It was the Jewish humor segment of the Democratic convention. And Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, fulfilled his mission perfectly: "My mother is the only person in the whole world who thinks Kamala is the lucky one for marrying me," said the Los Angeles lawyer, 59, to his Jewish parents from Brooklyn in the stands at Chicago's United Center on Tuesday, August 20.
It was humility and pride mixed from the man who has been the first "Second Gentleman" in the US for four years and hopes to become the first "First Gentleman." He started with his childhood, when his father, a Manhattan-based shoe designer from Brooklyn, moved his family to New Jersey. Doug rode his bike, took the bus to Hebrew school and when his family moved to Los Angeles, made money working at McDonald's before studying law in L.A.
Emhoff mainly recounted how he met Kamala, who was already a California prosecutor, on a blind date in 2013. Like a young man already in love, he left his first phone message at 8:30 in the morning. "Never in history has anyone suggested 8:30 am [as the right time to call] and yet that's when I dialed," Emhoff laughed. "Hey, it's Douuug. I'm on my way to an early meeting. Again, it's Doug," he recalled of his words left on the recording. "She makes me listen to it on every anniversary," Emhoff joked.
The wedding came in 2014, the first for Kamala and the second for Doug, who had two children from his first marriage: a girl, Ella, and a boy, Cole. The episode helped introduce the family sequence, as Harris has been attacked by Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, for not having had biological children. Yet, they have always been Kamala's "priorities." "Those of you who belong to blended families know that they can be a little complicated. But as soon as our kids started calling her 'Momala,' I knew we'd be okay," recounted Emhoff.
A few minutes before his speech, his son Cole presented a short video on stage, showing his father in his comical role of "Second Gentleman": alone and masked on the steps of the Capitol emptied due to Covid-19 in 2021; waving like a little girl to his vice president wife in her seat as president of the Senate. "I thought, 'What is my goofy dad doing here?'" Cole said in the voice-over. Doug is gentle, not at all macho, but can be firm, as shown in a video of him escorting an intruder away with a grimace worthy of a Hollywood comedy, which had everyone laughing.
Bottom line, the joy was there that evening. While Republicans have deliberately demonized Harris' explosive laugh. "I love that laugh!" Emhoff shot back.
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