Polis is extremely smart person. But he is not a very personable person. He comes across as gruff and difficult to work with. On a national stage, he will have difficulty on the campaign trail.
deleted, just saw modnote
Walz is my governor, and prior to that was my congressman (he succeeded Gil Gutnecht, a Republican, who served as an usher at our church - and when Gil wasn’t there, the usher was often the janitor from my work; take that as you will).
Walz has a solid background in the Minnesota National Guard for 24 years, and was a social studies teacher at Mankato High School. One downside was how the George Floyd riots were handled; of course, Trump wanted him to send in the National Guard to squash it.
Of a state with an international border, so he’d be expert on current immigration issues, no? 
Kelly is working to foreclose this issue. I think it reflects his pending candidacy.
I think it should be Pete Buttigieg. I think he captivates his listeners when he speaks - that’s all I’m basing this on. In my uneducated political mind, that matters more, today, than checking boxes. I think he would only add to all the enthusiasm across the board. All the other VP choices come off as politicians first (like the 1 second instinctual feeling) and we need someone to counter Trump’s ability to instinctually connect to people.
If it’s not Pete, then he should resign and campaign for Harris/VP full-time (and hopefully be rewarded with a high level cabinet position).
I’d then go with Kelly as he seems to have this ability, too (and since Whitmer is out) - and again, I know nothing nor really care about his politics. It mostly all goes away when you can connect with someone since then they will listen to you.
I think it helps get the undecideds or probably not going to vote people to vote for you…I know some of those people and it’s generally: *oh yea, I saw something he posted. I like him [no explanation - just a feeling]." Then just nudge that into voting.
Buttigieg guarantees DJT gets reelected. Still too many homophobes out there and a surprising number in the Democratic Party, particularly among demographics that tend to be strongly religious.
I hear you, and I’m (probably recklessly) unconcerned about that. He’s qualified to be a VP and can articulate why very well.
I’m not quite clear on what it means exactly to “vet” a VP candidate. Is it just “dirt” or does it involve polling? If polling, there’s not enough time to do that in this very short-time frame so I understand going with a “safer” option. I imagine any vetting will have to be streamlined anyways.
If nothing else, it signals his willingness to take the job. And that makes me very happy!
Primarily it’s going to be pre-emptively doing “opposition research” on each of them, to uncover any issues from their past that could come back to bite them in the rear.
They may also be doing some private polling to gauge voter reactions to them (and, yes, you can turn around a poll in a short time, these days).
Yep, this is what you do. Every potential VP has something in their record that’s a liability. This one was easily cured, and credit to Kelly that he immediately did what he had to do to take it off the table as an issue.
Kamala is looking at a lot of people for this. I hope she makes a good choice.
A couple dozen pro-public-school groups–notably not including American Federation of Teachers or the National Education Association–have published an open letter to Harris urging her not to choose Shapiro, based on his support for school vouchers.
I’m by no means saying he’s perfect (note that in several threads I said “probably no” due to a number of reasons), but he has the skills, experience, is more attractive to tech-bros (fundraising) and the few remaining non-RWNJ Libertarian types, and is 49. So if he WAS the pick he’d be able to do 8 years (
) with Harris and still under 60 if running for Pres after.
No, he’s in his own words a balding, gay, fat jew, and he has created problems in pushing Colorado away from it’s previously more conservative standing, including generating ire in Wyoming for suggesting we could eat less meat and use less coal (oh noes! /s) but his self-depreciating words above prove that he can be charming and self-aware.
Certainly, Harris could do a LOT worse.
Even so, I’d support him as VP, but he’s obviously no where near the top of the current VP choices, and is probably more useful for a future election, which is beyond the scope of this thread.
“Harris-Polis” sounds like what you’d have to call the new capital city after Pennsylvania annexed Maryland.
I’m a teacher and wow, that sucks. I can’t believe he would support vouchers.
I’m ashamed to admit I hadn’t paid close enough attention to some Democrats and didn’t realize that Buttigieg was gay.
A question of my own though. What would be considered more of a liability, orientation or a religion that might be deemed “wrong”.
I think it would cost the election potentially. I wish we weren’t still in that place, but we are.
I honestly thought we’d moved forward as nation, but watching Trump get 3 straight nominations on the Republcan side has shown…there is great evil and bigotry and I’m sure a lot of it includes being anti-gay.
Being openly obviously gay, no doubt. Being Jewish used to be a political no-no, but that has passed. Maybe someday America will get over people being gay also. I hear lots of anti LGBTQ+ hate, but most of the anti-semitism is coming from the radical left today
went off topic here
(mind you, I get that Netanyahu is a crook and general all around asshole, but going from there to spraying swastikas is too much of a leap for me) .
Note that Joe Lieberman was Gores veep candidate and the veep of the CSA was Jewish!!!
Obviously depends on the religion and the orientation.
Atheism is a liability.
Trans is a liability.
Beyond that, it is a matter of signaling.
Buttigieg running for President will not be a liability because his conventional personal life signals that he is the kind of gay man who respects middle America. But Harris picking him for veep would be a problem because it would signal that she wants to please her base rather than median voters.
Kelly vs. Shapiro is complicated regarding religion. Gabby Giffords is at least half Jewish. I think the Kelly vs. Shapiro religion thing is thus minor. However — even though there seems no real left-right difference between Kelly and Shapiro — Shapiro is the more conventional kind of Jew. Picking him would signal that Harris is not controlled by her base, which prefers Kelly.