Will Susan Rice Join Joe Biden On The Democratic Ticket?

Editor’s notes: This is the third in a series on the Black women under consideration for Vice President of the United States, inspired in part by a petition to make history with a sistar. Read first and second in series.

Ambassador Susan Rice is the inside baseball candidate for Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate and may well be one of the most qualified candidates in the field.  She may also be the least known person.

Defining the 55-year-old is tricky business. Hardly anyone agrees on how to characterize the foreign policy expert. Let’s begin where there is consensus even among critics: Rice is frequently described as the smartest person in the room. Given her various rough and tumble roles as a diplomat on a sharp-elbow international stage and positions as a foreign policy advisor to four presidential candidates – Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, Howard Dean and Barack Obama, that is saying something.

Beyond credentials as a graduate of Stanford with masters and doctorate degrees in international relations from Oxford, Rice fits Biden’s criteria for a running mate who is philosophically “simpatico,” “strong” and “ready on Day One.” Rice checks all the boxes.

As the 27^th US Ambassador to the United Nations (2009-2013), she earned the right to be addressed as Ambassador Rice for the rest of her life. The word, “earned,” should be underlined because the United States had 26 ambassadors before President Barack Obama named the first Black woman. Before Rice, three Black men, Andrew Young (1977-1979), Donald McHenry (1979-1981) and Edward Perkins (1992-1993) represented the United States in New York City. She deserves credit for putting in place sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

During Obama’s second term after a failed confirmation process for Secretary of State, she became National Security Advisor. Her office was next to Biden’s office. The presumptive Democratic Nominee for President is reported to have frequently stopped by her office. He also received daily national security briefing from Rice.

In these uncertain times, everyone loves familiarity and comfort. Apparently, so does Biden.

Many labels fit Rice, but most by themselves distort the whole picture. The lesser known descriptions tell a more complete story about her grit and determination: great granddaughter of a slave in South Carolina, granddaughter of Jamaican immigrants, Washingtonian, only child and Rhodes Scholar.

Thought leadership is part of Rice’s DNA. Her great-grandfather, Rev. Walter Allen Simpson Rice, rose from a slave to become the founder of a New Jersey school for Black children, referred to as the “Tuskegee of the North.”  Her mother was one of five children sent to college, in her case Harvard, by parents who immigrated from Jamaica and worked as a janitor and a seamstress. A 2017 obituary, called Lois Dickerson Rice, the “mother of the Pell Grant,” a financial aid program for low-income college students.

Despite a rocky upbringing which she compared to “a civil war battlefield” as she refereed constant arguing between parents, Rice started her own family. She is a mother of a daughter and son and wife of a former ABC producer who is Canadian.

Ironically, Rice’s son, John Rice-Cameron, supports Trump. Adding fodder to critics who ask do we really need this baggage on the ticket? If this is Rice’s Achilles heel, bring it. The criticism has nothing to do with Rice. It is a sideshow for voters tired of an incompetent reality TV star who does not have a coordinated federal response or plan for the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic fallout.

Never fear: Rice is here. All the Black women in the running for the second most powerful position in the world – Representative Karen Bass of California, Senator Kamala Harris of California and Representative Val Demings of Florida – really are the superheroes of this 2020 election cycle, standing up to Donald Trump on behalf of communities.

Two jobs keep Rice plenty busy fighting Trump: author and chair of a coronavirus advisory group for DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. As the author of a 2019 memoir, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, she has blanketed the landscape on TV, podcasts, blogs as well as in print. It is a good platform for a vice presidential candidate who has low name recognition and has never run for office. The book tour also allows Rice to talk about her Sunday talk show circuit regarding the 2012 attack and burning down of the US government consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a favorite topic among critics.

When not promoting big ideas in a New York Times best-seller, Rice puts into practice one of Biden’s key campaign themes, reopening after coronavirus better than before, called Build Back Better. The long-time Democrat joined former US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, a Republican, to co-chair the Reopen DC Advisory Group. According to the news release, the advisory group develops “recommendations on reopening the District safely and sustainably through a plan based in science and tailored to the needs of the community,” according to the news release.”

With over 25 years of government service on the local, federal and international levels, work at the nonprofit Brookings and as a member of the corporate board of Netflix, Rice is more than a match for the Trump White House. Mix in the big ideas and it is easy to understand why Biden considers her a top contender in the race to become the first Black woman Vice President of the United States. She is qualified, but can she help Biden get the votes needed to secure the presidency?

Holli L. Holliday is president of Sisters Lead Sisters Vote, a nonprofit c4 organization for, by and of black women.