Apologies if this has already been covered. I know you’ve all mentioned Susan Rice before. I understand she is currently selling off many of her stocks in her portfolio. Netflix in particular.
Perhaps this is a prelude to her selection?
I think RickJay misinterpreted your “won’t” to actually mean “won’t.”
If I’m reading it all correctly, you’re saying that, since it doesn’t make sense for Biden to meet face to face with someone he’s not going to pick, then it’s a sign that he’s going to pick Whitmer.
I think RickJay missed the sarcasm, and is reading your “won’t” as a literal meaning.
Ah yes, I believe you’ve got it. That is indeed what I meant.
The evidence for running mates being able to help deliver specific states is thin. Maybe back in the day of machine politics. And honestly, if Biden is in the position of having to eek out a victory in Michigan to win then his campaign has gone into the kind of free fall that a VP candidate isn’t going to save.
I am not a fan of Whitmer as a choice but we can also play the converse:
The evidence is that the impact on home state margin is smallish but non-zero. Maybe a nail’s worth. Can one lose the war “for want of a nail”? Depends on if the shoe depends on it, if the horse depends on the shoe, if the battle depends on the horse … don’t it.
Michigan is not just a swing state, it is positioned as a tipping point state. Today’s 538 tracker has the national lead as Biden +7.8 and Michigan as the exact same Biden +7.8. If the election is a national relative blow out (which it would be if it was held today) then the VP choice doesn’t matter at all. But if somehow the race becomes close? Then a few votes in Michigan might hold the balance, might be the nail … the final one in the coffin of a Democratic loss.
The argument can be made that attention to small impacts in the states that would be tipping points in a close race are an insurance policy.
And just food for thought: Even though Whitmer isn’t a PoC, should she become vice president, Michigan would then have a black governor, making him the only black governor currently in power, and Michigan’s first. That very well could help AA turnout in Michigan too.
I am also from Michigan and she has been great. However, is Garlin Gilcrist not up to the challenge? He would be the only Black governor in America.
Hardly a need. Michigan is not a 100% lock for Biden, but it is close. In the miracle(curse) of 2016, Trump won it by 10,000 votes or so, one of the closest results in history for a state. Whitmer won a landslide in 2018 and I think that trend is continuing for Biden, even more so if he takes her along.
But the question would be whether Whitmer would do more to deliver Michigan as a VP candidate or as a Governor.
I was hoping for a Florida VP choice. If Florida is 50-50, perhaps this can push it over to Biden. Biden wins Florida, I think it is over for Trump.
I don’t know about the GOP collectively. But I think Trump would prefer to be able to tweet the Pocahontas slur a few hundred times more.
Val Demings is the safest choice in terms of winning the election. If it comes down to whether Florida’s legislature is going to send in an electoral slate different from what the voters asked for, they will be less likely to do it with a Floridian on the legitimately winning ticket. But his most likely pick, Kamala Harris, is also strong.
Clyburn was on the PBS NewsHour a few weeks ago and said that having a Black woman as veep would be great; but a Black woman on the Supreme Court would be even better. Some pundits interpreted this as Clyburn’s permission for Joe to not necessarily name a Black woman as his running mate.
So, based on that: it’ll be Whidmer or Duckworth. My money’s on Whidmer. (My first choice would be Rice but I think she’s tainted by Benghazi).
As much as it shouldn’t matter, I get the feeling that America doesn’t want to see a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair (Duckworth) playing backup to a 78-year-old gaffe machine. I know it shouldn’t matter. I know FDR was in a wheelchair for 4 terms. But, it might matter.
IIRC, she walks on prosthetics. She’s become my top choice - the best “do no harm” candidate who appears well liked by all factions of the party.
No one who would ever vote for Biden cares one whit about Benghazi (or at least the right wing narrative about it).
This is absolutely true. I think I may mentally disqualify her just if it means I have to hear “Benghazi!” again.
I agree: the GOP’s played their Benghazi hand. Biden would be tainted by that so the fact we’re not hearing about ZOMG! Benghazi leads me to believe that’s not really a serious problem to be concerned with. I’m more worried about selecting a social justice warrior that might have cringe-worthy comments about 'Merikuh or something like that.
I personally don’t see how Biden could go wrong with selecting Rice and saying “We’re giving you 4 more years of Obama, but we’ll be even more progressive than last time.” I think a majority of people want a steady hand. People are worn out by drama. They don’t want to take risks on unknowns. Rice and Biden wouldn’t be an exciting ticket, but if you had Obama out there as a surrogate - and you know he would be - then it would be effectively Obama’s 8 years running against Trump’s 4. I wonder who’d win.
You could argue that Clinton was Obama’s torch bearer, but it was clear that she never got the benefit of the doubt in that regard. Moreover, people didn’t know just how bad Trump could be. It’s a different situation in 2020, IMO.
Joe Biden on Saturday utterly devastated one of President Donald Trump’s most repeated attack lines against the former Vice President. And the irony is Fox News helped him do it… On the day that Trump was at his ritzy, exclusive country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that reportedly has a $350,000 admission fee, Biden did what so many typical Americans do for recreation: He rode a bike.
The former vice president, who was wearing a mask, was accompanied on his bicycle ride by a few others on the streets of his home state of Delaware when they were approached by Fox News’ Peter Doocy. The Fox reporter yelled at the bike-riding Biden: “Mr. Vice President have you picked a running mate yet?” to which Biden responded, “Yeah I have.” Doocy then followed up, “You have? Who is it?” to which Biden jokingly replied, “You!”… That exchange not only aired on Fox News, it went viral on social media. And then almost on cue Saturday afternoon, around the same time Biden was on his bicycle, Trump tweeted out from the posh confines of his country club one of his go-to attack lines against the former VP, calling him “Sleepy Joe Biden.”
The irony was delicious. There’s Biden briskly riding a bicycle while Trump is at his private country club, where the only exercise he seems to get is getting in and out of his golf cart. Yet Trump is calling Biden “Sleepy.” Sometimes comedy writes itself. But in this case Twitter helped as the hashtag “Trump Can’t ride a Bike” got traction online, with one anti-Trumper juxtaposing video footage of Biden riding his bicycle with Trump struggling to walk down a ramp after delivering the commencement address in June at West Point.
He should just do pushups during the debates while Trump bloviates.
That was my thought: