Roy Cooper would be an excellent pick, although he's older than Harris. Two-term swing state governor who brings in governing experience and balances the ticket on age, gender and geography. He's almost tailor-made.
I like Cooper, but he's going to be 67 on Election Day 2024. Which means he would be 75 after Harris has hypothetically had her two runs at the White House. The main responsibility of a veep is to assume leadership once the president has to step down. Do Democrats really want to set themselves up for another geriatric standard-bearer down the road?
It's just a year older than Biden when he was vice president.
Yeah, and while I think Biden has been a good president so far, he was still a bad choice for running mate back in '08. Obama picked someone who was widely viewed as too old to be next-in-line, and that opened the door for a needless, bitter primary contest in '16 and likely contributed to Democratic defeat. Had Obama exercised more foresight and chosen a younger, electorally viable veep, we'd probably have avoided the Trump presidency altogether.
Biden was an excellent pick in 2008 because he brought long experience in DC, foreign policy credentials and blue collar appeal to the table. Tim Kaine was initially Obama's "choice of heart" but he felt two young civil rights lawyers would be bad optics. Biden also proved to be an effective vice president.
I don't think the vice president always must be "next in line" after the sitting president is termed out or that picking a running mate should factor in the question whether this person is next in line after eight years. Biden even planned on running in 2016 and just didn't because of Beau. I don't think it would have changed much if he was five or ten years younger then. If you want to put blame on someone for Trump's victory, it's more on Hillary for not running a better campaign and possibly Obama who - as much as I like and admire him - owes some responsibility as well.
