Joe Biden is approaching the most important decision of his presidential campaign: choosing the woman who will be his running mate, in a political terrain that has changed dramatically since the search began, and in the midst of an intense lobbying that has attracted unusual attention to the contenders.
With the former vice president enjoying a strong voting advantage over President Trump, some supporters say Biden is less pressured to make a game-changing decision to galvanize voters than when he was fighting to unify the party and Trump seemed stronger .
“We don’t have to shake up the race,” said Wade Randlett, a Biden fundraiser in the Bay Area. “We don’t want to shake up the race, just add an asset. This can be a historic choice and even a no harm choice. ”
Biden is still under heavy pressure to choose a black woman, but contenders of all races have been pedaling in and out of the limelight, with new names popping up almost weekly, each with their own cheering section. Her strong position in the polls may give her more freedom to think beyond short-term political considerations, to choose the person who seems the best long-term option as a government partner.
“The more promising the electoral map is, the more you think about compatibility, and if it’s someone, I really want to be my partner for four or eight years,” said Joel K. Goldstein, academic at the vice presidency of St. School. Louis University Law School.
A “do no harm” precaution could make Biden less likely to make a potentially high-risk, high-reward decision, like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive leader who could enthuse the left and the youth of the party. , but it could alienate moderate voters. It could boost the prospects for low-profile candidates like Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), a black progressive, or Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a disabled veteran and Thai-American.
But low-profile and low-profile dudes may not be prepared for the pressure cooker of a national campaign, so many disabled people believe a top contender is Senator Kamala Harris of California, a former black presidential candidate.
Some Democrats are warning against complacency as Biden’s electoral leadership grows, given the great uncertainty about the coming months before November 3. And the party must continue to energize its top voters, they say, especially black Americans, whose reduced 2016 share of The 2012 Record contributed to the defeat of Hillary Clinton.
“There is a temptation when you are so far out in the polls to start targeting moderate Republican voters,” said Karen Finney, one of the top aides to the 2016 Clinton campaign and one of more than 200 black women who signed a Letter urging Biden to choose a black career partner. If Biden does not select a black woman, Finney said, “there is significant potential that will have a repressive impact on black voters.”
Biden announced months ago that he would choose a woman for his running mate. In a recent MSNBC interview, she said she was considering, among others, four black women. Although he did not name them, sources close to the campaign say top contenders include Bass, Harris, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, and Representative Val Demings of Florida, a former police chief.
Biden also said he had reached an advanced stage of a background investigation of four women, one of whom was Warren, according to a source familiar with the process. Biden said he will receive a two-hour report on serious contenders from his four-person investigative committee before deciding who to interview.
The lengthy process in the five months since Biden became the future Democratic candidate has helped draw money and attention to his campaign, especially from the party’s top female constituency, at a time when the pandemic has hindered its advance.
The process also shows a lot about how Biden makes decisions: He is consulting a wide range of sources, but he is expected to make the final decision with a small group of longtime family members and advisers. Still, the scrutiny of the contenders has been unusually public because arrogant Biden has talked a lot about them.
Presidential nominees sometimes adopt the element of surprise. Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, stunned the political world by electing Alaska’s first Governor Sarah Palin. The little-known conservative brand of fire gave her campaign an initial boost, but the decision ended up being counterproductive when she made several mistakes.
Mark Salter, McCain’s campaign manager, said Palin’s election was driven in part by the final candidate’s need to shake things up.
“We were running late and we needed to find a way to restart the race,” Salter said, adding that Biden “doesn’t have to do that.”
The vice president’s job has long been denigrated as a ceremonial and powerless position, the butt of a frequently told joke: a mother has two children: one goes to sea and the other becomes vice-president. Neither of them has heard from since.
In recent years, however, the office has been improved because modern presidents, particularly Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, have chosen men who purport to be true partners in government in increasingly difficult times.
The stakes are even higher for Biden’s choice. At 77, he is online to be the oldest president in history, raising questions about whether he will seek a second term. His vice president would have an advantage to succeed him.
That is why an especially vigorous lobbying campaign is being carried out by and for potential career partners.
Harris, who has participated in at least eight virtual campaign and fundraising events for Biden, is perceived as one of the top candidates, but progressives view her background as a prosecutor with suspicion and are looking for alternatives.
Warren and her progressive supporters are trying to keep her in the mix despite the clamor for a woman of color. She raised $ 8 million for Biden in a fundraiser, a total second only to Obama. A former black Bernie Sanders supporter, Phillip Agnew, co-wrote an opinion piece endorsing Warren. Supporters circulated a poll showing that she is the preferred choice among undecided voters in battlefield states.
“Another day, another poll showing Warren as vice president adds the most new votes for Joe Biden,” said Jorden Giger, a leader of the Black Lives Matter in South Bend, Ind., Who supported Sanders in the primary race but has been pressuring Warren for vice. President.
Bass, president of the Black Caucus of Congress, is gaining favor with progressives. She was one of three black women, and the only one Biden thought was being considered, who was endorsed this week by Sanders’ large bloc of delegates to the California delegation at the Democratic convention.
Markos Moulitsas, an influential progressive blogger who had strongly endorsed Warren for president and vice president, changed course on Wednesday and endorsed Bass. She argued that her low profile was an advantage because Trump and his allies would have a harder time attacking her, while Warren’s selection would galvanize Trump and his base.
“Call this the” do no harm “approach, or perhaps Napoleon’s strategy” Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, “” Moulitsas wrote.
Competing for job number 2 is usually a delicate dance in which the contestants deny that they are looking for the job. Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost the 2018 Georgia governor’s election, broke protocol and for months publicly promoted herself to be vice president. That may not have been the best way to attract Biden, who in 2008 turned down the job when Obama first asked her to consider it.
Abrams, a young black progressive, generated a lot of interest, but the publicity also drew attention to her lack of national political experience. She seems not to have made it to Biden’s list.
Contestants often have city allies who pressurize them. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was one of Bass’s early promoters. John Morgan, a top Democratic donor and Orlando attorney, urged Biden to choose Demings, the congresswoman from her hometown and a lifelong friend.
Demings doesn’t have the national profile or obvious presidential ambitions of someone like Harris, and Morgan argued that it could be an advantage. Biden said, “He will want a number 2 that understands the role of a number 2. He doesn’t want someone with his own agenda and running for president the day after the election.”
Valerie Jarrett, former Obama senior aide in the White House, said that no number of lobbying or voting changes will change Biden’s primary goal: to find a “sympathetic” partner with him as it was with Obama.
“You are realizing the importance of looking beyond the elections,” Jarrett said, “to find a partner to help you govern.”
