The final hurdle Kamala Harris had to jump with Joe Biden, supporters of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee agreed, was winning the approval of the person considered his closest political advisor: Valerie Biden Owens, Joe’s younger sister.
Within the Biden political team, “Val”, as she is often called, is considered as close a political operative to Joe Biden as Robert Kennedy was to older brother Jack.
She managed her brother’s first race for the U.S. Senate from Delaware back in 1972. In one of the year’s dramatic upsets, the 29-year-old Biden—who reached the constitutional minimum age for the Senate after the election—unseated two-term Republican Sen. J. Caleb Boggs (who had previously served as the First State’s governor).
In becoming one of the first women to manage a winning Senate race in modern times, Valerie was immediately sought out by candidates nationwide for advice and has worked for the Democratic National Committee and worked with the Women’s Campaign International to assist women candidates in young democracies worldwide.
“I realize Sen. Harris knew Beau [Biden’s late son, who served as attorney general of Delaware while Harris held the same office in California] and that probably had an impact on Joe,” Robert Juliano, longtime restaurant workers’ lobbyist and friend of Biden’s since his first Senate term, told Newsmax, “But she would not have been on the ticket if she was not cleared with Valerie. She’s the one [Biden] would listen to closest on this — just like every other major political move he has made.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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