As the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, Doug Emhoff has already made history as America’s first “second gentleman.”
But during a campaign stop in Savannah last week, the former LosAngeles-based entertainment attorney didn’t discuss how he might shape the unprecedented role of “first gentleman” if his wife was elected president next month.
Instead, Emhoff, 60, performed the traditional campaign role that the wives of presidential candidates have served throughout U.S. history. He praised Harris’ strengths and decried the weaknesses of her Republican opponent, Donald Trump.
He was careful, as all surrogates are, not to overshadow the nominee. He was careful, too, to say nothing that would draw controversy or detract from the candidate. What makes his position unprecedented is not what he said or where he visited but the simple fact that his was a traditional role being played by an untraditional player.
Enthusiastic voters, unsuspecting diners
Emhoff’s five-hour visit to Savannah was aimed at energizing Democratic voters rather than making efforts to sway the undecided. He made official stops with young Democrats students at Savannah State University and closed his tour at the Kamala Harris for President campaign office in Garden City.
But while the scheduled stops of the tour remained on script, the spontaneous moments underscored the nation’s partisan divide and the challenges the Democratic ticket and the first gentleman face
For lunch, Emhoff ate at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room on Jones Street, entering through the back door of the popular family-style restaurant to a room full of curious diners. Former president Barack Obama ate there in 2010.
The stop was planned, but the patrons were not screened by the campaign. They were caught off-guard, eating their chicken, biscuits, and greens when Emhoff entered and started shaking hands.
While some diners were thrilled when they recognized who had entered the room, others were less delighted. One table of diners was less than enthusiastic to see Emhoff step into the room.
“At first I thought they said it was Harrison Ford,” said Loretta Kahlor, a Trump supporter from of Washington state. “Then I was like, oh my god. He’s going to see the disgust on my face.”
David Green, visiting from Florida, sat with Kahlor at the table directly in front of the second gentleman. Green had a more measured reaction to Emhoff.
“He was polite. He wasn’t belligerent,” said Green. “I don’t think he was politicking so much as he was saying ‘Hello.’”
But that did not necessarily mean that Green was casting his ballot for Harris. While he dislikes Trump’s manners, he said, he supports his policies.
“I connected with him because he’s a businessman. I didn’t like his rhetoric, but it works,” said Green.
Defining Doug
While Emhoff has broken new historical ground, tradition held sway during Emhoff’s visit to Savannah. His official hosts cast him as all spouses of past presidential candidates have been cast: in relation to their more powerful partner.
“She [Harris] sent the people closest to her. She sent her sister and she sent her man,” Mayor Van Johnson said in introducing Emhoff to an enthusiastic crowd of some 150 people. “And you know, when you want to get a point across, you send your first-grade girl, right, and you send your boo,” slang for one’s romantic partner.
Emhoff embraced his role as Harris’s man, unabashedly stumping for his wife. He spoke to the room off the cuff, rarely relying on his notes and interacting frequently with his audience. He made no jokes about the reversal of the traditional roles, but rather set to work humanizing Harris as a candidate and highlighting her policy points.
He described his first meeting with Harris’s sister Maya Harris, 57, who joined him in Savannah.
“It was basically a job interview,” said Emhoff. “Kamala sent her sister to check me out. Things were going really well, and I knew it was going to work out, but then I had to get through Maya. And that was a toughie.”
In response to Mayor Johnson’s introduction, Emhoff leaned into the new moniker.
“Mayor, thank you so much for your words. What did you call me, her ‘boo’?” said Emhoff. “I’m gonna use that one now.”
What makes a ‘first gentleman?’
As Harris’s “boo,” Emhoff joins a line of political spouses in the public eye. Should he become the first gentleman, he joins a legacy of first ladies whose contributions and reputations have varied but whose gender has not.
While America’s first ladies are often seen as ceremonial, they have not been idle bystanders.
Rosalynn Carter often sat in on cabinet meetings. Eleanor Roosevelt was deeply involved in her husband’s policy making. Lady Bird Johnson transformed the nation’s highways.
But regardless of their contributions, a first lady’s role has always been indelibly inscribed by gender. Any influence on policy has often been controversial. And their most visible contributions are often reduced, in public memory, to the donation of dresses to the Smithsonian Institution and the decoration of the White House.
Yet not only could Emhoff become the first man to hold the title of first spouse. He could also become the first Jewish person to do so — a possibility that has already become comic grist on late-night television.
In a recent episode of the “Saturday Night Live,” Andy Samburg played an exuberant Emhoff, quipping, “And I, for one, can’t wait to decorate the White House for Christmas.The theme will be Hanukkah.”
At the same time, Emhoff has also made some traditional choices as Harris’s political career has progressed.
He has said that the day Harris was asked to be the vice president was the last day he practiced law. It was a sacrifice he hadn’t anticipated, but one he called “a no-brainer” in an interview with Emmanuel Acho.
While he didn’t touch on his career change while in Savannah, Emhoff spoke about how their new roles as candidate and second gentleman had affected his married life.
“There’s not a lot of happy couple time,” Emhoff chuckled to a room of Democratic canvassers. His birthday had been four days before he arrived in Savannah, and Harris’s was the following week.
He suggested, however, they would not be spending their birthdays together. He chalked it up as a sacrifice well worth the stakes of the election.
Befitting the role of potential first spouse, he repeatedly positioned Harris as the candidate of clarity, while Trump was the choice of obfuscation.
“I call it this Trump fog,” he said. “It’s everywhere. It’s pervasive, just so you can’t see the actual truth.”
Unplanned exuberance at Savannah State University
As Emhoff wound up his campaign swing through Savannah and headed towards other battleground states, , another impromptu moment broke into the carefully planned day.
The second gentleman met Savannah State University students gathered in a campus dining hall. The students were not told about his visit, so he was met with quiet shock and surprise when he arrived during a meeting on canvassing.
Emhoff and Maya Harris shook hands and took selfies with the bashful but excited students then returned to their cars. After 15 minutes, Emhoff and Harris returned to the road.
By that time, word of their presence and the motorcade that snaked through campus had spread.
A crowd of over 50 students, held back by a few security guards, had appeared on the lawn opposite Emhoff’s motorcade.
Emhoff and Harris walked past their vehicle and entered the crowd, flanked by Secret Service. The students erupted into applause. They jumped, chanted and raised their phones to capture a video of the second gentleman. Their cheers could be heard throughout the campus quad.
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