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

[Landslide Lyndon]

That sounds incredibly condescending.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I asked this a couple of days ago and got no answers, so maybe this time I'll be more lucky.
Which exactly are Klobuchar's apostasies that make her a "moderate" and anathema to the left-wing of the party?

[Landslide Lyndon]

She won't support Medicare for All, free four-year college or a wealth tax.  

The pertinent question here should be whether she disagrees on principle (she considers them bad policy) or simply because there is still no credible plan to fund them.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Why does it seem like Duckworth isn't mentioned\considered at all? Does she have some skeleton in the closet?

I don't understand this, either. Some of it is probably sexism; she has young children, and people assume that mothers with young children wouldn't be willing to seek higher office.

More likely because she is a low-profile senator and not exactly a media darling.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Cortez-Masto makes the most sense to me pre- and post-COVID19 pandemic politics.

Biden is underperforming with Latino voters, not black voters. Cortez-Masto helps in a critical swing state and the wider Sun Belt (Arizona particularly), speaks Spanish obviously and has a historic career, and in my view is a more charismatic speaker than a number of other potential running mates (Duckworth, Baldwin).

No.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The criticism against black women that they are "cops" reminds me of 2007 when people were accusing Obama of not being "black enough".

[Landslide Lyndon]

For those asking about Duckworth... there’s the case of her denigrating Sanders and the people of New York, as well as the workplace retaliation lawsuit against her.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/duckworth-settles-workplace-retaliation-lawsuit/2008001/%3famp

Which brings up a point I made earlier -- a lot of Kloubchar's and Harris's dirty laundry is already out there due to their presidential campaigns.  People who are saying that CCM and Duckworth are so much better should take note that the national media has not given either a close examination yet.

Exactly. We don't know what a thorough vetting might bring up, and probably we never will.

[Landslide Lyndon]

538's discussion of the running mate choices: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-biden-choose-a-running-mate-based-on-electability-ideology-or-identity/.

TL;DR: they think it will be Harris.

I'm sure Bernie bros will be apoplectic reading that Harris is actually one of the most liberal senators.

[Landslide Lyndon]

538's discussion of the running mate choices: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-biden-choose-a-running-mate-based-on-electability-ideology-or-identity/.

TL;DR: they think it will be Harris.

I'm sure Bernie bros will be apoplectic reading that Harris is actually one of the most liberal senator.

"Liberal" is an utterly meaningless term that needs to be retired. It's measured as a combination of things that aren't related.

Yeah, who cares about her senate votes when your gut says otherwise?

[Landslide Lyndon]

The same guys who said for a year that nobody likes Biden now assure us that nobody likes Harris.
We listen to them carefully.

[Landslide Lyndon]

First rule of the veepstakes: you act like you don't want it.

[Landslide Lyndon]

First rule of the veepstakes: you act like you don't want it.

IIRC Biden himself declined to even be vetted at first. Obama (&/or his team) had to practically beg him to sign off on it.

He wanted to become Obama's SoS and thought that VP was a useless position.
The funny thing is that according to "Game Change" the only person who at the beginning predicted that Biden was the odds-on favorite for VP was ...Hillary.

[Landslide Lyndon]

So from what we've heard so far, Abrams isn't under consideration and the shortlist appears to be: Harris, CCM, Klobuchar, Whitmer, and Warren.

There's no evidence to suggest that it's limited to just those five at this point.

I'm being speculative.

Besides, I'd be surprised if it was somebody other than these five.  

Duckworth looks too good on paper to be ignored. Biden himself after all wasn't even considered a serious possibility at the beginning of the 2008 veepstakes.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Warren > CCM > Whitmer > Harris > Klobuchar for sure

This. Harris and Klobuchar would antagonize the youth and lefty vote.

I see no evidence that CCM and Whitmer wouldn’t. Left Twitter is already attacking Whitmer over her Blue Cross ties... and the youth aren’t showing up no matter what.

Sanders himself attacked Whitmer as a Blue Cross tool when she was running for governor.
And then he had the nerve to express his displeasure when she returned the favor and endorsed Biden.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Why has no one mentioned Barbara Mikulski?

Because she is older than George Burns?

[Landslide Lyndon]

Biden will regret locking himself in to picking a Female running mate.  His decision precludes Sherrod Brown and Cory Booker, both of whom could have helped him significantly.  As could have candidates with real substance such as Jay Inslee and Michael Bennet.

Now he's locked in.

We don't care what Republicans think about our running mate.

I don't care about your not caring.

You don't speak for all Democrats here anyway.  And I'm a Kerry and Obama voter, and a 2 time Bill Clinton voter, who voted a straight ticket for Florida offices in 2018.  So your political acumen can stand a tad of fine tuning.

So you are planning on or seriously considering voting for Biden then?

Of course he doesn't.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The case against Abrams has been done a thousand times and it has to do with her experience and the fact that the highest office she held was state house minority leader. People might perceive her as unprepared and accuse Biden of tokenism.
We saw how suburban voters reacted unfavorably in 2008 to Palin and while Abrams is much more qualified the risk for this to happen again is real.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The case against Abrams has been done a thousand times and it has to do with her experience and the fact that the highest office she held was state house minority leader. People might perceive her as unprepared and accuse Biden of tokenism.

Most of our modern-day Presidents have been completely unprepared for the office by some arbitrary standard of "experience". Trump had zero political experience, running against the most experienced candidate in decades. Obama had 2 years of national experience before he started running for President (his state-level experience was arguably less meaningful than Abrams'), again running against somebody far more experienced. Bush was a Governor, but can anybody realistically argue he was "experienced" or "qualified"? Even Clinton's decade-plus governance of a podunk state provided no meaningful frame of reference for what the Presidency would entail.

All of them won because they were running in "Change" years where voters wanted a fresh face to lead the country in a new direction.
This year OTOH might be the first one where being boring is actually an asset after four years full of Trump drama and chaos. Voters want a steady hand that will provide competent leadership, and given Biden's age he needs to choose someone whose credentials can't be questioned, someone that will be ready to take over in a moment's notice. Abrams might be the smartest woman alive but her thin resume will cause questions that will dog the campaign and dilute its message of "return to normalcy" and "meritocracy".

[Landslide Lyndon]

There are a lot of soundbites of Warren criticizing Biden. I'd be very surprised if he picked her.

There was also a soundbite of poppy Bush talking about "voodoo economics".

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/tylerpager/status/1247976980580052993

[Landslide Lyndon]

I don't get why people don't think Harris isn't progressive either. She's very progressive?

Because Bernie bros believe that anyone to the right of Karl Marx is a fascist.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I should mention that if Biden picks Harris (or CCM for that matter), she will be the first person west of Texas to ever be part of a Democratic ticket.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Politico with a piece pitching Whitmer.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/09/gretchen-whitmer-governor-michigan-profile-2020-coronavirus-biden-vp-177791

She may not end up being Biden's VP, but she's certainly presidential material some day.

She is on a good start but let's wait. Jennifer Granholm was considered presidential material back in the day.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Politico with a piece pitching Whitmer.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/09/gretchen-whitmer-governor-michigan-profile-2020-coronavirus-biden-vp-177791

She may not end up being Biden's VP, but she's certainly presidential material some day.

She is on a good start but let's wait. Jennifer Granholm was considered presidential material back in the day.

Not by anyone who understand the U.S. Constitution.  Granholm is not a natural-born citizen.

You'd be surprised how many political journalists didn't know that.

[Landslide Lyndon]

At this point, like most people, I think it's gonna be Harris.  She has great rapport with Biden, she covers all his gaps, and it's becoming more clear that she's who he personally wants.

Yeah, I think people might be underestimating how much Biden seems to personally like her.
It might be meaningless for pundits and political junkies but it's a very important aspect for the nominee himself.