Raised by the Bay: How SF’s political machine led to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign

THE POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE that has made Kamala Harris the Democratic Party’s nominee for president is a San Francisco story that began more than 60 years ago.

The cast of characters includes a chain-smoking, hard-drinking and profane political mastermind; a Polish Jewish activist who fled the Nazis and later became a member of Congress; a Black lawyer and civil rights activist from rural Texas; and the scion of a powerful political family who moved to San Francisco when she got married and made it to Congress in substantial part due to a deathbed endorsement from the refugee-turned-congresswoman.