The title says it. I’m going to kick off with Biden / Harris. Here’s why.
Biden brings in 3 major winning points going head to head with Trump (assuming Trump as the GOP nominee).
He’s a distinguished older white male. This is - unfortunately- a key point for win-ability. Peeling off mildly racist, ageist and sexist independents from the GOP is going to be an important factor. These are people who were always a little unsure about Obama because they didn’t grow up around people like Obama, and who still respond to a knee jerk ‘he looks like my dad, so he must be right’ to old white dudes. That said, Biden’s not a deranged orange spittle flecked man-baby, so they might feel a bit better about him.
He’s able to put forward a coherent thought. He’s pretty good off the cuff, and he’s pretty good giving a canned speech. He seems human and approachable.
He’s still got the Obama cachet.
Harris brings 3 things to the table as well.
She’s a young black female. Everyone disgusted Democrats are running an old white male can take some solace in Harris’ eventual ascendancy, either due to Biden not being able to stay on, or as a VP running for President.
She’s smart and she’s tough when she needs to be. She doesn’t take any shit.
She’s not a communist/socialist/Bernie disciple. She’s got a law enforcement background. So, again, I’m pandering to the middle with this pick.
I want to be really clear about one thing. These picks are chosen for winnability, not for what I would like in my own fantasy world of who I’d like to POTUS and Veep. These are strictly best chance of sweeping the election and throwing the bums out picks. If you’d like to also list your heartfelt favorite choices (Warren/Booker, Daniels/Avenatti, Lenin/Stalin) in addition to your winning-est choices, that’s fine.
John Hickenlooper. He’s neither too old nor too young, unlike Biden, and still has Biden’s other advantages other than name recognition. Then again I’ve never heard him speak so maybe he doesn’t come off as well in sound bites as other national politician contenders. But any attempts to paint him as an out of touch liberal elite will likely fall upon deaf ears since he is a proven moderate governor of a moderate state. And the demographics of the country have shifted so far that any attempts to paint him as a smot-poking hippie will likely make a lot of the undecideds go “well, I don’t normally like democrats, but weed, heck yeah!”
Hickenlooper/Duckworth. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, I know. Reasons: The last two Dem presidents, Clinton and Obama, were both “fresh faces” when they ran. I want somebody that will make the Republicans come up with NEW lies, rather than just recycling their old ones.
Your arguments for “likely to win” are compelling, but you don’t really address the key lesson from 2016 (Trump/Sanders) which was the movement away from establishment candidates. You could argue that Obama also benefited from that sentiment.
Hickenlooper was a geologist who started a brewery. I’m cool with that. I don’t suppose there’s any way to get him to run as “John Hicks” or “John Hicken” or even “John Looper” is there?
Because Hickenlooper/Duckworth sounds like a presidential ticket they might have in a “The Music Man”.
I tend to agree with Biden/Harris. The talk of Biden’s age being a handicap to him is not as much of an issue as many others seem to think. He is old but he is a “fighter”. I have NO doubt that he could give it good to Trump on the debate stage and I think the debates are quite important. He would actually lash out with some bravado of his own, or cutting sarcasm, rather than always trying to reply at face value the way Hillary did. He seems like the kind of guy who could make it in the Rust Belt and Midwest.
Things that might hurt him:
He’s associated with Obama. Now, I don’t think Obama was bad, but there’s been SO much anti-Obama propaganda from the right, much of it being racist dog-whistles, that they’ve turned Obama into a bad word and Trump will double down on Biden’s connection with Obama. I can see it in my mind’s eye clear as day: “This is a guy who worked for OBAMA, folks. That’s right, OBAMA. He was following Obama around like a…like a pet DOG or something. BIDEN THE DOG, folks. OBAMA. OBAMA. While Obama was DESTROYING the economy, yeah, destroying, he destroyed, he was destroying the ECONOMY, he was destroying the COUNTRY…Obama was RUINING AMERICA, with Biden at his side. Biden…OBAMA. OBAMA.”
He has a bunch of pictures and videos of him being “creepy.” I happen to think it’s bullshit. But would the GOP run with it? YES. “CREEPY JOE BIDEN, folks. He tries to hug this little girl…tries to hug…look at this, people, he keeps HUGGING people, he keeps TOUCHING people…creepy Joe, folks.” It doesn’t matter that Trump is like Plato’s ideal of a creep. His fans don’t care.
The above point isn’t exactly something that, in itself, would affect votes. It’s not like there are lots of undecided people or lukewarm Democrats who are gonna think, “hmm…yeah he is kinda creepy, guess I won’t vote for him.” No, it’s not that. It’s the fact that it could throw Biden off his game. If his aides and campaign managers are coming to him and saying, “what are we gonna do about this whole Creepy Joe thing”, that’s another thing on his plate to deal with and it can definitely mess with his mind.
He’s taken a strong position against “assault weapons” and there’s a video of him saying “you don’t need an AR-15 to protect yourself…just buy a shotgun.” While this is indeed a reasonable proposition, there are a lot of people who do think they need whatever weapon they need, and don’t like being told that they can’t have it. This translates, in the spin machine, to being a “gun grabber” and the GOP propaganda against him will also run with that. Again, this isn’t so much an issue that’s going to make or break votes; it’s more like something that can throw him off by distracting him from talking/thinking about more important policy issues.
With all that being said, he still stands a better chance IMO than anyone else in the Dems’ bench.
You just made me think of something that had not occurred to me: The Debates. Not only would Biden demolish Trump , but Kamala Harris, as a mixed race woman would absolutely unnerve and freak out Pence before she dismantled him. She could literally be nice to him and maybe touch his arm, and he’d skeeve out and discombobulate. Or…she could follow him around the stage, which would cause him to implode and would be a hilarious callback to 2016.
I didn’t say that that was a flawless recipe for success. I’m saying that it is a component of the game. We’re all used to Trump’s yarblegarble now, so I’m thinking he’ll have a tougher time.
What’s your pick Elvis? Give us a slate and a reason.
No she did not, not unless you’re thinking of the debates in terms of “a logical series of questions and answers.” But that’s not what they are. They are a form of stage performance and ritualized combat.
Ok. Now I want the debates to be a stage performance and ritualized combat.
I’d still take Harris over Pence, but now I want hand to hand combat with box cutters, preferably in fancy dress colonial costumes- or if you prefer, in the traditional ethnic garb of the candidate, Pence can wear a white sheet- while the candidates sing extemporaneous arias about their prowess at governance.
He’ll get far less of a ride from a media that enjoyed having a show to present, yet.
At this point it’s just tossing out name recognition, so it doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t post it at all if you didn’t insist. But Hickenlooper-Harris is as likely as any other combination - young but not too young, capable, determined, articulate, etc.