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

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Optics, optics, optics. Polling be damed, the vp to the first black president will not pass over qualified black women in favour of a 70 year old white woman. There will be backlash

Curious what your thoughts would be if Tammy Duckworth is chosen.

Optics, optics, optics. Do no harm be damed, the vp to the first black president will not pass over qualified black women. There will be backlash

[Pulaski]

I probably prefer Duckworth, but I don't really get the beef. Neither are gonna heavily sway the election, and both would be pretty good presidential candidates in their own right next time around, and indeed would probably be similar presidents. Where's the big diff, in all honesty?

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Optics, optics, optics. Polling be damed, the vp to the first black president will not pass over qualified black women in favour of a 70 year old white woman. There will be backlash

For someone who gets combative when it comes to any most criticism levied at Harris, you sure love to bag on everyone else.

Makes me think it's less that Harris gets the brunt of criticism (unfair or not) and more that her supporters are just more vocal in defending her.

Feels like every potential pick has gotten their share of criticism. Honestly, I think Rice has gotten the brunt of it (Or as much as Harris). She just has less people defending her

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

There's quite a few posters here who are letting their biases cloud their views on the motives of Biden picking a certain choice or not.... We don't know who it is going to be and I think Biden will choose who is the best for him and that will help him govern. All the choices have strengths and weaknesses that can be used for Biden or exploited by Trump.....just one more week...

[wbrocks67]

LMAO Ed Rendell is irrelevant and just needs to STFU already

https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/1290117996468371461

[Landslide Lyndon]

LMAO Ed Rendell is irrelevant and just needs to STFU already

https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/1290117996468371461

Rendell is such a gasbag.

[BidenHarris2020]

LMAO Ed Rendell is irrelevant and just needs to STFU already

https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/1290117996468371461

..is he senile?

[OneJ]

Optics, optics, optics. Polling be damed, the vp to the first black president will not pass over qualified black women in favour of a 70 year old white woman. There will be backlash

There'll be some sort of backlash should Biden choose Harris. No matter who Biden chooses there will be some downsides and disappointed/angry folks.

[wbrocks67]

Optics, optics, optics. Polling be damed, the vp to the first black president will not pass over qualified black women in favour of a 70 year old white woman. There will be backlash

There'll be some sort of backlash should Biden choose Harris. No matter who Biden chooses there will be some downsides and disappointed/angry folks.

gonna not go on Twitter that day... whoever it is....

[wbrocks67]

It's really annoying (yet completely unsurprising) to see the pundits act as if Biden waiting is some "Dems in Disarray" narrative, when in fact the entire time it was always likely to be announced in the run-up to the convention

Also, I disagree with the notion that it was "always Klobuchar". If anything, Harris was always more inevitable than even Klobuchar

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1290282163783569409

[Beet]

Amzi Qureshi, a Muslim American Warren supporter, has done a remarkable 800-tweet thread on the work she's done on racial justice and for other marginalized groups:

https://twitter.com/AmziQureshi/status/1290000645118783488?s=20

[StateBoiler]

Amzi Qureshi, a Muslim American Warren supporter, has done a remarkable 800-tweet thread on the work she's done on racial justice and for other marginalized groups:

https://twitter.com/AmziQureshi/status/1290000645118783488?s=20

Why not just write something real at that point and leave the bullsh**t medium of Twitter in the wind?

[brucejoel99]

Amzi Qureshi, a Muslim American Warren supporter, has done a remarkable 800-tweet thread on the work she's done on racial justice and for other marginalized groups:

https://twitter.com/AmziQureshi/status/1290000645118783488?s=20

b- bu- but she has no receipts!!

[StateBoiler]

It's really annoying (yet completely unsurprising) to see the pundits act as if Biden waiting is some "Dems in Disarray" narrative, when in fact the entire time it was always likely to be announced in the run-up to the convention

They have nothing else to talk about.

[Mr. Morden]

Looks like remaining short listers (whoever they may be) were told to be ready for interviews, though they still don’t know if they’ll be in person or not:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/biden-vice-president-search-390853

At least some of the contenders were in the dark on Sunday about their upcoming interviews with Biden: They were told to be prepared for in-person sit-downs while at the same time cautioned that could change due to health and logistical concerns surrounding Covid-19.
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.
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On Sunday, a Biden aide maintained that 11 women remain in the mix, despite most of the attention in recent weeks swirling around five women: Harris, Warren, Rep. Karen Bass, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Aides said Biden has pushed back his planned announcement by a week to next week.

Also:

After a contingent of California officials had also lobbied Biden in favor of Bass, Duckworth and Rice and against Harris, the Biden vetting team held a conference call with Harris allies to hear them argue in favor of her candidacy. A source told POLITICO that Harris was the only potential VP candidate who was afforded such a call, which included all four of Biden's vetting team cochairs.

[Sir Mohamed]

I wonder whether he'll make the announcement this week? He initially said the first week of August, now August 10 is circling around. The back and forth reminds me of the months before he announced his candidacy, on the endless question whether he would actually run 4 prez or not. Information and deadlines changed almost daily.

My take is that Biden actually wants Rice as "governing pick", but he's strongly leaning to Harris because she has the least negatives from his perspective.

[Ancestral Republican]

Amzi Qureshi, a Muslim American Warren supporter, has done a remarkable 800-tweet thread on the work she's done on racial justice and for other marginalized groups:

https://twitter.com/AmziQureshi/status/1290000645118783488?s=20

Why not just write something real at that point and leave the bullsh**t medium of Twitter in the wind?

I agree, the Twitter format sucks, but I doubt she would have gotten as much traction with any other site.

[BidenHarris2020]

Looks like remaining short listers (whoever they may be) were told to be ready for interviews, though they still don’t know if they’ll be in person or not:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/biden-vice-president-search-390853

At least some of the contenders were in the dark on Sunday about their upcoming interviews with Biden: They were told to be prepared for in-person sit-downs while at the same time cautioned that could change due to health and logistical concerns surrounding Covid-19.
.
.
.
On Sunday, a Biden aide maintained that 11 women remain in the mix, despite most of the attention in recent weeks swirling around five women: Harris, Warren, Rep. Karen Bass, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Aides said Biden has pushed back his planned announcement by a week to next week.

Also:

After a contingent of California officials had also lobbied Biden in favor of Bass, Duckworth and Rice and against Harris, the Biden vetting team held a conference call with Harris allies to hear them argue in favor of her candidacy. A source told POLITICO that Harris was the only potential VP candidate who was afforded such a call, which included all four of Biden's vetting team cochairs.

How is he still down to 11 women two weeks before the convention. 🤨

[StateBoiler]

I wonder whether he'll make the announcement this week? He initially said the first week of August, now August 10 is circling around. The back and forth reminds me of the months before he announced his candidacy, on the endless question whether he would actually run 4 prez or not. Information and deadlines changed almost daily.

My take is that Biden actually wants Rice as "governing pick", but he's strongly leaning to Harris because she has the least negatives from his perspective.

Do something fun, and have the Convention vote between Harris and Rice.

[brucejoel99]

Elizabeth Warren's influence on Joe Biden's policies (the clickbaity "Elizabeth Warren Is Still Campaigning" title is ridiculous so I used the title in the url instead, which is "Elizabeth Warren's influence on Joe Biden's policy"):

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/elizabeth-warren-influence-joe-biden-policy.html

By late spring, Biden and Warren's catch-ups were still being organized primarily as policy discussions, but they sometimes veered into personal territory, as when Biden rang after Warren's elder brother died of COVID-19 in Oklahoma. And as the summer matured, some of Warren's top former campaign aides officially joined Team Biden, helping the former vice-president build up his digital operation and slotting into leadership roles in a couple of battleground states.

The Julie Siegel mention in the last paragraph of the article here is the most significant hire IMO. It can't be denied that he's taken several of her key top aides & staff, but of everybody listed, that he not only hired Julie Siegel but did so for his transition team is most encouraging, where he only put Obama/Biden alumni & then Warren's top economic advisor.

[Blair]

Can someone write an essay, with reference to twitter, the 2020 pimrary, the 2016 primary & the ongoing lockdown why this has been such a messy and brain melting process?

[VBM]

What does Kamala even add to the ticket? Maybe some slightly increased turnout in California? A half-black woman from California isn’t gonna increase turnout amongst southern and Rust Belt blacks as much as some people here act like it would (which is kinda patronizing and racist tbh). Biden already appeals enough to moderates, and progressives aren’t big fans of Kamala. She isn’t even a good debater. If Biden wants to increase turnout amongst blacks in some swing states, then Bottoms would be a much more logical choice since Georgia is a toss up state.

[Oryxslayer]

It's really annoying (yet completely unsurprising) to see the pundits act as if Biden waiting is some "Dems in Disarray" narrative, when in fact the entire time it was always likely to be announced in the run-up to the convention

They have nothing else to talk about.

...by design. A candidate that is spending a lot of his time on the proverbial front porch can't impact the media cycle in the way (both positive and negative) an active campaign usually could. The team seems to have let the Veepstakes build in prominence and speculation to fill this void, since it's a contained discussion that won't usurp whatever trump is doing on a particular day to mishandle the crises.

[StateBoiler]

It's really annoying (yet completely unsurprising) to see the pundits act as if Biden waiting is some "Dems in Disarray" narrative, when in fact the entire time it was always likely to be announced in the run-up to the convention

They have nothing else to talk about.

...by design. A candidate that is spending a lot of his time on the proverbial front porch can't impact the media cycle in the way (both positive and negative) an active campaign usually could. The team seems to have let the Veepstakes build in prominence and speculation to fill this void, since it's a contained discussion that won't usurp whatever trump is doing on a particular day to mishandle the crises.

Blog post I read on this the other day.

http://www.honestgraft.com/

An Elegy for Old-Fashioned Political Campaigns in the COVID Age

The traditional campaign trail has become one of the political casualties of the COVID-19 epidemic. Joe Biden ceased holding large public events after he became the de facto Democratic nominee the week after Super Tuesday, just as the virus began its nationwide spread, and the Trump campaign has retreated to a similar policy after its comeback rally in Tulsa last month proved to be an over-hyped and under-attended disappointment. Even the president's most dedicated supporters turned out to be less enthusiastic about in-person electioneering in the midst of an uncontrolled national outbreak of disease.

 It's become obvious this year how much of the standard press coverage of presidential campaigns is structured around the idea of a daily "top story" generated by the assignment of reporters and camera crews to follow the candidates around the country, ready to leap on anything that appears novel or unscripted amidst the otherwise repetitive cycle of stump speeches, rope lines, factory visits, and diner drop-ins. Most personal accounts of presidential elections written by candidates or journalists are blurry, weary travelogues that grudgingly acknowledge the democratic virtue of in-person politicking before returning to complaints about endless drudgery, exhaustion, and logistical snags.

 But take away all that hopscotching from one battleground state to the next, and it's easy to wonder whether there really is a campaign at all. Joe Biden is continuing to hold virtual events and deliver policy speeches, but they simply don't seem as important—and certainly don't receive as much coverage—without big, cheering crowds and a chartered jet to schlep around the entourage. And Donald Trump's inability to hold his signature raucous rallies has helped to erase the line between presidential campaigning and presidential governing, as his COVID briefings and other White House events have come to serve as substitutes. Even if the virtual programs for the national conventions end up being snazzy productions, they will likely receive less attention than usual this year merely because they won't seem as momentous to the press or public as the in-person events of years past.

 Might the lack of a traditional campaign trail affect the outcome of the election? Republicans are starting to worry that the result in November will wind up being a simple popular referendum on an increasingly unpopular admininistration—and not just in the presidential vote, but in congressional and down-ballot races as well. The Washington Post recently reported that many electorally vulnerable Republican Senate incumbents are challenging their opponents to an extensive series of debates with the hope that less-tested candidates will have a greater chance of screwing up in public, since the reduction of normal campaign events has also curtailed the usual practice of shadowing the opposing candidate with a "tracker" armed with a video camera to capture footage of any mistake. Meanwhile, Democrats have become concerned that their efforts to register new voters and mobilize sporadic participants will suffer from the relative lack of traditional grassroots activity this year.

 Of course, the election was likely to serve as a referendum on Trump even before the onset of COVID, and the primary campaign arsenal of congressional candidates—paid advertising—remains unaffected by the current crisis. Interested would-be voters who have postponed registration so far may start to register in greater numbers as the election starts to approach, and the atmosphere of national crisis could also boost participation independent of organized get-out-the-vote initiatives. So the reduction of in-person campaigning this year may well have little effect on the outcome of the 2020 elections.

 But the lack of so many familiar trappings of American political culture, from hand-shaking and small talk at midwestern state fairs and ice cream shops to the quadrennial spectacles of the national conventions, is still something worth mourning in our moment of disruption and isolation. Sure, a lot of this activity was formally obsolete and (for candidates, staff, and journalists) sometimes annoyingly inconvenient. But why should political campaigns necessarily be conducted for the maximum comfort or entertainment of their professional participants? Like so many other social rituals, these practices have taken on a meaning of their own as symbols of participatory democracy, and their absence—hopefully a temporary one—should rightfully be lamented as a small part of all that has been lost in this very sad year.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Amzi Qureshi, a Muslim American Warren supporter, has done a remarkable 800-tweet thread on the work she's done on racial justice and for other marginalized groups:

https://twitter.com/AmziQureshi/status/1290000645118783488?s=20

This tweet thread is absurd. She was a Republican until she was in her 60’s. I’m glad she made some nice speeches and said Black Lives Matter at a forum but to proclaim she’s done more for racial justice than almost any other politician is laughable.