Nobody will pick Yang as VP, but it would be good politics AND good policy for the nominee to announce that if they win, they will direct a cabinet secretary (OMB? Labor?) to start experimental pilot programs for UBI in a handful of urban, suburban and rural areas and study the effects and impacts.
They can then have the results published and referred to a bipartisan (lol) select committee, for plenty of bipartisan (lol) discussion (grandstanding).
It could turn out some Yang supporters, it wonāt cause any attacks that wonāt already be coming, and the nominee can basically say weāre studying it for the future so that if/when automation is a large enough threat to our economy, whoever is POTUS will already have data about what works/doesnāt.
By the same token, I donāt think Warren should pick Bernie as her VP. I do think she should make it public well before election day, perhaps at the convention, that Bernie will be her Sec of HHS in charge of spearheading the transition to Medicare for All.
If you gave him a keynote spot on the first night of the convention, and had Warren make a surprise appearance to introduce him with that announcement, it would go a long way to uniting her supporters and his, and toward making sure they turn out to vote.
If thereās a fracture with the moderate wing of the party, you could do something similar with a Cabinet post for someone more in line with Biden that doesnāt impact your major goals too much. Bonus points if you can find someone whose seat could go to a more liberal candidateā¦ So Harris and Gillibrand are good options. Coons and Durbin are others. I canāt see a path to getting Feinstein or Schumer to go that route, but it would be awesome if they did. The key is finding an area where they are liberal enough to match up on policy. The problem is the more powerful ones would only leave their Senate seats for specific, major cabinet posts (like State).
But in a world where we have 50-52 Senate seats and nuke the filibuster, but still need the votes of 96-100% of the caucus to pass anything, swapping a Feinstein for a Swalwell or a Schumer for an AOC (as senator, not leader) could be incredibly important.
If you could get Schumer and Durbin out of the Senate, I think the favorites for leader would be (in no particular order) Harris, Booker, Brown, Kaine, and Klobuchar. Brown would be a great outcome, and it would strengthen his future re election bids for a valuable seat.
Another cool strategy would be to not tap Bernie for Vice President OR Sec of HHS, and attempt to create a lane for him to become Senate Majority Leader.
A President Warren would have some very interesting options if the Senate got to 50-50 or better. And if theyāre down a seat and thereās a Republican senator from a state with a Democratic governor, sheās got to go for it to try to get it to 50-50, nuke the filibuster and ram HR1-plus through before the special election. That would give Dems a shot at immediate control via winning all of the new seats from DC and PR, and a shot at gaining seats in 2022 by ending voter suppression.
There will be lots to discuss in Nov-Jan if Warren or Bernie winsā¦