Kamala / Walz 2024

You looking to up the average age on the ticket?

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wut

The conventional wisdom is that you try to pick a VP who offsets the weaknesses in the presidential candidate. W Bush was an unqualified doofy idiot so they brought in Dick Cheney who was an old crafty insider who brought gravitas. Obama was a scary young black guy so he went with a non-threatening old white dude to balance out the ticket. Joe Bidenā€™s allegations of creepiness and flirtations with dementia suggest that you want an energetic young woman, so Warren seems like a bad choice. Then again, everything is nutty now, who knows how things will shake out.

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Sounds like Chelsea would be the perfect pick (Clinton for eDemmers, Manning for Bernie Bros).

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Jesus Christ

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Maybe running mates matter mostly in terms of ability to influence the narrative in the mainstream media. Going against conventional wisdom hurts you because the media will hammer you on it. Given their ingrained bothsiderism, the media look more favorably on candidates who they think balance the ticket and may be resentful when politicians make decisions that clash with the media-driven conventional wisdom because they feel disrespected.

By promising to nominate a woman, Biden has primed the media to see balance in terms of gender, allowing him to pick a running mate who does not balance the ticket ideologically. Without that promise, the media narrative would be that Biden needs to pick a strong progressive to bring in disaffected Bernie bros.

:heart_eyes:

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Donā€™t worry one of the worst people around might be advising Biden

https://twitter.com/chicagotribune/status/1265076598476288001?s=21

Other than Bernie, Warren is the most popular Democrat available (2.6m votes in Primary). Sheā€™s also, for all her faults, an indisputably competent manager; this helps balance the ticket in that some people might be concerned whether Joe is ā€œupā€ for post-pandemic planning, much less 2nd wave disaster management.

I think Warren would a wise decision. I also think she would be a much better President than Kamala, Klob, Abrams, or any of the other Senate/Gov back benchers that Joe might otherwise select, which is significant given his age/health during pandemic especially.

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Have you ever been happy/proud/excited about a prior VP pick?

I was reviewing the last few GOP picks. Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Mike Pence, Dick Cheney. Fucking hell, all of them bad enough to make anyone on the fence run for the Dem Hills.

Maybe Iā€™m dumb. Seems like picking a good VP is LHF, but seems like best a candidate can hope for is a VP pick that isnā€™t instantly disqualifying.

Who isnā€™t a Kainiac though?

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download (4)

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Kaine was definitely a cartoonishly cynical pick. Their approach was basically, we need someone to appeal to the Mexicans, how bout this generic white dude that speaks Spanish!

Feels like Gore was the last good VP selection.

Biden was a good pick, strategically.

This old white dude with like 35 years in the senate probably did a lot to calm the fears people had of having this 50 year old black guy in charge of things. (Though Obama probably wins no matter what. He had elite charisma and the GOP was an absolute dumpster fire by mid-2008.)

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For a second I thought you meant Goreā€™s VP selection was the last good VP selection, which

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Obama had elite charisma and ran hot by having the only republican who wasnā€™t willing to center his campaign around the idea that he was a dangerous Muslim win the GOP nom. So yeah, probably winning no matter who his VP pick was.

Warren is by far the best pick since Biden said he would select a woman. Klobs is about as bad as you could possibly get. So I expect it will be Klobs.

FWIW, I felt like Castro should have been the VP pick regardless of candidate, but that ship has sailed.

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I definitely think Klobes is better than Abrams and Harris. Like Harris had to drop out despite a massive free media push. Abrams seems like a better communicator than Harris but her State Senatorā€“>VP of USA#1 is not a good resume and sheā€™ll get hammered for that.

Klobes is a very effective speaker and actually got a fair number of votes in a few primaries, unlike those two and Liz ā€œthird in her home stateā€ Warren.

Unless you mean ideologically instead of electorally, which, OK sure Liz is better but not reliable imo. The other three are identical ideologically as far as I can tell. Theyā€™re going to do whatever the Wall Street wing of the party wants.

Klobs is a terrible human being first of all. And anyone who thinks she is a good or effective speaker likely doesnā€™t understand what those words mean. Sheā€™s basically got Hillary level of charisma while being worse than Hillary at pretty much everything.

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