and two others have been severely injured.

Kelly has discovered some fundamentals within the brief time he has been in politics, which he would absolutely convey to a nationwide ticket.

“Whenever you’re operating for the USA Senate or any statewide workplace, you’ve acquired to go and speak to everyone and speak to them about issues they care about, whether or not it’s the price of gasoline or, particularly in Southern Arizona, concerning the border, which is a disaster,” he informed me in 2022. “So don’t run away from the problems.”

He made his title as an astronaut. However in politics, Mark Kelly can let you know, an important factor is to remain near the bottom.