Biden VP news megathread (pg 286 - been selected, announcement could be today)

[dunceDude]

Anyone else really hoping it's Demings?

She's my congresswoman, so that's interesting. What's the case for her?

[dunceDude]

Anyone else really hoping it's Demings?

She's my congresswoman, so that's interesting. What's the case for her?

Black, from a crucial state and got some spotlight as an impeachment manager. Though she's only a sophomore House member.

I was looking for a little more detail... I'm aware of her race and state. Besides being for lower crime (she was the first woman to lead the Orlando Police Department), I don't know what she's "about". That seems to be of higher-than-normal importance this year, as the VP will likely run in 2024*.

*I'm assuming Biden will be a one-term President.

[dunceDude]

https://twitter.com/AlxThomp/status/1248011924719067138

Hadn't really considered this angle.

[dunceDude]

I think Biden is realizing he needs to make significant overtures to the Bernie camp. Warren does make sense.

Wrong choice then. Most Berniecrats don't trust Warren at this point. Baldwin is the only prominent female Democrat they'd be comfortable with - and she's younger and would be less controversial.

Twitter is not real life! Most Bernie supporters would be enthusiastic about a Warren VP. Stop this nonsense.

Also note that although Warren dove into "woke" issues towards the end of her presidential campaign, she would pivot for the general. She would have months to emphasize her work on bankruptcy, the hollowing of the middle class, the CFPB, etc.

[dunceDude]

Biden is never going to pick someone else who is 70+ years old. What are people not getting about this?

None of the candidates are perfect.

- Kamala draws the ire of the left, and seems better on paper than she ever has in real life.
- Klobuchar is moderate, white, and boring. Helps with the midwest but not young people, progressives, or black or latino voters.
- Whitmer is Midwestern but inexperienced, and elevating her at this moment could backfire depending on how coronavirus plays out.
- Abrams is wildly inexperienced.

Warren may be 70 but she's already shown that she can appear vital. We all remember the constant jogging and waving videos. She is as sharp as ever mentally.

My point here is that some demographic sacrifice has to be made. I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to know which it's going to be.

[dunceDude]

Biden is never going to pick someone else who is 70+ years old. What are people not getting about this?

Pence is 70 years old as well as Trump, Warren is gonna be Veepstakes.  

Harris said no 3×s, she wanted to be Prez not Veep

Saying no is how the Veep game is played. Denials need to be ignored right now. And I highly doubt that Harris, who just watched a former Veep take the fast track to the nomination on name recognition, would turn down the offer.

Oh, and: Pence is 60, note 70.

[dunceDude]

It's worth noting that if you have to attack the Veep (beyond the standard amount), you are probably losing the election. Polling shows very few actually think about the Veep when they go to the ballot box.

[dunceDude]

The FiveThirtyEight podcast's take on the Veep candidates (they ran out of time for more):

- Klobuchar: safe, midwestern, white. Minnesota was only D+1.5 in '16, which gets lost in the conversation at times. One interesting thought — black voters voted for Biden for electability/pragmatism and he won commandingly, so while a safe white VP doesn't have idpol representation, it's a doubling down on the strategy that won that community's votes.

- Harris: Is Harris a paper tiger rejected by both the left and black voters, or the perfect VP pick? Has more potential with the left than Klobuchar certainly, but still a safe choice. Silver sees Klob and Harris as most likely, predicts a do-no-harm choice from Biden.

- Warren: High risk, high reward. Polarizing. 70, but remember that in primary polls about being too old, she never drew near the worry that Biden or Sanders got. Ready for the job on day one without a doubt. Is she too "big" a name and too affiliated with a certain strategy? (i.e. gutting her enemies live on national TV)

- Whitmer: Somewhere between Harris/Klob and Warren in terms of risk. Her profile rose on coronavirus, for better or worse. Current polling indicates better (she's 'winning' her high profile fight with Trump) but should something about Michigan's response falter or look bad in hindsight, she might suffer. 1.5 years of governor experience.

---

Today I started to warm to Whitmer. We have 6-8 weeks to continue to evaluate her coronavirus response. I could not imagine someone better to appeal to suburban ex-GOP moms. She could nearly take Michigan off the board for Trump and provide insurance for Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the most vulnerable Dem senator not named Doug Jones, with effects on the margin in Wisconsin as well. I think experience as a governor buffs against sexist impressions more than being a senator. She's just experienced enough to not raise doubts but hasn't got a long record to run against. If she becomes a frontrunner in 2024, she'll still be from Michigan and increase odds of retaining the White House.

That last point is more important than you might think. This is an awkward decade for Dems as they shift away from the rust belt and towards Georgia, Arizona, and Texas. Once those latter states are blue leaning, the worst parts of the GOP platform become much less electorally incentivized (anti-immigrant and anti-Mexico sentiment is highest in the rust belt if I remember correctly, and Michigan/Wisconsin are <5% Latino). I'm not checking my exact figures here, but I believe the US is becoming approximately 1.3% more non-white every year.

Essentially, if someone can hold the midwest until 2028 or 2032, the GOP's racist electoral strategy breaks and they can no longer count on whites voting as an interest group to save them in the electoral college. Imagine an election where the GOP is trying to court moderate Latinos in Maricopa county instead of the all-elusive white swing voter in Wisconsin. Someone just has to bridge the gap until that happens.

[dunceDude]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they're leaking details like this to get free press and make every faction of the party feel heard, right?

Like, I assume there will be at least a black candidate and progressive candidate floated right up until the very end, whether or not they've been ruled out internally.

[dunceDude]

Demings has a more relatable life than Kamala, especially for folks without a college degree. Kamala's mom was feminist breast cancer scientist and her dad immigrated from Jamaica specifically for economics grad school in Berkeley. She got an activist-academic upbringing. Val Demings's mom was a housekeeper and her dad worked in orange groves in Jacksonville, Florida.

I can tell you at least where I grew up (Scranton, PA area), that second story is going to hit home for people, and not just black people. I remember moving from that area to a suburb of Philly and it being so weird that all my classmate's parents both had bachelor's degrees.

Some people are saying more or less "they're both cops". That's missing something. Demings has a credibility here that gives her wiggle room. You look at the Mayor Bottoms from Atlanta's remarks—they're tough, but she anchors them in her black experience, she earns trust because we all know she's been there herself. I don't know if people feel that way about Harris, or feel it as strongly, whether or not that's fair.

https://twitter.com/RepValDemings/status/1199456706096447492

This is to say nothing about the fact Demings is from a real swing state! HRC lost Florida by only ~115k votes. She's not well known, but she'll obviously become well known and she's likable--she'll increase turnout.

Cards on the table, I'm a young white guy with a private university degree.

[dunceDude]

Totally agree, she can mention not having an Ivy League degree, how her values are Scranton values (perfect with Biden). She would totally juice turnout in Duval, Orange, Seminole, Dade and Hillsborough as well. Biden should either do this or if not, go to someone like Whitmer in lieu of Amy.

Yeah, the values alignment is big. You could have a beer with Biden and Demings.

[dunceDude]

You're not really acting in good faith here, though. If we wanna have a conversation about Harris vs. Demings, we can, but you're literally basically just saying 10 things that Demings has going for and ignoring anything that Harris may have going for her.

Because my post was only meant to draw out one Demings/Harris contrast that I thought would deepen the discussion, you are going it to find it lacking if you expect a comprehensive pros/cons discussion. I could have introduced the topic better.

Val Demings is relatively unknown outside of the Orlando area.

The Orlando metro area is 3 million people in a state won by 115k votes. She will also become much better known between Aug 1 and Nov 3.

She's not going to help Biden win Florida and Biden doesn't need to win Florida.

Florida was the 4th closest GOP-won state in 2016 (1.20% margin), only .42% redder than Wisconsin. We've also already seen polling suggesting older voters may be moving D, and Florida has the oldest residents in the country. Demings would help him win, the only question is if it's not as much as you'd like.

[dunceDude]

All the hype for Demings is coming from white liberals who are convinced black skin = supercharged black turnout. These people conveniently ignore any other circumstances or demographic details that play into that. It’s pretty surface-level analysis and I hope Biden and his team are smarter than that.

If you want to talk about how Demings is a cop and that bothers you, feel free. That seems like what you want to talk about. But people posting in favor of Demings like the fact she's black representation on the ticket, appreciate that she's from a swing state, and think she has a life story that fits Joe's public image and projects a relatability that is an asset.

Obama worked because he excited young and old black voters, male and female. Biden already excites old black voters, and those are the ones that would be happy with Officer Demings. Old black voters are law & order conservatives.

Turnout among older black voters is not stagnant, even if they support him overwhelmingly. One thing Demings supporters (or at least me) believes is that the affiliation with Obama will NOT be enough for Biden among black voters writ large, especially if he's perceived to be coasting on it.

Biden should be worried about black voters under 30. They’re the ones out protesting rn, and they would absolutely not be excited by Val Demings. Black women love him, old black people love him. Young voters are “okay” with him. What pundits and more than a few posters on here fail to realize is that they don’t care that the candidate looks like them, they care about the policies they espouse. That’s why they supported Bernie & Warren over Harris & Biden.

This is a good point. Two things:

- There's no natural fit for the young black left. Abrams and Pressley, I guess (If Stacy had won in 2018, I'd be 100% behind her as VP). Pressley should be in the conversation more. I know you could probably list all the important wonderful things they've done on the local level, but are voters nuanced enough to figure that out in the 48-72 hours after the VP is picked? Because that's when the narrative will be set.

- Activists want unpopular things and moreso than appealing to moderates or black voters, appeasing them can drain support elsewhere. Saying this as a Warren --> Bernie --> Biden primary voter.

[dunceDude]

Is hearing "Warren loses us a Senate seat" like nails on a chalkboard for anyone else? I feel like this has been addressed a hundred times, the legislature will just change the law like they've done before, and yet people who should know better like Harry Enten are bringing it up in CNN articles.

[dunceDude]

Every single name in discussion rn is better than Tim Kaine.

[dunceDude]

Take away from NYT article: it could be Harris, Warren or Demings, or Amy, Whitmer, Lujan Grisham, or Rice, Bottoms or Raimondo. In other words, team Biden isn't leaking anything and doing a good job keeping everyone guessing.

Agree minus Amy. It's just not going to happen for her.

[dunceDude]

Kamala giving one (1!) milquetoast reply to a question = "she doesn't have what it takes".

It's racism and sexism. It's always been racism and sexism.

[dunceDude]

I’ve often compared Harris to HW Bush. She may not be directly in the loop about the things she gets blamed for, and she wants to do the right thing, but she’s far too trusting of her deputies and friends, unable to get a handle on what’s really going on.

This is a solid anti-Harris point. For all the screeching on here about 'muh prosecutor' and 'muh identity politics', the biggest problem with her campaign was staffing/managerial, with her sister Maya crowding out the actual campaign manager and causing confusion.

A second problem was Harris' inability to stick to one case for her candidacy, but idk. Seems like a problem that was caused by having 19 other candidates and she's "found herself" on the issues now.

[dunceDude]

Kamala is NOTHING like Hillary.

They both subscribe to the "I hated that question so now I'm fake laughing!" school of thought. Otherwise I agree. Not that it's important, just off-putting... like Chick-fil-A customer service.

[dunceDude]

I can't be the only who thinks that a month after Harris is chosen, once she's not competing with anyone intra-party (i.e. it's shill time), the whole mood is going to flip? We're all talking about a very vocal leftist twitter trend but there's not that many of them and they can "lose" on issues, for example Tara Read.

Take also for instance the threads on here "how has your opinion changed on Biden in the last two months", with increasing approval noted generally. People like winners and are not likely to ride hate trains about a ticket up 8-12 points in the polls. sh**t just won't stick. And FWIW the racism from the right is sure to surge after she's chosen, and that'll help rally the woke left (Warren Dems).

[dunceDude]

Harris is elitist according to who? You?

Why is it so hard for this forum to understand that two black women can have incredibly different backgrounds....

one is the daughter of two activist professors from the Bay Area

the other had 6 siblings, dad worked in orange groves, mom was a housekeeper if I remember right

You tell me how each reads.

[dunceDude]

Harris is elitist according to who? You?

Why is it so hard for this forum to understand that two black women can have incredibly different backgrounds....

one is the daughter of two activist professors from the Bay Area

the other had 6 siblings, dad worked in orange groves, mom was a housekeeper if I remember right

You tell me how each reads.

Honestly, those both sound appealing to me.

They probably do, person-on-internet-forum-discussing-politics. Care to guess which a white voter in their late 50s outside Milwaukee prefers?

[dunceDude]

Picking Warren means risking a loss in 2024. Vice President Warren would be hard to beat in a primary, but unusually risky in the general. Her poll numbers were noticeably worse in match ups with Trump than every other frontrunner with similar percent name ID. This comes from a huge fan of her personally.

She'd also be a President facing a Republican Senate most likely (though hopefully we'll add 3 or 4 new states in 2021), so it'd be this huge gambit just to have all progressive legislation dead on arrival. She wouldn't be powerless, just less likely to ever come to power.

If you get someone in there in 2024 like Pompeo or Rick Scott, I worry the culture Trump's created around the Presidency won't feel normal yet, and they'll behave with equal corruption but much more effectively. And Supreme Court seats as always.

[dunceDude]

https://twitter.com/andrewsolender/status/1287424396185935875?s=21

I read these things as her auditioning for the job. She knows she's a finalist in all likelihood, but I doubt she knows it's her (at this time). But I'm just an observer.

[dunceDude]

Are Politico's standards going down or what.... I've never seen so many garbage articles.