Biden’s most critical choice for the 2020 election is whom to select as his running mate. On this one decision rests the future of our nation for at least a generation to come. If Biden makes the wrong choice, Biden will lose, and so will the nation.
The question is not whether the Vice-Presidential candidate should be male or female, white or a person of color – although that is how many frame the issue. The only question is which person, among the many possible choices for VP, will best help Biden win the election against Trump?
This year’s Democratic Primary and Presidential election, despite the enthusiasm for a bevy of highly qualified, progressive, photogenic and articulate candidates, have in reality always been about one thing only: what candidate and what ticket can attract enough independents and enough of Trump’s white, working-class and wavering-Republican base to give the Democratic ticket a solid majority in the electoral college?
A person of color as Vice-President in this election cycle will not enhance Biden’s chances of winning, since such a candidate will be rejected by precisely the voters Biden most needs to win the election – white, working-class, right-leaning men and women who have come to realize that Trump is not up to the job they elected him to perform. Biden does not need a Vice-President of color to appeal to that demographic. He can carry those voters himself, as the South Carolina primary proved.
Biden needs a Vice-Presidential candidate who looks like the voters he needs to swing to his ticket, someone who comes from a similar demographic and geographic and is competent and reasonably well-known. Among the candidates who shared the primary stage with Biden, Amy Klobuchar ticks off more of the right boxes than anyone else. She is white, mid-western, and rose from a middle-class background to Senatorial success and increasing appeal during the Democratic Presidential primary.
Though Biden said he planned to chose a woman as a running mate, true leadership is about making the best choice for the times, even if it means changing your mind. Biden’s preference for a female running mate was announced before the breadth of the coronavirus pandemic was fully evident, and before Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings, especially contrasted with the daily briefings of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, showed what a complete absence of coherent leadership in the White House looks like. Republican’s defense of Trump as “unconventional” was unmasked to its true meaning: “incompetent.” “President Clorox” and “Vice-President Lysol” – as former Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently named them – are simply no match for the competence, candor and credibility exuded by Governor Cuomo and his team.
Andrew Cuomo could be a viable Vice-President, even though he claims to be content with his job as Governor of New York. Biden and his team should consider Governor Cuomo as a potential VP or for some other important cabinet position.
In addition to winning in 2020, this election and Biden’s choice for Vice-President can and should help establish viable Presidential and down-ballot Democratic candidates for the next several election cycles, including many people of color.
Biden’s Vice-Presidential pick in 2020 should be someone of Presidential talent and gravitas who can lead the ticket in 2024 or 2028. Former UN Ambassador Susan Rice, former Georgia Legislator Stacey Abrams and Senator Kamala Harris have been touted by some as possible Vice-Presidential candidates. While all are qualified and potentially electable in the future, none of them will appeal in 2020 to the slice of moderate white, working-class voters Biden most needs to assure his election. But with Amy Klobuchar or someone like her as Vice-President and the most likely next Democratic Presidential candidate, she will be well positioned to select a Stacey Abrams, Susan Rice, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker or Pete Buttigieg as Vice-President whenever Joe Biden finishes his service to the nation as President.
More women and candidates of color will soon be rising to some of the highest offices across the country and hopefully many of them in the Biden Administration. But seeking to fill some voters’ yearning for such a Vice-President in this election cycle will put Biden’s candidacy at risk and is likely a bridge too far in 2020. It won’t be next time around.
With the right choice for a Vice-Presidential running mate and the winning of some crucial down-ballot races, the Democratic Party in 2020 has a chance to again become the dominant party in America in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. Democrats will then be able to begin the necessary work of our times: bringing people from all walks of life and every economic, social and religious strata together to re-imagine and construct a new American society and institutions which more effectively address the many imbalances in our society that brought us to this point of national crisis.
Trump has been and remains the single most potent threat to American Democracy, the rule of law and our future. Democrats, and Biden in particular, must not squander the 2020 opportunity by giving in to a strong emotional pull to nominate a woman of color as Vice-President. Rather Biden and Democrats need to play the smart game and the long game, by choosing Amy Klobuchar or someone like her for Vice-President in 2020. This will give Biden and Democrats the best chance to diversify our national and down-ballot leadership and to bring competence, courage, compassion and credibility back to the White House and to Congress.
We must right the Ship of State before we seek to renovate it.