Yea, no doubt this is true. He NEEDS to pick someone who has the political stature, brains, education, maturity and national political experience to be able to handle the slings and arrows of a presidential campaign (and I'm sure that this is going to be a VERY UGLY campaign, even by the already low standards of recent elections). And, yes, he cannot make a "Sarah Palin" mistake.
I can't remember ever wishing/hoping/praying that a Presidential candidate makes his/her choice for a running mate that can step in and run the greatest country on earth. But this year I'm doing just that and not to just help Biden win the office but to be ready to step up if Joe's not able to finish his term.
Per Politico, Biden recently said that he would name his VP choice by August 1.
I feel the same could be said of the candidate on the other side of the aisle as well. I was hoping Obama would usher in the next generation of candidates, but it seems that the Boomers are having trouble letting go...and I guess technically Obama was a Boomer as well, but he was among the last of the boomers, not among the first. Heck, for that matter I guess Biden is actually too old to be a Boomer.
I can't speak for the gubernatorial level, but I think the Republicans have done a much better job of grooming the next generation of national candidates than the Democrats have. The Democratic Presidential candidate is 77 (and his two strongest last-standing rivals were Bernie @ 78 and Warren @ 70); Speaker Pelosi is 80; Majority Leader Hoyer is 80; Majority Whip Clyburn is 79. Compare that to the last group of Republican candidates (such as Rubio, J. Bush, Cruz, Kasich) who were generally in their 40's to 60's; Minority Leader McCarthy is 55; Minority Whip Scalise is 54. Only the President (73) and Majority Leader McConnell (78) are septuagenarians.
Politico with a fascinating article about a leading Democratic pollster (was Bill Clinton's chief pollster in the 90s) who says the data about VP picks is abundantly clear: Elizabeth Warren is far and away the best choice for Biden for VP
Biden’s biggest problem, Greenberg said, is that the Democratic Party has not unified behind him. In fact, Biden is now behind where Clinton was with Bernie Sanders voters in 2016, with more than 20 percent of the democratic socialist’s backers saying they would not vote for him, even as 87 percent of them pledge to vote for a Democrat for Congress. At a similar point in the 2016 cycle, roughly 15 percent of Sanders voters said they wouldn’t vote for Hillary Cllinton.
“Above all else, [the Democratic Party] needs consolidation. That’s where the overwhelming percentage of votes are,” Greenberg argued.
In his presentation, which was titled "The obvious solution," Greenberg wrote, “The biggest threat to Democrats in 2020 is the lack of support and disengagement of millennials and the fragmentation of non-Biden primary voters.”
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
As OPK pointed out, Warren is now in her 70s. That choice would be doomed to be named the Nursing Home Ticket.
Two old white people are gonna be a hard sell on many in the Dem party. They'll vote for them anyway, but they won't be happy about it; there is nothing inspiring about them in terms of either race nor youth.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Yes, completely agree. I was just making a generalization. Age is only a number to a certain extent and I really don’t think it matters THAT much when the platforms of the parties are very different. Even within the dem party, mayor Pete couldn’t snag the youth vote from Bernie or Warren. Policy matters more than anything.
It will be interesting to see if Biden adopts any of the views from the very liberal wing. I would think that largely depends on polling.
Here's all you need to know about Stan Greenberg: he wanted Hillary to pick Elizabeth Warren in 2016 -- a female running mate for the first-ever woman presidential candidate:
Stan Greenberg, one of the Democratic Party's longtime leading pollsters, urged Hillary Clinton in 2016 to pick Elizabeth Warren as her vice president. He thinks Clinton would be president had she listened.
Now Greenberg — who popularized the term “Reagan Democrats” and came to prominence as Bill Clinton’s lead pollster — is urging Joe Biden’s team to heed the same advice.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
I'm not talking about "young voters" (who are historically the last people you want to count on to show up and cast a ballot), I'm talking about the whole of the Democratic Party that will be voting in the general, and the independents that Trump and Biden will be fighting for.
I think that Democrats want to see diversity on the ticket. Not just in gender, which as we know will be addressed, but also in age and/or race. Someone in their 50s is far more inspiring to EVERYONE than two people in their 70s.
Last edited by -jk; 05-28-2020 at 06:01 PM. Reason: Clarity
I dunno, I keep alternating between your view and the simple view that people have Trump fatigue and will vote for Joe even if he has a ham sandwich (female) as a running mate. What they may want ideally, and what they're wiling to vote for, are probably two very different things.
I fall in this camp too. If Joe is setting himself up to be the transitional torch-passer (something he has said before) then the obvious recipient of the torch is the VP.
Plus, Warren does not help with suburbanites, the rust belt, and African-Americans -- where he needs to be strong.
Between his gaffe about AA voters, and the recent incidents in Brunswick (GA) and Minneapolis, I am more convinced that he will choose someone like Harris (a former prosecutor) or Val Demings (Rep.-Fl., a 63-year old retired police officer) to address the racial issues which are bubbling back to the fore.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."