Semi-Open Thread: Biden’s Vice President Will Be… [UPDATE-4]

Incoming. Duck and cover, people.

Let’s keep all the commentary about the Democratic Party’s VP nominee here in this thread alone though other topics are welcome.

Updates will appear at the bottom of this post.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 3:06 P.M. ET —

NYT’s Jonathan Martin tweets:

No actual VP event today, per a Biden official.

doesn’t mean there won’t be a reveal of who it is, leaked or planned. just no plans for an in-person event.

As usual, assholes show up to joke about missing a rose ceremony a la The Bachelor.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-2 — 3:53 P.M. ET —

According to CNN’s Dana Bash:

The Biden campaign has informed some of the women the former Vice President’s team vetted about his choice of running mate, three sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. Karen Bass was told by Biden himself that she was not the pick, a source familiar tells CNN.

Wonder if each prospective nominee will simply announce they’ve not been chosen leaving us to assume the nominee by process of elimination.

Only seven more to go, I think…could be a long evening.

Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart interviewed all eight known candidates; you can listen to a podcast available at this link.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-3 — 4:20 P.M. ET —

And there it is, the pyroclastic flow trigger…

Okay, bring it. Get all the snarky takes out of your systems now.

Come dawn tomorrow it will be time to get behind these two to boot Trump and Pence out of office and take back our country.

Lock and load, people, let’s roll.

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134 replies
  1. Rayne says:

    I am trying to prepare myself for the pyroclastic flow of bullshit takes from white male talking heads who will tell us what we, the majority of the party who are not white/male/straight, are going to lose by whomever it is Team Biden has selected.

    If you don’t see me here for a while it’s because my blood pressure couldn’t handle the hot take storm.

    • marksb says:

      Do what we product managers did in the Tech biz: ignore the self-important execs and analysts who think they Know It All, and pay attention to two parties: the customers, who know exactly what they want and when, and the engineers, who actually do all the work. Voters and candidates/staff; everybody else gets ignored.

      Thanks, BTW, for what you-all do every day.

      • Rayne says:

        Thanks. If only this was a standard rule of thumb…but far too many people read/listen/watch the talking heads instead of listening to the people who matter.

        Like Black women, 94% of whom voted for Clinton. They were clear-eyed about Trump and his vicious racism.

    • ducktree says:

      Fear not . . . here’s a Politico piece linked to at WaPo on KH from early last year charting her early course. The story of her debate performance with opponents for SF DA:
      https:/ /www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/24/kamala-harris-2020-history-224126

      She’s always got the receipts to show that payment has come due . . .

    • AndTheSlithyToves says:

      My guess is that Tom Joseph was spot on with his KH assessment from July 29:
      Tom Joseph @TomJChicago
      If Kamala Harris is Biden’s VP pick, she brings an advantage the other candidates couldn’t-She knows what’s behind every redaction in the upcoming 1000 page Senate Intel Committee Counterintelligence Report on Trump/Russia. It will be a formidable advantage against any R opponent
      5:51 AM · Jul 29, 2020·Twitter Web App

      • PhoneInducedPinkEye says:

        Tom Joseph has made a number of wrong, and knowably wrong, predictions and takes on the courts/agencies/Senate being moments away from exposing all of Trump’s Russia sins. Take anything non-cognative decline related he says with a massive grain of salt, and let that inform you on how much salt to take in general.

        That is a bad metaphor. Don’t eat too much salt.

        • Rayne says:

          You realize you’ve just misspelled “non-cognitive” (which isn’t the appropriate word) while counseling others to disregard Tom Joseph’s observations about Trump’s declining cognitive skills?

          ~eye roll~

          EDIT: It’s pretty goddamned obvious that 1) Trump is cognitively impaired and declining, and in this respect, Tom Joseph is absolutely right; 2) Tom Joseph is also wholly accurate that Harris has access to intelligence other VP candidates didn’t have because of her position on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

          Which may explain why Joe Biden tweeted this morning:

          Joe Biden @JoeBiden

          If @KamalaHarris and I are elected, we’re going to inherit multiple crises, a nation divided, and a world in disarray. We won’t have a minute to waste.

          That’s exactly why I picked her: She’s ready to lead on day one.

          10:26 AM · Aug 12, 2020·TweetDeck

        • PhoneInducedPinkEye says:

          Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I was trying to say that while Tom Joseph has a lot of good observations of Trump’s deteriorating brain, Tom has also made wildly irresponsible claims such as “Judge Walton is going to release the unredacted Mueller report shortly” which make me question his non-cognitive takes. It also makes me take his diagnosis of FTD and his timeline that Trump will be non-communicative in 2021 with a grain of salt.

          I mean clearly Trump has cognitive problems that are getting worse, and I enjoy Tom’s spotting of foot-drops, spasms, jerks, slurring, etc, but he’s also mistaken hair tape for deep brain stimulation probes which are not visible after the scalp heals. I have a family member with these probes so I know.

          As far as spelling goes my phone doesn’t spell check after I add a hyphen and I’m a child of the digital age with all its spelling lazyness for better or worse.

        • Rayne says:

          I don’t take Tom Joseph’s observations on Trump’s decline without doing research. My family lost a member to a degenerative neurological disorder which shares many of the same hallmarks as FTD. If it’s the same disorder, Trump is already pushing the limits of competence and his malignant narcissism will make the continuing decline even uglier.

          Joseph’s remarks are a prod to the rest of the public not to ignore the symptoms of Trump’s decline and plan ahead for the point at which he will be unable to perform his duties altogether during whatever is left of his tenure in office.

          Gods help us if that tangerine hellbeast has a bad sundowning episode near the nuclear football.

        • AndTheSlithyToves says:

          Yeah, I don’t pay much attention to his political prognostications, and I agree that he can muddy the waters a bit when he doesn’t stick completely to his dementia knitting, but, as Rayne points out, he’s right on about Kamala and the Senate CI Report. Reading his twitter feed (along with Bandy Lee’s “Duty To Warn”) since 2018 has finally gotten me to an “aha” moment about Trump that I couldn’t have reached on my own, even though it had been staring me in the face since his faux election. Starting in July 2010, I was the primary healthcare advocate for a very dear friend of mine–a brilliant, educated and accomplished individual–who passed away in late 2015 at a “memory care” facility that was home, in addition to my friend, to a number of well-known figures suffering from various stages and types of dementia, Alzheimers, and other neurological impairments. Trump’s White House enablers/facilitators have no idea what they’re doing.

  2. jaango says:

    As I write, I am seeking my small roll of duct tape, knowing that Biden will not be focused on the perceived “progressive” oriented agenda. However, he will be focused on elevating the “centrist” on the mistaken belief that the Pandemic that he can supposedly solve via the Senate.

    • Rayne says:

      You don’t know that for certain. You need to look at the Democratic Party’s platform after the convention and you need to look to the next Congress.

      Because if the Democrats manage to eke out a majority in both houses AND there are a record number of women and persons of color in both chambers, Biden will be along for the ride.

      EDIT: There are +400 bills which have been languishing in the Senate. Folks might want to leaf through those to see what will be resurrected in the 117th Congress and passed almost immediately if Democrats sweep both houses.

      Let’s begin with The For The People Act of 2019 (H.R. 1, 2019).

      • NickinNJ says:

        I second H.R.1 must be first. Substantive positive change can only happen when our “representatives” actually represent the people and the public interest.

    • BobCon says:

      Bernie Sanders has called the Biden platform the most progressive since the New Deal. And I think Sanders is largely being sincere and not just honoring the deal he made for input.

      Noam Chomsky has said he thinks Biden’s instincts are moderate, but he also thinks Biden is showing a lot of signs of engaging with the left. He thinks Biden is a realist and will accommodate the left as long as they are organized.

      Biden has been telling his wealthy donors to expect a repeal of the Trump tax cuts and a more progressive tax code. If he is already signalling that to this group, I think it is a strong sign of where he is headed.

      His allies in the Senate are already signalling support for ending the fillibuster if the Dems win the Senate. I see this as a sign he is prepared to skip lengthy negotiations with bad faith Republicans.

      I do not expect him to go as far as I would like, but I am fairly encouraged so far by what I see.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Chomsky’s take is also that the left votes for someone less than it votes against the worst candidate. It then agitates like hell to make the winner’s actions as progressive as possible.

        Trump is by far the worst president in America history. He is also the avatar of the Republican Party. They are two sides of the same coin. They have rejected representative government in favor of one-party rule by the elite. They refuse compromise. In the middle of a global pandemic and economic depression, they are happy to let everyone else be damned. Let’s vote the bums out in a landslide, and put our stamp on how we rebuild.

    • PhoneInducedPinkEye says:

      IDK let’s wait and see, there has been some positive signalling.

      Net neutrality and privacy will still languish and I bet he puts a bad FCC head in, but maybe California will force everyone else to move in the right direction.

  3. Tom says:

    I hope that at the President’s next press briefing a reporter will ask him to explain, in his own words, what AG Barr meant in his interview with Fox News this past weekend when he stated the left has become “a Rousseauian Revolutionary Party”. I’d really like to hear Trump’s thoughts on the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

  4. Epicurus says:

    No idea who the VP will be. Not sure we will ever get the real reason. My guess is Jill Biden was holding all the real decision making cards and not Dodd or his committee.

    OT – sorry – from Vice: “Attorney General William Barr, the nation’s top law enforcement official, said Sunday that the Democrats are a “Rousseauian Revolutionary Party that believes in tearing down the system,” that Black Lives Matter is a “Bolshevik’ group that uses “fascistic tactics,” and that antifa is a “highly organized” group using “guerrilla tactics… Barr made the claims, for which he didn’t provide any actual evidence, in an interview with right-wing commentator Mark Levin on Levin’s Fox News show.” Mark Levin may be the strangest person ever. I actually heard him say, reeking with sincerity, the Repubs are trying to fulfill the the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Regardless, Barr managed to get Rousseau, fascists, Bolsheviks, and guerrilla tactics in the the same brain fart, pretty much hitting every hot button he could find except abortion and making no sense at all. I would say reporters make a mistake when they call AG Barr the nation’s top law enforcement official. I would say he is the top order enforcement official. Perhaps if Ms. Harris is VP she can head a specific commission investigating Barr Justice Department violations. Make Barr spend all his fortune in legal defense expenditures.

    • Tom says:

      Barr & Levin came across as a real mutual admiration society. Their underlying message seemed to be: “Aren’t we smart? Aren’t we a couple of well-spoken, really bright, erudite, la-di-da right-kind-of-people type chaps? Not like that Fox audience hoi polloi watching us a home.”

    • Savage Librarian says:

      :-) We need to rally ‘round the Biden/Harris ticket and celebrate the potential for the future of the country. I believe the Senate will turn blue, too!

    • BobCon says:

      I know there will be some complaining from the Bernie Sanders side — as well a majority of Sanders voters who will shrug it off and say they preferred Warren but Harris won’t stop them from voting for Biden.

      I think there will be a few chin strokers on the left who will claim this gives Trump an opening with Black voters due to Harris’s work as a prosecutor. They are out of touch.

      She is not perfect, but there is no perfect VP choice just as there is no perfect presidential nominee. I look forward to her facing up against Pence.

      She’s smart, liberal, strong, quick on her feet, been through previous tough vetting, and I think she is a solid choice.

      • NorskieFlamethrower says:

        “I know that there will be some complaining from the Bernie Sanders side…”

        What the hell??!! Biden has at least given lip service to a progressive platform and Bernie has endorsed him on it. Maybe Joe or the folks who pull Joe’s strings think that Joe has a chance to be a transformative President in addition to getting elected by not shitting on 70% of the base of the party. But as a Bernie supporter who understands that his brand of “democratic socialism” is not very far to the left of the New Deal, I am amazed at those remaining neoliberal Clintonistas are whining about what some Bernie supporters might say about his VP pick after Sanders has won the battle. Of course Harris is the logical choice not only because she is smart, battle tested, qualified, Black and female but because the empty seat she leaves in California will be taken by another “liberal” Democrat. Get over it!

        • BobCon says:

          That’s why I said most will shrug it off. It’s what I’m already seeing. Most saw the writing on the wall and want to move forward, not relitigate 2016.

        • NorskieFlamethrower says:

          Huh?!!! You put words in mythical Bernie supporters’ mouths, implying that they don’t like the pick because…? Or that these unidentified Bernie supporters are shrugging it off?!! Give me a break. The Bernie supporters I know (and I have a hunch I know a lot more of ’em than do you) are heaving a sigh of relief and are just a little bit closer to believing that Joe will actually do what the majority of the base of his party want him to do. Now quit whining.

        • graham firchlis says:

          Sanders has already given Harris his unequivocal endorsement. He and Harris agree on nearly everything, and they actually like each other. Any Sanders supporter who isn’t supportive of Biden-Harris is missing the forest for a leaf.

        • BobCon says:

          If you think there is something mildly controversial about what I said — some Sanders supporters will complain but most will shrug it off — I can’t help you.

          The latest polling I saw said Sanders voters were breaking around +85% for Biden. Which, if you do the math, says somewhere you will find a few who are not.

          That’s politics. You always find a few. Klobuchar voters, for some reason, were slightly less likely than Sanders voters. Go figure.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Back to Chomsky’s point, if you’re on the left, you vote against the worst candidate – clearly, Donald Trump – and then work hard to make the winner act on your proposals, rather than give in to the well-heeled lobbyists from Wall Street.

      • Alan Charbonneau says:

        I’m not a Harris fan, but unless he chose Sarah Palin, Biden was gonna get my vote. Same with whomever the hell is running against John Cornyn. I don’t know or care who it is, they get my vote.

      • blueedredcounty says:

        “She is not perfect, but there is no perfect VP choice just as there is no perfect presidential nominee.”

        The other way I like to put this is, “They could walk on water, and the whiners would just bitch that they refuse to swim.”

    • Kim Hanson says:

      Re: get your snarky out.
      Is he deliberately trying to lose the election? How much hard working progressive ground game volunteers did he just lose? Does he care (he really being the DNC and DCCC)? By the way Joe, you already had California. Suspect this will also lose him significant black turnout. Huge gift to Trump!

      • Valley girl says:

        Agreed. Losing Black voters is the first thing I thought of.

        Yeah, BobCon, I’m one of those out of touch voters. Thanks for the clarity.

        • BobCon says:

          My point is that every VP pick since John Adams has lost some votes somewhere.

          Harris will lose a few, but I think the net is a solid positive.

          It’s not like they’re nominating a statue, he’s picked someone who will make a case, probably a strong one, for a lot of progressive issues, and will definitely make a strong case against reactionary values.

      • bmaz says:

        What a load of shit. Having a black woman on the ticket is NOT going to lose a lot of black voters. What in the fuck are you smoking? This is simply crazy commentary. And Duckworth would not make much difference in the midwest. VP candidates simply just do not do that.

        This is a national election, the VP slot is not going to win or lose it. Biden picked who he felt best covered a lot of bases and that he felt he would be comfortable with.

        • NorskieFlamethrower says:

          Oh bmaz, you are too quick, I wanted to pitch a big chunk of of that bull shit back at ’em. Thanx though.

        • BobCon says:

          I am sure Fox has had Diamond and Silk on 24 hour standby to claim they were thinking about voting for Biden but now they won’t.

        • bmaz says:

          Lol, I’m still not sure I really understand who or what Diamond and Silk are. On the other hand, I really do not care!

        • Alan Charbonneau says:

          I really don’t know much of anything about Diamond and Silk — are they like Leather and Lace?

        • Kim Hanson says:

          You can’t have it both ways. If the VP pick doesn’t matter then it doesn’t. So you think it won’t lose black votes. Put up then, what will be black voter turnout? I will go with 62%, what is your number BMAZ?

      • Tracy Lynn says:

        In what way will KH cause an exodus of black voters away from Biden? That is, what issues do you think she is weak on? I’m not one who assumes that because she is biracial she is a black voter magnet, but I can’t quite see what your point is.

  5. Nehoa says:

    I think Kamala Harris makes the most sense overall. I liked Susan Rice, but having someone who has run for major offices and won is valuable. Looking forward to Kamala eviscerating Pence in a debate.

    • Tom says:

      Remember what they said about Senator Harris’s questioning of Bill Barr on his handling of the Mueller report last May, that “She gutted him like a fish and left him flopping on the deck.” Kamala “Kick-Ass” Harris!

    • Rayne says:

      I think Harris checked a lot of boxes. She’s mixed race — Black and South Asian — and she’s proven her ability to draw crowds.

      Does she have some problems? Yeah — I’m sure we’ll hear about it from bmaz. But I’m seeing fewer troll attacks on Harris than I am Warren even now, suggesting it will be more difficult for opposition to get traction.

      Harris will provide the additional fight the ticket needs against an incredibly nasty piece of work in the White House.

      • Kim Hanson says:

        Duckworth for the midwest and the vets, areas where Joe is weak, but he went with the DNC choice.

        • BobCon says:

          The DNC as a political institution is weak and divided. It is not teliing Biden what to do, and he is not asking.

          And Tom Perez is actually doing a pretty good job rebuilding from four years ago. But we are still talking about a minor league operation.

        • Kim Hanson says:

          Do you actually think Harris was NOT the DNC choice? If so which woman from the list do you think was? Or do you think they just sat it out!

        • Ravenclaw says:

          We have read that Speaker Pelosi (the most powerful Democrat in office at this time) favored Bass. And without having sources for everyone, I’d say the “establishment” was going to be pretty happy with just about any one of the 7-8 finalists. Oh, and as for your “California is already won” remark earlier, VP picks haven’t influenced home state votes since 1960, when Johnson helped Kennedy land Texas. They have two main roles: encourage specific demographic groups that might have felt left out to get enthused (in this case, yes, women-in-general/women-of-color/immigrants-and-their-children/folks-concerned-with-law-enforcement) and to serve as “attack dogs” (oh yeah, she’s a former prosecutor!). In this case, there is also a very clear generational message and a pledge that she’s ready to assume the reins of power if needed. Did several other finalists meet most of the same standards? Yes. So at the end of the day, Biden is being Biden: going with a person who is qualified and whom he likes on a personal level. Makes sense to me. I would’ve liked to see President Warren, but if the Dems take the Senate, she’ll be more valuable there than as VP because she’ll be drafting key legislation nonstop for the next couple of years.

        • bmaz says:

          Yes, this strikes me as right. Especially the “last time a VP pick really may have moved an election” part being JFK and LBJ part.

          Sorry for paraphrasing, but what you said is so correct.

      • vvv says:

        Hear-hear!

        And lemme say this middle-age, straight white guy is very happy with her selection. (Posting from Chgo., I did like Duckworth, … any of the last-standing would have been fine, but KH IMO, was the best of ’em for the ticket.)

      • bmaz says:

        Meh, I have known of Harris since her first days as a DA, even before she was AG in CA. Were there some darks parts of her “prosecutor record”? Sure, but she did what most all prosecutors did at the time. I think she has been far better on crime justice reform as a Senator.

        She is smart, tough and quick on her feet for the campaign trail. She will be fine, I might have had other more dire thoughts if she was being named AG, but this is fine.

        • Kim Hanson says:

          What votes does she add for the ticket? (the only thing that matters to me in this particular election.)

        • P J Evans says:

          Anyone who won’t vote for Biden because he chose Harris wasn’t likely to vote for him with any of his other choices.

        • bmaz says:

          This is simply idiotic and hysterical. It also displays that you clearly do not know jack about VP effect on national tickets.

        • Kim Hanson says:

          What’s your track recored re: national elections? (which is not to say I don’t respect your opinion on legal matters.)

        • bmaz says:

          My track record is just fine, thanks. But YOU are sock puppeting this community.

          You were once known as “HanTran”, but now are curiously “Kim Hanson”. Actually, looking at your history, it appears you have pulled this duality well before trying to troll us with this unsupported bullshit about VP votes.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          She adds a lot of votes Biden could not reach, they’re just different than those more readily attracted by, say, Warren or Bottoms. Her experience is also deeper than Bottoms’, which will go a long way, if Biden uses her to craft deals on the Hill. We’ll need a lot of them. He’s likely to do that, since Harris would also be president of the Senate. Harris also adds a lot of energy – a commodity Biden needs to conserve in the midst of a pandemic.

          There are a lot of other seats at the table Biden has to fill. Personnel being policy, when his people are done with that, we’ll know more about what he plans to do and how.

        • Rayne says:

          Every person I have run across so far who asks this question is white and doesn’t have friends/family who aren’t white. Probably Christian/unaffiliated as well.

          Harris is Black and South Asian, married to a Jewish man from a New Jersey family. Her parents were immigrants from Jamaica and India who immigrated and naturalized; she was born in California. She supports descheduling marijuana, better immigration legislation including the DREAM Act, and a ban on assault weapons.

          For starters. If you can’t see all the boxes she checks that Biden doesn’t check, you’re also missing a huge swath of Democratic Party voters. Like a substantive majority.

        • timbo says:

          She’s shifted her positions more to the left as she’s progressed up the DP machine. Frankly, I think she’s part of the Obama centerists in the party. As with Obama, many things can be promised and then not delivered when it comes to the left… or at least that’s the lesson from the Obama first term… give people something but make it as conservative as you can is I think where this is all headed… if Biden even gets in.

        • Rayne says:

          An Obama centrist? The data says otherwise.

          By now this community should understand the importance of the Senate to realizing policy and appointments. No matter who the president is, no matter the VP, if their party doesn’t hold the majority in both houses and especially the Senate, what the White House wants for policy won’t happen.

          Worry all you want the VP is a centrist though data says otherwise: without a Senate majority it doesn’t matter.

        • bmaz says:

          No. That would be a bad idea. Leave it in the past. There are a hundred better qualified people than Hill. Marty Lederman would be an inspired choice. Schiff not horrible, though not sure he wants it yet. Katyal is not my personal favorite, but he would get some real traction. There are tons more that have real institutional knowledge of DOJ in order to restore it. This is not a cute name game for “gee, make it Anita Hill!”. I knew one of Hills’ attorneys, and that person might make a decent choice too.

        • bmaz says:

          Sally Yates would be an option. Like I said earlier, there are many good options. Were it me, I would peg Marty Lederman or maybe Chuck Rosenberg. Those are just known names that would be fine. There are a LOT more out there. And I was not kidding about the play Neal Katyal will get. Not my choice but he will get heavy traffic.

        • Eureka says:

          Rosenberg’s temperament makes him an excellent choice for AG, particularly in these times, beyond his other qualifications.

          He’s got a certain je ne sais quoi of chill with palpable ethics.

        • bmaz says:

          I am not sure Yates is really that person. And she might be harder to confirm. I far prefer Rosenberg. And maybe Lederman at OLC.

        • posaune says:

          I’m good with KH. She is a talented politician, and like you say, quick on her feet. She’ll be able to handle stabs and trash-talk with flair and quick come-backs. A talented, personable politician for VP is a plus, especially for this election.

        • Raven Eye says:

          She will be refreshing, and I think very interesting — unlike the sock puppet Pence is.

          Once elected, Biden has a tough job ahead. Having inherited a couple of jacked-up contracts in my consulting days, I know that it takes much more time and effort to fix something than it took to wreck something. I think Harris will be an asset with regards to the Senate, and to address some issues that Biden isn’t as comfortable with.

          A challenge to Biden is to hit the ground running with a good team. Some of the things Trump has screwed will need immediate executive action. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody in a back room is outlining and prioritizing a batch of E.O.s.

      • PhoneInducedPinkEye says:

        Agreed, Harris has her issues, but a bhudda/jesus/judge learned hand ticket was never in the offing anyways. She will roast the Trumpist BS in ways that are not currently widely covered enough by msm.

        Plus she has the required ambition to be president after Biden’s one term. This VP pick is in so many ways a launch pad for 2024.

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      As I said several months ago, Kamala Harris is the best choice for several reasons.

      As great an idea generator as Elizabeth Warren is, she is white, almost as old as Biden and a familiar target for Trump. And she would leave a Senatorial seat unprotected in a state which currently has a Republican Governor.

      Susan Rice would drag the whole Bengazi shorthand to the lede of all the articles and that would never allow her to show what she brings to the table. I could see her as Secretary of State, or over seeing IC. She is too quietly diplomatic for the effluence that is going to be slung in this campaign.

      The other women, while accomplished, impressive and many with great futures, had shortcomings, mostly in experience at a high enough level, to be in real competition with the first three.

      As a Berkeley native, I could not be more excited for this choice. I will be interested to see what Willie Brown says. In his Sunday column recently, he suggested that she should turn this down for the position of AG, then run again herself in four years.

      Kamala Harris’s campaign was impacted by her sister being her campaign manager. There were rookie campaign mistakes made that a more experienced manager would never have made. This will give her the opportunity to see how a serious campaign is run, though obviously in a unique environment with the pandemic

      Now Gavin Newsom can put Adam Schiff in Harris’s seat. That will leave Diane Feinstein’s seat for Gavin to run for when her term is up.

      Ordering popcorn for the VP debate. It is going to be a slaughter.

      • AndTheSlithyToves says:

        My colleagues are joking about the odds of “Mother” allowing Pence to be on stage alone with Kamala…

      • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

        I thought Adam Schiff was more a creature of the House?
        If he ends up in the Senate, so much the better!

  6. Tom says:

    Mike Pence may claim (falsely) that “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America”, but none of us outside of the USA right now are safe in Donald Trump’s world.

  7. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I agree with Nicole Sandler’s suggestion that Katie Porter be nominated to replace Harris. Ms. Pelosi seems more likely to pull in some favors and push for Adam Schiff.

    • Rugger9 says:

      A very good choice out of many good choices in Harris. As far as replacing her as Senator, the ticket has to win first and then it will be decision time for Newsom. I doubt it will be Schiff, though because he would be more likely to replace DiFi next cycle. There is some scuttlebutt about Xavier Becerra as a Latino trailblazer. For AG, how about Ted Lieu if one’s looking for a Californian or maybe Klobuchar for Midwesterner?

      Warren brings the same irrational visceral reaction that HRC did, although not justified in either case, but the sense I kept seeing was that too many voters in the necessary places hated HRC more than they liked DJT. Warren is situated better in the Senate (hello, Majority Leader) and I think she’d rather stay there.

      • NorskieFlamethrower says:

        “…or maybe Klobuchar for midwesterner?”

        Oh no, don’t put Klobuchar anywhere close to a position that requires the ability to make a decision on anything that would require the courage to buck conventional wisdom. She’s Minnesota’s Tim Kaine and that politics left the building in November of 2016…never to return I hope.

        • bmaz says:

          Klobuchar is yet another that has no institutional knowledge of DOJ whatsoever. The tendency of people to blurt out any person they have heard of with a law degree is disconcerting. I have far more federal court experience than Klobuchar, should I be in the running? (No, of course not, and neither should she). Please, let us all not be stupid.

        • Rugger9 says:

          Pardon my ignorance here, but what is it about the federal judicial process that does not have state-level equivalents? Is it the lifetime appointment?

          From what I see here there is some specialization that seems important, and not every state has idiots like Roy Moore as Chief Justice even for a brief time.

        • bmaz says:

          No, it is really not necessarily state law equivalent. In relevant law or experience. But whoever takes over as AG after Barr seriously needs heavy institutional experience in DOJ, including Main.

          They will desperately need that, and there is no substitute. What has made Barr so effective/dangerous is that he had that background. His replacement will need it in spades as well.

        • bmaz says:

          No problem with Yates whatsoever. Like I said, there are several really qualified folks, and she is certainly one.

      • blueedredcounty says:

        If Warren was going to leave the Senate for a Cabinet position, I think she would only do it for Secretary of the Treasury.

        It feels premature to be speculating about things like Treasury or State at this point, when we haven’t taken the first step in flushing the Augean stable remants out of office yet. On the other hand, you know Biden has to be thinking about all these things already.

        So many things have been gutted and damaged by this administration and their various Republican enablers in the other branches, every person in the new administration will have their work cut out for them.

        • FL Resister says:

          I think the Senator from Massachusetts would best serve the country by staying on, drafting legislation and shepherding it through a Democratically controlled Senate. Elizabeth Warren is adept at grasping real world situations and we need to craft legislation right now. The women will get this done.
          Trust us.
          Sally Yates is an interesting figure, along with Fiona Hill. I would like to see both of them back in key positions.

      • timbo says:

        There’s a strong reason to go with a Latino replacement for the DP. The pick is up to Gavin pretty much tho. He’s got a few people on the short list and no doubt whomever it is will be part of Gavin’s people. Heck, he can threaten to send Jerry Brown to DC as a temporary Senator if he likes! (Think of what that sort of threat would do to keep potential replacements for Harris inline with whatever Gavin wants from them!)

  8. graham firchlis says:

    Fur is flying all up and down the state as candidates and the movers and shakers hiss and claw at each other.

    Doubtful Schiff will give up House seniority to be a junior Senator. Katie Porter is great, but the box ticks being widely bandied don’t include her.

    Personable, re-electable, half black half latina lesbian checks them all, but we don’t seem to have one.

    Always possible Newsom’s ambition will drive him to take the seat. Hope not. Can’t stand him, personally, don’t trust him at all.

    • timbo says:

      I heard Katie Porter mentioned today in a text. Is Schiff close to Gavin? I don’t know. But Gavin has a clique and it’s really something of a young ghost of the old Jerry/Pat Brown machine at its core IMO. So, who is hot and who is not from that list is likely what’s going to determine who might get the nod. What I am curious is how close Newsom is to Obama and Harris at this point…anyone have a clue?

  9. klynn says:

    Thanks for this thread Rayne!

    A little OT…re Mitch and Barr meeting.

    This old Mother Jones article may hit on some of the reasons they were meeting yesterday. With the NRA battle brewing and dark money in Ohio-KY brewing (with Mitch having one degree of separation in both matters) I imagine he’s wondering about money reveals and the short and long term impacts. This piece is well worth reading for a perspective on dark money and current concerns for foreign influence money/tech services.
    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/history-money-american-elections/

    • klynn says:

      Almost forgot a key quote from the article:
      “Bopp recognizes something that few on the left recognize: that campaign finance law underlies all other substantive law,” Ryan says. “If you can deregulate money in politics, you can buy the policy outcomes you prefer.”

      I’ll add…and buy elections with foreign influence.

  10. Pete T says:

    My slight favorite was Susan Rice, but now that the decision has been made I, as a 69 year old white heterosexual male, am THRILLED. I think Harris’ demeanor and ability to take on Trumpy(isms) makes her the right political choice, but she has the chops to do the job and lordy there a lot of things to do come Jan 2021. Yeah, she shoulda, coulda been different as SF-DA and CA-AG.

    Now that Trump has called her nasty – well to credit @rosalind on Twitter:
    “Kamala should use Janet Jackson’s “Nasty” as her walk-out music, just to eff with Trump.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s1fHtIVqiQ&feature=youtu.be

    • ducktree says:

      Ha! Thanks for this, Pete T. DeSean Jackson’s mother and I used to work together at the same law firm. We’re long time friends even though she has retired, and my pet name for her is still “Ms. Jackson-if-you’re-nasty.”

  11. FL Resister says:

    Since this administration cannot see beyond the next 24 hours, I suspect the biggest challenge Mike Pence feels right now is coming from Nikki Haley, and Trump has already been on the phone asking if she has received his special order of popcorn emblazoned with the presidential seal.

  12. earlofhuntingdon says:

    The twtrverse angst over whether Ms. Harris is really Black or South Asian or American (Oakland, by way of Jamaica?) is amusing last gasp projectionism. The right thinks it has fallen down a rabbit hole, its world is turned upside down, because those who should be steppin’ ‘n fetchin’ are about to take over the country. They are apoplectic about becoming the non-dominant members of the species. For many of us, that would be beneficial. Their exaggerated nightmare ignores how powerless most of those commentators are already, and it ignores coexistence, sharing, and the figurative joining of hands, which might help us all during this real Covid-19 nightmare.

    As for the focus-grouped slam that Ms. Harris can’t possibly be Black (or real) because she doesn’t fit neatly into their status hierarchy, the answers to a few questions might help them reorient. All are from the perspective of Birmingham, Alabama, c. 1948. Would Ms. Harris have been able to sit unmolested at a white lunch counter or in the front seat of a city bus? Would she have been able to legally marry a white politician and could he have won his next election? Anyone who doesn’t know the answers to those questions is lying.

    • Rayne says:

      Let’s be specific here about “The twtrverse angst” — this is NOT the entirety of Twitter or other social media platforms.

      This “angst” about identity is the same as birtherism and it’s spawned and spread by the same people who questioned Obama’s citizenship birthright because he was Black and had a non-Anglo-Saxon name.

      This “angst” is white supremacy attacking a non-white VP nominee, and it’s part of a spectrum of attacks on Biden-Harris fueled in no small part by domestic and foreign influence operations.

      EDIT: Also in the twtrverse —

      b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie

      although there are many ways to criticize harris — especially if trump and allies develop some message discipline and focus on criminal justice — it should be no surprise to see an ethno-nationalist movement focus almost entirely on her racial and ethnic origin

      9:34 AM · Aug 12, 2020·Twitter Web App

      What Jamelle said.

      • BobCon says:

        The overlong backstory is Bouie is specifically calling out Thomas Chatterton Williams, co-agitator of the idiotic Harpers letter, along with Bari Weiss, Bouie’s former colleague on the NY Times. Weiss’s unhinged resignation letter darkly (and dumbly) hinted at a lawsuit against the Times for the criticism she received from her colleagues (Bouie is one of her critics).

        Bouie rips apart the premises of TCW without breaking a sweat. In part it’s because Bouie knows his stuff, but it’s also because TCW is a clownish combination of arrogant and dumb. He’s the guy who thought it would make him look good to brag about throwing someone out of his house in the South of France for arguing that Bari Weiss was a hack.

        Which all circles back to my ongoing complaint that the right and the establishment middle is fantastically dumb. At best they know how to break but they have zero capacity to build. There is certainly a mixed record on the left, but there is no meaningful intellect on the right, to go with collapse of all pretense to morality as well.

        • Rayne says:

          The overlong backstory is problematic. First, the return of birtherism is racism. It’s that simple. Don’t obscure with convolution that isn’t there. Bouie was addressing racism straight on.

          Second, TCW is a mixed-race man whose image should appear next to the definition of “internalized oppression.” Bringing TCW’s opinion into race makes things messy because he rejects so much of Black Americans’ lived experience from a position of privilege including his residency outside the U.S.

        • BobCon says:

          You’re right, I misread the threading — it was the very next tweet where Bouie began dismembering TCW, but that one was a standalone.

          One of the frustrating things about the TCW project is that if he followed what he preached and made a good faith effort to read the people he dismisses, he might actually develop. But he is too terminally self absorbed to do anything like that.

        • P J Evans says:

          I’m thinking about my niece, whose partner is from Africa, one of my cousins, who married a young man from the Gambia, and my father’s cousins whose father was a descendant of Creek (Muscogee) slaves (I’ve seen the records) – that family became “white” as soon as they were out of Oklahoma.

        • Rayne says:

          People who pass as white often choose to do so because racism in this country is crushing and murderous. But there’s a moral and ethical challenge for people who pass; they have taken privilege created by white supremacy but they didn’t earn it except by a genetic fluke of appearing white.

          That’s me. People assume I’m just another old white lady now, especially since my skin and hair have faded with age. The darker skin and hair my siblings have missed me. Do I simply roll over and ignore the racism and pass for white because of a genetic crap shoot? Or do I use my appearance to make a point that racism is wholly arbitrary and evil?

        • FL Resister says:

          I agree with the “racism is arbitrary and evil” tack. It’s true and also much healthier.
          I think those distinctions also extend to sexual preference and identity.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Yes, it is. We’ll see lots of it, which is why it was worth mentioning and pushing back against.

    • Tom says:

      “… how powerless most of those commentators are already …”

      In the July/August edition of “The Atlantic” there is a review of a recent book, “In the Land of Good Living”, by Kent Russell which describes life in modern day Florida. The reviewer, Lauren Groff, quotes an excerpt from the book in which Russell gives his thoughts on the Trump supporters he meets. Russell sees these people as coming from

      “a class that has been told time and again that they are exceptionally free. Free to fashion their social and economic identities howsoever they choose. Free to master their fates and captain their souls. Yet everywhere they turn, these individuals are stymied by political and financial powers from whose vantage they appear to be as abstract and insignificant as remainders on a spreadsheet. There is a growing discrepancy between [their] right to self-assertion and [their] capacity to control the forces that might make such self-assertion feasible.”

      Easy to imagine these people interpreting admonitions to wear face masks as a further sign that the Deep State, or the radical left, or whatever is out to get them, and than a stubborn refusal to cover their face in public is a mark of their freedom and independence and refusal to buy into the corona-virus “hoax”. Also easy to imagine these people viewing Senator Harris selection as Biden’s VP as more evidence that the world they grew up in and were familiar and comfortable with is now transforming before their eyes. They’re afraid of the future.

  13. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Compare and contrast as speakers and people: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or sociopath Donald Trump and his water boy, Mike Pence. “This is what happens when we elect a guy who just isn’t up to the job.” “This election is about who we are as a country.” Nice to hear politicians who can think coherent thoughts and speak in whole sentences. She and Joe are touching all the bases.

    • graham firchlis says:

      And they’re happy. A message of hope in dark times, counterpoint to Trump.

      Couldn’t be happier.

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