The speaker lineup for the virtual Democratic Convention this year is out and many little birdies are all a-Twitter trying to read the tea leaves to see who Biden has picked for VP. Here’s the schedule:
Who could it be? Who could it be? Let’s review our options, shall we?
- Kamala Harris. You’ve got to give her points for having a humongous PR machine. It’s as annoying as Bernie Bros. Plus every black woman journalist in the universe is saying the same thing: “it had better be a Black woman or else”. I’m fine with voting for whoever joe picks but I find it very disturbing that they’re not saying: “it had better be the candidate most capable of handling the fallout of the horrific destruction Trump had caused our treasury and governmental institutions or else”. No, you will never hear a Harris fan girl say such a thing. I’ll leave it here except for one thing: there’s nothing wrong with being an ambitious woman. But if you’re going to hype yourself to the stratosphere, then you shouldn’t end up dropping out of the presidential race before a single primary vote is cast. That shows an aversion to risk taking and committment. Just saying.
- Susan Rice. I like her. She’s not f{}%ng around. She’s smart as a whip and she’s got the know how to set foreign policy back on the right track. I think she’s pretty electable.
- Elizabeth Warren. If you want a VP partner who knows the root causes of our economic decline, you can’t get a better VP than Warren. No, you can’t. And replacing her with a Republican isn’t really an option in MA. They will have a special election for her seat. So calm your tits. The Pocahontas thing is stupid and it’s time to kick the MAGAs in the junk over it. Not only that but she was a working mom, something that some of the other choices on this list aren’t. Yes, she represents MA but she’s from Oklahoma. So, you know… there’s that.
- Gretchen Whitmer. I kind of think she would make an ideal VP. She’s from the Midwest. Check. She was steely during the lockdown, some might say OCD. but she turned her state’s infection rate around with almost zero help from Trump. In fact, she unhinges Trump like no one else. He. HATES. Her. It’s so obvious. Probably because like many world leaders, Whitmer is science driven, tough and effective when it came to the pandemic. I would love to see Whitmer drive Trump up a wall.
- Amy Klobuchar. Very effective Senator. She intentionally destroyed her Minnesota Nice reputation. But I sense a note of self doubt in her from time to time. You can’t be like that in this election year.
- Val Demmings. She shone during the impeachment hearings. She’s got her finger on the pulse of police actions. My only concern is her scope.
- Karen Bass. Regrettably, I don’t know much about her. But I’ve heard that she, like Rice, has a tendency to speak her mind. Biden/Bass, Kickin’ Ass has a nice bumpersticker ring to it.
- Stacey Abrams. The true governor of Georgia. No one is so photogenic. She is one of the most beautiful politicians I’ve ever seen. Smart, with a diversity of talents and a committment to enforcing voting rights, I’d love to vote for her someday. But I think she needs to win a bigger office first. That’s just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
- Tammy Duckworth. It’s difficult to find someone with as much toughness as Tammy. She’s got a story of incredible strength in a time of personal pain. She knows Cadet Bonespurs doesn’t have the cojones to take her down. She’s been very active on behalf of Colonel Alex Vindman who recently resigned. Her ethnicity makes her a very diverse candidate. And she has two kids that were born in the last decade. So she knows what it’s like to juggle a full workload, a nursing baby and a wheelchair. She perseveres. We will need someone with that kind of resilience.
Ok, I’m going to make my prediction. You guys can add yours to the comments below.
I think it’s going to be Gretchen Whitmer.
Your turn.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
Well, it’s Harris. {{sigh}}
The moneyed class wins again.
I just read this, and I liked your analysis. I wanted Whitmer ahead of anyone else, then Duckworth. I will just say that there was immense pressure coming from Black people, and some others, to pick a Black woman. The letter from “100 prominent Black people” was insulting, intimating that they were having to choose between devils in the other elections, and they were tired of it. It became rather obvious to me that Biden just was not going to go against what would have been an immense storm of anger and sense of betrayal that we would have heard on a daily basis.
So after thinking at the outset that Klobuchar might be the ideal choice; and then seeing her have to drop out because of a firestorm of criticism that she didn’t deserve; and then thinking that Whitmer and Duckworth were the best choices, I finally realized that it was going to go down to Harris or Rice or Bass or Demings. Of those options, I would have preferred Demings. i do think that Harris is a better choice than Rice, particularly in a short campaign where there is a need to have the momentum of enthusiasm. I actually think that Biden would have picked Whitmer, had it not been for the events of the last few months. I thought that she would help him in the Midwest and just in general help the Democratic Party going forward. And I think that Whitmer would have had a better chance to win the 2024 election than Harris will, but of course that is just my opinion.
I am sort of inured to not getting the people i want, though we came agonizingly close with Hillary, and I was thrilled with Bill winning two terms. Other than that, either the other side wins, or our side wins with an insipid candidate. We absolutely have to win this time, or there is no country. So at least I’m happy that it was not Rice, because as smart as she is, there would have been all this deep state nonsense as distraction. Harris does have a vibrancy which can help Biden. i don’t think she helps him in any particular state, as others might have done, but it will probably help turnout, which was somehow not there last time, despite Hillary’s great attributes, and a history of unwavering support for Civil Rights issues. So there we are, and we have to win, and try to fix all the terrible damage which Trump and his followers have done. And then we also have the issue of a Democratic Party which is now obliged to not offend any particular wing, lest they decide not to vote. What is going to happen when Latinos demand that one be on the next ticket? Eventually this runs aground, unless you have a President who is such a commanding presence that he or she can appeal to everyone, and smooth over the inevitable complaints which will be voiced every other week by some person or group.
I have been a Harris supporter since she decided to run for President. I think she has the toughness to deal with the Trump debacles left behind. And honestly, so long as we get those grifters out of the people’s White House, I’m good. Well today I’m pretty damn happy.
RD,
I agree with you. I did not like the threats that Biden MUST choose a black woman! Blackmailing a candidate is a disturbing way to make a choice of such importance, since everyone kept saying that it was Biden’s decision alone to make.
While I do like Harris a lot, I do feel Biden chose her to appease the African American community but more so to appease the big money donors of Wall Street. He knew Harris would be less of a threat to them and his chances to be president. After all, it was reported back in the spring that big money donors were already pressuring Joe Biden not to choose Warren as his running mate. We all know why.
If Biden had chosen Warren, it would have signaled to me that “we, the people” were finally going to get a real chance to fight the establishment and take back what they have systematically taken from us for decades under the guise of “trickle down economics”. Warren is the ONLY person who could and would have made that possible because of her expertise in how the system is rigged against the average American and her fearlessness in fighting for us for decades. I wanted that fight very much but realize now that I was dreaming and probably being extremely naive to believe that Biden would ever go against the establishment. After all, I believe that the establishment chose Biden as the democrat nominee, despite his lackluster campaign and poor performances during the debates. It sure looked to me that he was “selected”. Wall Street knows they can control Biden and more than likely, Harris as well, to not rock the boat too much, but they could never control Warren.
Of course, the Biden/Harris ticket is light years better for America than the dictator and his criminal syndicate now holding the people’s house hostage. I will gladly vote for them. Perhaps, Warren will be asked to be Secretary of the Treasury. Regardless, there is no doubt that Biden will need her experience and expertise too to help him succeed.
I would like to take a moment to point out that women, in general, can all be proud that none of those being considered for VP slot ever engaged in back biting and petty put downs of the other candidates, i.e., NO PISSING CONTESTS! Maybe there was a little swipe by Klobuchar against Warren when, after she dropped out of being considered, she told Biden he must choose a black woman as his running mate!
I can’t wait to kick trump’s large azz and all of his sycophants out of the White House!
Looks like 2008 to me, not the best qualified to handle the challenges we face but they make us feel good about ourselves and make us believe that everything will be all right now. (Delusion IMHO.) Wake me up after the election. I will vote for the show horses but have no joy in these candidates. While i do like Kamala, I would have preferred Stacey (a true workhorse for the right reasons) even without higher office seasoning, but i do not like or want Joe, period. With respect to the “heartbeat away” criterion, overall i agree Liz or Gretchen would have made more sense and the country would have been better for it.
Cats,
Stacey’s time will come. She is still very new to the national stage but is becoming more and more known through her consistent interviews on the various cable shows. She is formidable. Sadly, kemp, the former Secretary of State of Georgia removed eligible voters from the voter roles and stole the election for the governorship from Stacey. It appears that cheating is the only way the republicans can “win” anymore.
I believe America has a “learned helplessness” which makes a candidate like Warren pushing an aggressive agenda favoring the average American while pocking Wall Street in the eye seem like an impossible dream. We just don’t believe we worthy to have what Warren says we are entitled to.
I hope I will always believe in and support those candidates who dream things that never were and say, why not?
Apparently, Biden called Harris 90 minutes before his announcement, to offer her the position. That might mean that it was still very uncertain until the last moments.
A positive thing is that Harris is probably going to be valuable in warning people about all the tricks and scams that Trump and Republicans will use to try to suppress the votes or steal the ballots. She will certainly speak up forcefully,about that, and she will be able to bring out a larger turnout than we had in 2016, which is something I will never accept, particularly from the people who now pop up on TV who actually said then that they were not going to vote in that election, ignoring Hillary’s 50-year history of working for equality and minority rights. They are largely responsible for what has happened to this country since, Eddie Glaude would be one of those, and there are others.
Harris is fine with me.
I never really got interested in the horse race for running mate, because I would vote for Donald Duck and Goofy over Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
Yeah, that’s me. Biden is a can of tomato soup that I’m voting for to get rid of the Trump monster. Who his VP is really didn’t matter much to me though much like William I’m incredibly relieved it is not Susan Rice.
Well, RD if it makes you feel better apparently Hillary was really pushing for Harris while Obama was pushing for Rice to be VP.
Yeah, and I have met the enemy in the stupid white women who will vote this fall. I’d have gone with Whitmer.
Regardless, all the ecstasy i see on Twitter reminds me of the way Obama was nominated. There was a HUGE push from some crazy PR org to make Harris feel like the next best thing to sliced bread. Then the warm fuzzies and tears of joy and expressions of passion.
I’m sorry, but after what we went through with Obama, I’m deeply skeptical. The only one I can kind of relate to is Paul Krugman whose reaction was positive but restrained.
Yeah, I have to wonder how this plays with the women voters. My main knock against Kamala is if she was so great why couldn’t she catch fire in the primaries? But yeah, if I really wanted those suburban women voters I would have gone with Whitmer.
Exactly.
I’m cautiously optimistic that her lack of baggage will be a positive for her with the White Suburban women I canvassed, who I thought at the time were the dumbest f}#%s on the planet for buying into all that improbable “Hillary Clinton killed dozens of her political enemies and had my alien baby!” nonsense.
But if I were the Trump campaign, I’d play up the idea that Harris is a symbolic choice, because she is. Let’s stop pretending otherwise. That she’s also going to beat the living snot out of Pence on the stage is irrelevant.
One more thing. Like Obama, Harris does not come from an underprivileged, working class background. Her parents were very well educated professionals, bussing trauma or not. I heard reverend Al trying to suggest that she knows what it’s like to grow up in an urban neighborhood with few opportunities in life. I don’t think that’s true, or at least not for her personally. This is going to be immediately exposed as a elaboration at best.
One thing I think Biden et al overlooked was that Harris is not a working mom. Being a step mother is not the same thing. She’s never had to navigate maternity leave, child care hell, mommy tracking or the wreckage of her career during the pandemic. I think that is a significant omission. How will suburban women relate to that??
You know, back in 2008, Obama was shoved on us even if we had reservations unrelated to his race. But it was assumed that all the people who supported Clinton would get on board even if we were righteously angry about how the rules were bent to get him the nomination.
But for some reason, we are expected to believe that Black women would abandon the party completely if Whitmer or Warren was selected?
That’s bullshit.
I think the party is going to have to work extra hard to get suburban women now. Hyping Harris’s resume is not going to work. They need to try something else.
No, those same women will be saying Kamala slept her way to the top. They are beyond hope. The hope is getting the people who voted for Gary Johnson or the people that sat home in 2016 plus new voters. One of the reasons Warren may have not been chosen was she reps MA or that she finished 3rd in the primary in MA. I get the whole working class upbringing but that is supposed to be Biden’s calling card.
Their concept is that whatever they lose in that cohort, they get back in coalition of Black people and other minorities. That was Brazile’s coalition which she touted, I think that she almost said that the party did not need White people, or was it White men, to win. That coalition worked in 20008, with the assistance of a major economic crash. It may work again, against Trump, and we all immensely hope so. But I have doubts if it could consistently win, not if some vocal Black pundits essentially refuse to support the ticket unless they get someone they want on it. This time, I think there will be great enthusiasm from Black people, and more of them will vote than last time. However, the race was lost (at least as it was counted) in three key Midwestern states. if the Democrats could have taken over the suburban vote in those states, they would be hard to beat in any election. Of course, there is the other approach, to try to win states like North Carolina and Georgia, and that may be possible, but you still have to win at least Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this time.
Well, before we pile on Harris for not “catching fire” during the primary…let’s not forget that Joe’s campaign wasn’t exactly on fire either with the electorate. Nobody questions how he made it to the top. I would suspect the same way Harris did with the help of the same people. I question both Biden and Harris’s rise to the top.
I was totally behind Elizabeth, who is much more qualified than Whitmer (and I like Whitmer), but she didn’t get the nod either. The question that will never ben answered is “why”? Elizabeth has worked hard for decades fighting for the middle class. She does her homework and can provide specifics on how she will change the system to no longer favor the rich. She has never gotten the credit she deserves for what she has done already and was denied the chance for VP simply because she scares the hell out of Wall Street. I believe she was the right person at the right time after 4 years of trump, but the power elite would not allow it.
The big question in my mind is not why Harris made it, but why Warren did not.
Biden was also not my first choice. But *someone* wanted him enough to pull out all the stops for him.
Not the ticket I would have preferred but I’m going to vote for it anyway because the alternative is like staring into the abyss.
I don’t think it was Wall Street as much as her performance in the primary. Frankly I was surprised that she was ever on the VP list.
Imagine how different things would have been if Hillary had the women’s groups sending the media a warning not to engage in their usual misogynistic attacks on Hillary in order to undermine her candidacy and build doubt about her qualifications…that they, in essence, “had her back” and would be watching to make certain they didn’t cross that line.
Now, all of the cable news channels (except for Fox) are giving Harris glowing accolades and recognition for her accomplishments and even defending her record as a prosecutor(which she deserves), Why didn’t they recognize her talents during the primary and give the same glowing reports then? What’s different now? Did being chosen by Biden suddenly make her the right candidate and ready on day one in the media’s eyes?
What’s different about Harris now that wasn’t apparent in the primary?
Kathleen, perhaps because she is perceived as standing beside or behind a white man to assist him rather than in front of him, competing with and outshining him?
GA6th, hadn’t heard that. I always think of Rice as part of Jarrett’s crew. Hillary had said that there were three things she looked for in her VP and the third factor was essentially what that person could do for the ticket electorally. I see Harris bringing in more black and white votes than Rice or any of the other contenders. She has the “O” factor: charisma. Plus, she is telegenic and knows how to bloody an opponent. The people do love blood in the sand.
If she were that inspirational, her campaign wouldn’t have floundered.
She’s energetic and telegenic. She’s accomplished and over qualified.
Charisma? I don’t think she’s graced with an abundance of that. I saw her grilling Barr and kavanaugh and I found that impressive. More impressive than Warren or Whitmer or anyone else?? Like Stacey Abrams who has an excess of charisma, grit and telegenicity?
No.
The charisma is in the symbolism, like O. They are products of the market place. I agree that Stacey is genuinely charismatic, i find her eloquent and sincere and she has follow through. After being burned by Kemp and voter suppression she went out and did something about it. A workhorse, her kind of beauty does not readily catch on with the masses, but it should. I hope she attains high public office sooner rather than later.
Re grilling, i was never impressed. Katie Porter and even AOC are far more surgical and effective in exposing the truth and the lies.
Agreed. You do not want to be sitting across from porter, AOC or Adam Schiff. Those kinds of interrogations leave marks. I can’t wait to see who replaces Harris in the Senate. I’d take porter or Schiff in a heartbeat.
And Stacey is genuinely beautiful. It’s hard to not stare at her when she’s on TV. And she can really pull off that gap tooth thing. Haven’t seen that done as well since Madonna.
One other thing, when it came to kavanaugh, Amy Klobuchar was brutal. She brought out the worst in him. I loved it.
It was unfair that Amy was brandished with the weight of the Floyd killing. She didn’t have a chance after that. That is the single reason Harris won the nod, in my opinion.
I supported Warren in the primaries, and Val Demmings was my number two choice for VP after Elizabeth, but I’m pretty excited about Kamala. She is tough and smart, and I can’t wait to see her take on Pence in the debates!