I have a few nits to pick with Ezra Klein. Let me begin with a simple assertion he makes:

In 2016, Hillary Clinton tapped Tim Kaine to be her vice president. In 2008, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden. In 2004, John Kerry named John Edwards. In 2000, Al Gore ran with Joe Lieberman. What did all these picks have in common? They were all to the right of the candidate atop the ticket — each of them was meant, at least in part, to mollify voters uncomfortable with either the ideology or the identity of the Democratic nominee.

I don’t think John Edwards was generally perceived to be to the right of John Kerry, and he certainly did not run his campaign for president to Kerry’s right. Their voting records in the Senate reflected the difference in their respective states, with Massachusetts obviously being more liberal than North Carolina, but Kerry did not pick Edwards to mollify the center. He was trying to mollify people on the left who had responded to Edwards’ “Two Americas’ populist pitch.

It really wasn’t that different from what Biden is doing by picking Harris.

Biden’s decision to run alongside Sen. Kamala Harris breaks the trend. Harris is, by any measure, to Biden’s left. The New York Times describes her as “a pragmatic moderate.” But according to the DW-NOMINATE system, which measures the ideology of members of Congress by tracking what they vote for and whom they vote with, Harris has been one of the most liberal members of the Senate since arriving in 2017, sitting reliably alongside Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Cory Booker atop the rankings. In Biden’s final term in the Senate, he was the 26th most liberal member — and the Democratic Party was significantly more conservative then.

Yet, there’s still a problem here. People who are running for president tend to abandon previous moderation in their positions because they are no longer primarily interested in their constituents but rather about winning over the more partisan folks who make up the electorate of primary elections. When they might have voted to confirm a judge or cabinet appointee in the past, they don’t want to have to explain their “lack of backbone” to the activist base. Therefore, all presidential contenders have a tendency to vote in a completely partisan manner in the years leading up to the election. It was common to see roll calls in 2019 where virtually the only Democrats voting no were Harris, Booker, Warren, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar, all of whom were seeking the Democratic nomination. Harris’s voting record might be pretty far to the left in any case, but it’s hard to use this as a reliable metric.

In any case, Harris is hard to pin down. A lot of the progressive left doesn’t like her record as a prosecutor, but just as many love her for the positions she’s championed, or simply for who she is and what she represents. You can’t make simple statements like Biden picked her to placate the left, or to reassure the middle. Wall Street and Silicon Valley are thrilled with Harris, mainly because she isn’t Elizabeth Warren and has not been a crusader for breaking up the Big Tech monopolies. But there are people on the left who sincerely believe that she’s a good pick because she’s more progressive than the alternatives on other issues.

I also think this is strange:

Within the complex narrative that governs campaign politics, Harris came to be seen as the “safe” choice for Biden. But that says more about how American politics has changed than it does about who she is and what she believes. At the turn of the century, a Black, Indian American woman with one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate wouldn’t have been priced in by pundits as the safe pick.

I don’t know how this became the common wisdom, or if it’s really accurate to say that it did. Kamala Harris appears to be a risky pick for all the reasons listed above, especially considering Trump’s success in 2016 in beating a far better prepared and educated woman based largely on his ability to coalesce a backlash against a black president and “smartypants elitists who think they know it all.” On paper, Harris is an ideal opponent for him, but that assumes that he’ll get to re-run the 2016 election, which he won’t.

In truth, Harris isn’t a safe pick. It’s closer to the truth to say she’s a courageous pick. I’m sure Biden tested all the contenders very thoroughly to get a good estimate on how they might affect the results in key battleground states. If Harris had showed up as a major liability, he would not have chosen her, but that doesn’t mean that she’ll be an asset in rural Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.

She’s not far to the left or right in the middle. She will excite some people in the Democratic base and boost turnout with them, and she’ll cost the ticket some votes with other constituencies. There are probably as many or more people who will dislike her for making Mike Pence look stupid in a debate as will celebrate watching him be eviscerated. The most popular kid in school is rarely the smartest.

The most important thing is that Biden wants her and she’s well-credentialed and capable of doing the job. She’s a solid pick, but she’s not a sop to the left or some reassurance to the middle. She’s both more and less than that.