It's going to be a woman. I know many, many people are hyping Stacey Abrams, but her highest office was minority leader in the Georgia state legislature. Plus, isn't there a personal bankruptcy or something in her background? Risky, risky pick. I'm a huge fan of Val Demings's selection. She's in a swing state, and she was impressive during the impeachment trial. The latter has the advantage of drawing Trump into relitigating impeachment in his inimitable insane way. However, she is 63 years old. That's not generational change, and if Biden wants to serve 2 terms, do we really want a 71 year old running in 2028? OTOH, if he's going to serve 1 term, she's fine. Tammy Duckworth is interesting. However, I'm concerned about the optics of picking a woman of color whose color is not brown. The New Mexico governor, Michelle LUJAN Grisham, is interesting; she might help flip Arizona. But she's only 2 years younger than Demings, and I have the same concerns. I love me some Elizabeth Warren, but she's 6 years older than Val Demings, so even under a 1 term scenario she's problematic. Kamala Harris would be a massive help with fundraising, if that ends up being a concern. I really like her style; I think she connects with people and that makes her a good presidential candidate in the future. She comes from that last state the Dems need help in. OTOH, she has been through the process; either James Carville or Paul Begala have the theory that the best VP selections are people who have already run for president. Whichever one it was believed that if she has a skeleton in the closet, the media will be too embarrassed to have missed it the first time to overreport it. A negative is that she seems to have leaned too much on her sister when it came to managing her campaign. Tammy Baldwin is interesting. She seems to be popular in Wisconsin. Her lesbianism gives me preschadenfreude at the freakout. Don't know how her whiteness and sexuality would play with black voters. I'm a hard no on Amy Klobuchar. She would have been fine as a presidential nominee, but the Dem zeitgeist is too revolutionary for a ticket of her and Biden. NC is gettable, but there aren't any women right now who have enough stature. Thoughts?
Good review of the different candidates. You have cover all the main ones to the exception of Susan Rice who is in contention as well and is an impressive woman by all regards. I was a big fan of Stacy A but her aggressive campaign for the position is a bit off putting as far as I am concerned. Kamala is the No 1 on my list now for a number of reasons. She is strong fundraiser, coming from California. She is smart, strong and charismatic. She can motivate and energize a vital part of the Democratic base, AA and particularly black women. She is experienced as well as the AG of the richest state of the union and a US Senator. Having said that, I would be fine with any of those women. They are all qualified for the role. My top 5 by preference: - Kamala - Susan Rice - Warren -Stacy - Amy.
re: Kamala, on paper she's the best choice for a couple of reasons. She's young(ish), looks good, a woman of color, has a national profile, and comes from a seat that will automatically be filled by another democrat. There is a risk with almost everyone else being seriously considered/mentioned that the replacement would end up in the wrong hands. The underlying issues, though, are that she doesn't poll all that well with black women – not even close to Stacy Abrams – and she's public enemy No. 1 among the left. Whether you care about that or not, it's hard to imagine a ticket that would get the left up in arms more than Biden/Harris. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's a concern. The other issue is that for someone with her prosecutorial and campaigning record she just never really had a moment on the trail last winter. I don't actually think she connected all that well, and to me she felt a little bit John Edwards-y – i.e., out of her depth. re: Kloubachar, hard no. We're going to win Minnesota and she helps nowhere/nothing else. re: Baldwin, she'd be great but I'm pretty convinced we'd lose her seat in the subsequent special election. Not worth it. re: Duckworth, she's a great choice for a lot of reasons, though I do share many of your concerns. Still, she's where the longshot money goes. re: Warren, she'd make the best president and that's something to really think hard on given Biden's age. But everything you point out is true, and given that her supporters (I am one of them) are going to vote no matter what, and that she has high negatives, I think she might hurt the ticket more than help it. Which breaks my heart. re: Lujan-Grisham, another very good darkhorse candidate, and while we might lose the governor's mansion if she was VP... meh. It's only New Mexico. The issue, though, is that she doesn't speak Spanish. If she did I think she'd be a top three pick. re: Catherine Cortez-Masto, she's quietly been a very good senator and would be a good pick, but like Lujan-Grisham she speaks no Spanish. And while I think we'd be able to replace her with another democrat if she's on the ticket, it's no more than a 60/40 proposition. You willing to risk a senate seat for that? re: Demmings, she's impressive and incisive in the way that I kept wanting Harris to be, and she will obviously play well with the corest of the core democratic constituency. She's also a cop, which might upset the left – though there doesn't seem to be the visceral hatred of her that there is of Kamala. re: Gretchen Whitmer, she's come out and said she's not getting it but I don't quite believe her. She's got great approval ratings in an important state, and she's young & attractive (which doesn't matter to me, but does to the voters). Trump *hates* her, which is fun. He'll lose his mind. But I think we'd lose the governor's mansion in Michigan, which would be a major blow. If she was a person of color, I'd say it would be worth it. But as is, I can't quite get there. re: Abrams, I frankly like that she's campaigning for the spot. She's impressive as hell on camera and her personal Q rating with black folk is through the roof. Given there are two senate seats up in Georgia, one in North Carolina, one in South Carolina, and Florida, Georgia and NC are all swing states... man. If she just had a little bit more experience she'd be it. I'm not sure lack of experience is entirely disqualifying, but it does feel like a bridge too far at this point – which is a shame, because I want those senate seats! Given all that my money is on Kamala. It's the safest play, and everything about the Biden campaign has been about "hey we're not rocking any boats here, let's just get back to when things were good." I don't know if that's what I'd do, but it worked in the primary. So maybe I'm dumb and they're smart. Anyone else we're not mentioning here? It won't be Gillibrand, and we know it's not going to be a guy. So I think it's narrowed down to the above list.
My Senator Tammy Duckworth was born in Bangkok Thailand, so that MIGHT be a problem. She did not move to US until she was 16. Other than that, she would be awesome. Her crushing of Joe Walsh was amazing. He was such a dick to her, it was excruciating.
It was indeed....Having said that, have you seen or heard from Joe Walsh lately? It is like he finally found Jesus....
Honestly, it is almost an embarrassment of riches for Joe. The D's have a really good bench and to be honest, it is not just on the women's side. I truly hope that some of those talents will be part of the future Biden administration, the likes of Mayor Pete, Susan Rice, Yang, Inslee, Katie Porter, Duckworth etc can play major roles.
I do not think people understand how much more "liked" among Black people Abrams is as compared to Harris. She is just seen as more authentic, wrongly or rightly. If Abrams had more experience, this wouldnt even be a conversation. However, we are where we are. As such, I agree that Harris will be seen as the safer choice. The fact that Harris went after Biden in the debates probably even helps her at this point.
Agree with that. Abrams is really popular. Having said that, she did not go through what Harris has been in a presidential campaign. The "Kamala is a Kop" moniker (totally unfair IMO) totally manufactured by the Bros, really killed her chances and she did not manage her response well either.
My choice would be Demings. Her age does not concern me in the least. 63? C'mon now. We're in an election where the incumbent and the two top Democratic candidates are in their 70s, so it's not like people are actually showing any great preference for generational change.
I'm going to be a contrarian and say the pick doesn't matter that much. Does anyone think that Clinton's VP pick had anything to do with her losing in 2016?
Possibly but I doubt that there are more than a literal handful of AA's who need an AA VP candidate to come out to vote for Biden. After all, we aren't white.
True. Black women will respond to the call as usual. It may help on the margin though and perhaps drag a couple of Senate seats to the D's in places like NC or Ga.
Klobuchar is by far my favorite Democrat. I want her to be VP not because the VP is directly important, but because I want her to be the first female president, and the most likely first female president could be Biden's VP. I want Biden to win no matter what, but I think Klobuchar is more likely to be elected president in 2024 if Trump wins than if Biden wins, retires, and Harris has the 2024 primary advantage of being the incumbent VP. I know that Klobuchar is part of a minority group and from a state that Biden doesn't need help in. If Biden loses Minnesota, it will probably be part of a catastrophe with Trump, the Republicans keeping the Senate, and maybe the Republicans taking back the House. What Klobuchar brings is that her margin of victory in 2018 shows that she got votes from moderates and Republicans. In 2018, Klobuchar won by 24.1%, Tina Smith won a special Senate election by 10.6%, and Tim Walz won governor by 11.5%. In 2016, Clinton won by 1.5%. Klobuchar's margin was greater than the other three Democrats combined! If anyone is worried about the Democrats losing her seat in a special election if she becomes VP or joins the Cabinet, it shows how much more popular than an average Democrat in Minnesota she is. Looking at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/ what surprised me and may surprise you is that in terms of the percent of the time every member of Congress votes with Trump, Harris is far left. Their are 17 female Democrats in the Senate. Here they are ranked from lowest to highest percent of the time they vote with Trump (a * means she is up for re-election this year): 1. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY): 12.4% (this surprised me because New Yorkers of both parties are closer to the middle, and AOC who is known for being far left votes with Trump more than a majority of House Democrats) 2. Elizabeth Warren (MA): 13.9% 3. Kamala Harris (CA): 16.5% 4. Mazie Hirono (HI): 23.1% 5. Tammy Baldwin (WI): 23.3% 6. Patty Murray (WA): 24.0% 7. Maria Cantwell (WA): 25.0% 8. Dianne Fenistein (CA): 25.0% 9. Tammy Duckworth (IL): 25.9% 10. Tina Smith (MN)*: 26.6% 11. Amy Klobuchar (MN): 27.7% 12. Debbie Stabenow (MI): 28.9% 13. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): 28.9% 14. Margaret (Maggie) Hassan (NH): 29.8% 15. Jeanne Shaheen (NH)*: 30.8% 16. Jacky Rosen (NV): 35.9% 17. Kyrsten Sinema (AZ): 52.8% Democratic women and Democratic men vote with Trump the same amount of time. Taking the average for each gender regardless of how many times each senator voted, the 30 men averaged 26.4%, and the 17 women averaged 26.5%. Since each person is rounded, the mean is not as precise as the individual amounts, so depending on rounding it's possible that the men would have a higher percentage if you had everyone's exact value.
Tim Kaine did not help at all. It sucked momentum out of an already wheezing campaign. It did not contribute to her loss that much, but it did not help. He offered nothing to the campaign. Nothing at all. The whole list was not bad (Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Eric Garcetti, Tim Ryan, Elizabeth Warren, Xavier Becerra and Tim Kaine), plus Tom Vilsack and, maybe Admiral James Starvridis. 2020 is waaaay better, though. Booker and Brown were risky as Republican governors would pick replacements. Warren would not have worked, but would have been awesome. Becerra or Castro would have been okay. Not sure about Perez. He always rubbed me the wrong way. Garcetti? Not sure. The "Tims" would be at the bottom of that list. It was the second worst pick in my lifetime next to Joe Lieberman (douchebag) in 2000.
Good arguments for AMY. You are really a big fan. She is not my number one pick but she would be a fine VP. Interestingly enough, despite all the noise from the far left, Harris has the second most liberal voting record in the Senate.
Biden will pick Harris. It’s time for Oakland to get some recognition. Harris started her legal career in the District Attorney’s office in Alameda County, California. Today’s quiz: what Republican candidate for Vice President worked in the same office?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/14/stacey-abrams-political-power/?arc404=true The hype has been building exponentially for lunchtime guest speaker Stacey Abrams. When she is finally introduced the women shout and leap to their feet. Young women stand on chairs, camera phones flash. Abrams, who appears both amused and slightly disturbed by the fuss over her, takes control of the chaotic scene. I’ve witnessed this level of affection for very few political leaders in the Democratic circles I’ve been in since the 1980s. They have the last names Clinton (both Hillary and Bill), Sanders, Warren, Jackson and Obama (both Michelle and Barack). “I’m going to make sure there is peace in this room,” Abrams says. “Y’all are about to annoy each other with these cameras, so I’m going to stand up and I’m going to stand in front of each group of you. Take pictures so you can put your camera down.” Pandemonium ensues as she walks to the far left of the stage, like a runway supermodel, stops on a dime, poses, tilts her head slightly and smiles. Camera flashes explode. She next pivots and walks slowly to the center of the stage, freezes there and repeats the pose. Again, the flashes explode. Abrams is summoning her inner actress, and she is both enjoying the moment and getting through it to get to the conversation. She then pivots and walks to the far right of the stage, same. You wonder whether she has done this before, because it is not necessarily what one would expect from a 46-year-old politician who was nearly elected the first black female governor in U.S. history. She lost by fewer than 2 percentage points in the 2018 Georgia race riddled with allegations of voter suppression. Before that, she was a state legislator who had served as a leader in the Georgia General Assembly for a decade. Now her name is on political pundits’ shortlists of potential running mates for Joe Biden. She also happens to have predicted that she’ll be elected president by 2040. Just as quickly Abrams leaves the runway and returns to politics. man, this is some hard hitting journalism.. way to go Washington Post! Biden will sure have a though time choosing his VP if they all get this kind of coverage