It was simply after midday on a Wednesday. The US Senate, identified for its obnoxiously lengthy votes, was 42 minutes into the primary one of many day. Beneath the tough glow of the fluorescent lights within the Capitol basement, senators and their workers shuffled to and from the elevators that will carry them as much as the doorways of the Senate chamber.
Immediately, there is a shuffle. Somebody essential is coming by way of. A pair of photographers scramble into place to get their shot. Sometimes, this kind of factor precedes the arrival of somebody who’s been an object of the information cycle. Suppose Sen. Joe Manchin within the midst of Democrats’ struggles to go social spending laws throughout the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, or former Rep. George Santos in his early days on Capitol Hill. I crane my neck to get a glimpse of who it may be. It is Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.
Kelly is the one and solely member of america Senate who has made it onto Vice President Kamala Harris’s shortlist of potential working mates. Immediately, Arizona’s mild-mannered junior senator is beneath a large microscope. “Mark Kelly, potential VP decide, plans to be in Arizona subsequent week,” reads a POLITICO headline from the previous few days. (The Harris marketing campaign is planning a blitz throughout a number of swing states together with her yet-to-be-announced working mate subsequent week. Kelly had stated that “proper now” he deliberate to be in his dwelling state.)
Like the remainder of the veep candidates, Kelly is caught in probably the most rushed vice presidential vetting course of in fashionable American historical past, the place auditions have taken the type of cable information hits and amped-up social media presences. Not like the remainder of the candidates, he is been doing it whereas holding a job that requires him to come across reporters a number of instances per day on the way in which to forged votes.
Immediately, he is been on the cellphone so much. Immediately, the Arizona senator’s Black Tesla exterior the Capitol is a longtime stake-out spot. It is a pure draw for a Capitol Hill press corps whose consideration has turned sharply towards a radically remodeled (and abruptly thrilling) presidential election. JD Vance should still be a senator, however Donald Trump’s new working mate hasn’t been seen on the Capitol in weeks. With Kelly, you are trying on the potential reply to the final huge remaining query in regards to the presidential election.
The media frenzy is an odd match for the Arizona senator, whose fame throughout his lower than 4 years within the higher chamber has been that of a low-key, uncombative workhorse who’s not precisely a go-to quote for reporters.
“He is the only most unflappable particular person I’ve ever met,” Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii instructed me. “He is simply not an individual who will get overly excited in a single route or the opposite. He trusts his personal preparation. He’s, I am not exaggerating, probably the most even-keeled politician I’ve ever met.”
A much less flattering manner of placing it’s that Kelly is sort of boring.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Pictures
Being boring is not essentially a nasty factor. The Senate is filled with boring folks. Politicians are in all probability slightly too looking forward to the limelight nowadays. And being bland and unoffensive is what’s helped Kelly win two successive Senate elections in a state that is steadily turning purple. That was very true when he confronted down Blake Masters — one of many GOP’s extra out-there Senate candidates — in 2022.
The traditional knowledge about Kelly is that, as a border-state senator, he would possibly be capable to shore up Democrats’ credibility on immigration and border safety. He additionally could also be match to go toe-to-toe with Vance, since he handily defeated the same candidate simply two years in the past. He might assist Harris win Arizona’s 11 Electoral School votes. And there is his distinctive biography: An ex-astronaut who’s married to former Rep. Gabby Giffords, the sufferer of an assassination try in 2011.
“Kelly would deliver so much to the desk,” Sen. Tim Kaine instructed me. The Virginia senator, who served as Hillary Clinton’s working mate in 2016, went on to record Kelly’s belongings in a matter-of-fact manner. “Baby of two law enforcement officials. Service provider Marine Academy grad. Navy fighter pilot. Astronaut, which means he has great nationwide safety experience. Battleground state with a Democratic governor, so he would not surrender the Senate seat. In a state that has a contested Senate race the place his presence on the ticket may very well be useful, and a really compelling private story, not solely when it comes to his personal public service background, however his intimate familiarity with the tragedy of American gun violence.”
Allison Bailey/Center East Pictures/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
The one apparent weak spot for Kelly is that he is by no means been a partisan warrior, a task that vice presidential candidates are sometimes anticipated to play. It is a posture that different contenders have taken on gleefully, whether or not it was Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz primarily pioneering the “bizarre” epithet in opposition to Republicans or Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declaring that Vance “ain’t from” his state. Kelly’s attempting it out too, making appearances on cable information exhibits and giving spicier-than-usual quotes to reporters across the Capitol. However he stays the soft-spoken man he is been since he arrived on Capitol Hill.
Leaving the primary vote of the day on Thursday, Kelly had a transparent shot to an idle Senate subway automobile, which might have whisked him again to his workplace and away from the badgering questions of a hungry press corps. In a number of hours, senators could be leaving city till after Labor Day.
Then, he was intercepted by some interns. They needed selfies. By the point he was completed, the prepare was pulling away, and he was caught ready with a gaggle of about twelve reporters. One reporter requested him about Trump’s newest assaults on Harris. Kelly known as the previous president “determined.” It was a line he’d already used a few instances earlier than.
“People have a, you realize, choice between a relic from the previous, and someone who’s going to steer this nation into the longer term and produce down the value of, you realize, prescribed drugs additional, and assist scale back the price of childcare, enhance well being care, so many points the American folks care about,” Kelly stated. “It is so apparent that she’s the particular person to deliver us into the longer term.”
Bryan Metzger
He did not appear keen to stay round, and the prepare was approaching. Would he be going dwelling to Arizona in any case? “I am not going to be discussing my schedule,” Kelly replied. Had he met with Harris’s vetting crew? “I am not going to speak about any of that,” he stated.
“This is not about me,” Kelly stated because the doorways closed on him, repeating his inventory response to the questions on his sudden vice presidential candidacy. “That is about beating Donald Trump.”
