The Los Angeles Times - The LA Times Endorses Kamala Harris for U.S. Senate

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By Editorial Board

Two undeniable facts about the race to succeed Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate: It's been decidedly dull so far. And it's been dull even though there are 34 candidates on the ballot.

Certainly, the Senate race has been overshadowed by the wild-and-crazy presidential primaries, which have defied prediction and common sense time and again. The leading Senate candidates, by contrast, have hewed for the most part to the usual party lines.

But another reason there's been so little attention paid to the Senate race -- the first open Senate seat in California in more than 20 years -- is that there's a sense of inevitability about the outcome. Even most of the candidates acknowledge that California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris is expected to be the top vote-getter in the first round and that the real race is for second place, to challenge Harris again in November.

That sense of inevitability isn't unwarranted. Harris was the first to enter the race, just days after Boxer announced her retirement. Harris has the state Democratic Party endorsement, and has raised three times as much money as her nearest competitor. What's more, Harris is the strongest candidate in a field that is wide but not deep.

The Times recommends Harris, who is the candidate most likely to become the thoughtful, persuasive voice California needs in D.C. -- if she's willing to throw herself fully into the job, rather than working with one eye always focused on her next career step.

She is a former district attorney of San Francisco, who narrowly won her race for attorney general in 2010. As a rising star in the Democratic Party, she was given a prime-time speech at the 2012 Democratic convention and was even rumored as a possible successor to Justice Antonin Scalia. She would be the first black and the first South Asian senator from California.

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