SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Ralin]

This worthless fucking cumbucket just called the foundational right of our entire system of government a "privilege", while (again) laying the groundwork to reject any result where he doesn't win.

How is it a foundational right when most citizens/people in the country couldn't do it when the system was created? Given the number of ways it can be taken away privilege does seem appropriate.

[The Romulan Republic]

This worthless fucking cumbucket just called the foundational right of our entire system of government a "privilege", while (again) laying the groundwork to reject any result where he doesn't win.

How is it a foundational right when most citizens/people in the country couldn't do it when the system was created? Given the number of ways it can be taken away privilege does seem appropriate.

The 15th and 19th Amendments changed that, or at any rate they were supposed to.

But please, don't let that stop you from defending Trump's fascism so you can score some more "America is evil" points.

[Ralin]

The 15th and 19th Amendments changed that, or at any rate they were supposed to.

So, not foundational.

[MKSheppard]

In there defense the President seems to be a Nurgle Cultist so gun violence has fallen pretty far behind the plague, the graft and the twenty odd international crises going on that are being ignored.

More like they realize gun control is effectively dead for this cycle because:

For decades, they've been saying:

"Why do you need a gun? The police are there."

to now

"Defund the police"

Along with the recent BLM riots and stuff where the police...just stood around while vandalism occurred in front of them. People's worldviews got a 180 paradigm shift without a clutch this season.

So they're smart to lie low for the next cycle or so to let people forget.

Also, recently, gun control groups have shifted to "Defund the police", which is going to have .... interesting effects, given that they so love using urban police chiefs as props/faces for their policies; and now they're directly backing political threats to said urban police chiefs.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Wow, it's legitimately hard to count how many false representations and outright fabrications there are in that one post. You've really outdone yourself on this one Shep! I do believe this might be your masterpiece.

[The Romulan Republic]

Biden's numbers have dropped slightly. Not remotely enough to make me panic, as he's still got pretty healthy margings in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and the popular vote, but...

What exactly has Trump done over the last few days to make some people look at him and decide "You know, maybe he's not that bad after all"? Was it that he managed to go for a week without using a literal Nazi symbol? Or have we just accepted tens of thousands of covid deaths as the new normal?

Christ, I hate "undecided" (read: ignorant, vapid, easily-swayed) voters.

[TimothyC]

What exactly has Trump done over the last few days to make some people look at him and decide "You know, maybe he's not that bad after all"?

Dude, it's just noise. Polls have both margins of error, & confidence intervals.

[The Romulan Republic]

Kanye West's short-lived "campaign" has fizzled out:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07 ... allot.html

On July 4, Kanye West tweeted that he was running for president. It was treated as one of his typical grandiloquent pronouncements. The tweet sparked a lot of opinion pieces, cable news segments, and even a question in an Oval Office interview with Donald Trump. But most people brushed it off. In a follow-up interview with Forbes, West pledged, if elected, to run the White House like the nation of Wakanda from Black Panther. That remark seemed to reinforce the notion that this was just a lark. After all, West had previously compared himself to figures varying from God to Willy Wonka without attempting to establish the Kingdom of Heaven or manufacture an Everlasting Gobstopper.

But this time may — at least for a moment — be different. According to multiple campaign professionals who spoke with Intelligencer, West took early steps last week toward getting his name on the ballot in Florida and other states as a third-party candidate running against Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, July 8, around the time West tweeted and deleted an image of a fetus at the six-month mark of gestation with the caption “these souls deserve to live,” I was connected with a source who had been approached to work for the rapper’s presidential campaign. The source, who asked not to be named, was a political operative who had experience in this kind of work. I was extremely skeptical — but after talking with this person and others, I was convinced that West (or someone close to him) was at least toying with a real-life plan to build a campaign operation.

The source had been approached about going to Florida on West’s behalf to help gather the signatures needed to make the ballot in the state by the July 15 deadline. This person was offered $5,000 for the week’s work. In order to qualify for the ballot in the Sunshine State, West would need to gather 132,781 valid signatures from Florida voters in less than a week.

On the morning of July 9, TMZ reported that West’s family was concerned that the billionaire rapper was suffering a bipolar episode based on his presidential aspirations. The well-sourced tabloid website added “our sources say his family and those close to him are worried, but they believe things will stabilize as they have in the past.”

Later that day, I talked to Steve Kramer. He is a get-out-the-vote specialist who runs a firm that also helps candidates get on the ballot. Kramer, who has worked mostly for Democratic candidates but has also had some Republican clients, told me that he had been hired to help West get on the ballot in Florida and South Carolina. He added that his understanding was that West’s team was “working over weekend there, formalizing the FEC and other things that they’ve got to do when you have a lot of corporate lawyers involved.”

The signature-gathering process was described as ongoing, and Kramer said “we had overwhelming support to get him on the ballot.” He added, “Whether anybody is going to vote for him or not is up to them.” Kramer described the effort as including both paid and volunteer efforts to get signatures. “They got a lot of people who they’ve got both on their volunteer side and their contracted side,” said Kramer.

This all seemed real enough, and I reached out to West’s publicist for a response. The initial response was to loop in another spokesperson on the email. West’s team then went dark. As I waited for a response, I followed up with Kramer who told me, “He’s out.”

I asked what happened. “I’ll let you know what I know once I get all our stuff canceled. We had over 180 people out there today,” Kramer said.

About an hour after that exchange, West posted a video on Twitter of the rapper registering to vote for the first time at the county clerk’s office in Cody, Wyoming. The video started with West telling the audience, “I want to show you how I just registered to vote.” It then displayed the text “I thank God and I am so humbled at the opportunity to serve. Vote,” before showing West filling out his registration form. He then engaged in a brief conversation with a local official about felon disenfranchisement.

When I finally connected with Kramer on Thursday night, he was philosophical. “I have nothing good or bad to say about Kanye. Everyone has their personal decision about why they make decisions. Running for president has to be one of the hardest things for someone to actually contemplate at that level.” He noted the obstacles that a first-time candidate faces, and “any candidate running for president for the first time goes through these hiccups.”

Kramer noted that the staff he had hired were disappointed not just because they would be out of a job, but because they were excited about what a Kanye West campaign represented.

On Friday, West tweeted a text-message exchange with radio host Charlemagne Tha God, a song by Kid Cudi featuring Eminem, and a handwritten note captioned “YEEZY SOUND ROSTER PROPOSAL.” Meanwhile, the deadline to get on the ballot in Nevada passed.

It may not happen this year, but certainly West could run for president in the future. Donald Trump flirted multiple times with a presidential bid before his now infamous descent down the golden escalator in 2015. West’s ambitions to be a presidential candidate should probably be taken more seriously than his ambitions to be Willy Wonka.

This despite the fact that polling apparently had him at 2%.

[The Romulan Republic]

Joe announces a 2 trillion dollar climate plan:

https://nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/polit ... -plan.html

[The Romulan Republic]

An interesting profile of Karen Bass, who is currently rising in VP contention:

https://theatlantic.com/politics/archiv ... te/613975/

The first time Representative Karen Bass heard Joe Biden talk about the car crash that killed his wife and infant daughter, she dropped into her chair, overwhelmed.

It was 2008, and Bass was watching the Democratic National Convention video introducing Biden as the party’s vice-presidential nominee. Less than two years earlier, Bass’s daughter and son-in-law had died in a car crash on the 405. Bass, then in her 50s, had thrown herself into her job as the speaker of the California assembly and hoped to get past the pain. But there was Biden, 36 years after the tragedy that shattered his family, still talking about the magnitude of his loss. “I had this moment,” Bass told me, “where I had to come to grips with the fact that losing my daughter and son-in-law was always going to be a part of the narrative of who I am.”

Four years later, as Biden and Barack Obama were being reelected, Bass won a seat in the House, representing parts of Los Angeles. But she didn’t tell Biden what he’d meant to her until this March, when she introduced him at a Super Tuesday chicken-and-waffles event. “We both just shared that you learn how to get up in the morning,” she told me. “You learn how to live, but your life is fundamentally changed, dramatically changed.”

Now, much to Bass’s—and pretty much everyone else’s—surprise, Biden’s team is taking her seriously as a potential vice-presidential running mate. One theory is that she’s being vetted to help Biden win favor with the Congressional Black Caucus, which she chairs. Another is that Biden is trying to use the process to elevate as many black women as he can. Yet another is that he’s looking to distract people from speculating about some of the more likely choices. But inside the Biden campaign is another consideration: Over the next month, he’s effectively going to decide whether there will be a competitive Democratic primary in 2024 (or maybe 2028, if he wins and tries to serve until he’s 86 years old). He’s the leader of the party now. Will he decide its future by anointing a successor, or pick someone, like Bass, who’s less likely to run for president?

Biden has wanted to be president for almost 40 years. Now that the White House finally seems within reach, he does not want to be outshone, according to people who know him. He wants to win, but he wants the win to be about him, not his running mate.

I asked Bass whether she’d see the vice presidency as the culmination of her career or a stepping-stone to the presidency. She started with a long answer about wanting to focus on the work in front of her, and mentor the younger political generation, which has inspired her. “The vice president has considered himself like a transitional leader. That’s how I view it, because I envision a next stage of my life, whenever that comes,” she said.

I stopped her: If there were an open race for the presidency in 2024 or 2028 and she was Vice President Bass, would she run?

“I cannot envision that. That’s the best I can say. I mean, I’m 66. I can’t see that,” she said.

“Joe Biden is going to be 78,” I pointed out.

She paused. “Well. I don’t know how much time I have.”

When Barack Obama picked Biden as his running mate in 2008, Biden was also 66. Obama told Biden to think of the job like “the capstone of your career,” and the assumption that Biden wouldn’t be angling to run for president himself was part of the rationale for putting him on the ticket.

Bass came up as a community organizer in Los Angeles and worked as a physician assistant in emergency rooms during the AIDS crisis. She was at the infamous intersection of Florence and Normandie as the sun set in 1992 during the LA riots, and almost got hit by bricks. For the past month, she’s been shepherding a policing-reform bill through the House without losing a single progressive or moderate vote.

She “was not high on the list that the team had initially proposed,” a donor who’s spoken with Biden about the deliberations told me. But she seems to have moved up as the vetting committee has looked at her record and considered her upsides against the little obvious baggage she’d have. In this case, being largely unknown nationally means that she wouldn’t start out as polarizing. “He wants what he did for Obama,” the donor told me. “He sees that as what that job is: You speak truth to power; you step out there on the edge when it’s an existential issue. He sees her and her record as proven and time-tested—though she’s not known among large voter blocs, and not lifted up with a strong media presence.”

The donor is right about Bass’s distinctive appeal: Probably no other person alive would be the subject of a column by the conservative columnist George Will calling for Biden to pick her as “transitional leadership to get the world’s oldest party, and the world’s oldest democracy, to calmer days,” and also be described to me by Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota as not only “a colleague, but a dear friend.”

At the end of may, Bass flew to Houston to attend George Floyd’s funeral. She looked at the picture of him with the dates of his life underneath, and realized that the year Floyd was born, 1973, was when she’d first become active in her L.A. neighborhood, pushing for police reform. Now Floyd was dead, and she was in charge of a bill he inspired. She felt humbled. “And then, of course, it saddens you in the sense that, 47 years later, people discover, ‘Gee, there’s a problem.’”

Bass was from the south side. Antonio Villaraigosa, the future mayor of Los Angeles, was from the east side. She was organizing around police abuse. He was organizing around immigrant rights. “We were calling ourselves ‘progressive’ when nobody did,” Villaraigosa told me last week. He said they realized early on that they’d be able to do more by fusing a Black-brown coalition, and they showed up for each other’s issues, and for collaborative fights, such as pushing back on the proliferation of liquor stores. They became friends. “We had each other’s phone number,” Villaraigosa said. They still do. “She was someone who, back then, I took notice of because she was a worker bee. She didn’t need to be in front of a camera all the time,” he told me, which sounds like a line, but reflects a career in which Bass spent 30 years launching, then deliberately moving on from, a series of community organizations. She still doesn’t like having her picture taken, and thinks it’s silly. “If it’s meaningful to somebody, then I’m okay with it. But it ain’t my favorite thing.”

This would not seem to be the best mindset for a political career in the 21st century—and certainly not, if she’s picked, for a national campaign that will play out largely via socially distant camera shots. And Biden has privately expressed concerns about whether, given how underexposed Bass has been, she would be able to take or deliver a hit without stumbling under the pressure. Biden is risk-averse, and Bass does not have the cross-examiner’s mentality of Harris, or the economic incisiveness of Elizabeth Warren, or the Situation Room experience of Susan Rice, or the Purple Heart heroism of Tammy Duckworth. She still takes the approach she did organizing on the sidewalks in the ’70s, as displayed in her response to the massively disproportionate coronavirus rates among Black Americans. Treat and trace now, she argued, and grapple with systemic inequities when the hospital rooms aren’t full of dying Black patients. “I always say, ‘If the house is on fire, you send the fire department; you don’t send a structural engineer to talk about the foundation of the house,’ which is what everybody was doing,” Bass told me. “Everybody was talking about ‘Well, Black folks have all these underlying conditions.’ Well, that’s true. But right now, we’ve got to put the fire out.”

Biden’s vetting team has been watching prospective candidates for the past few months. The conventional wisdom about the Floyd protests is that they suddenly boosted the chances of Harris and Val Demings, the two-term congresswoman from Florida who was previously the Orlando police chief. Bass has a low-key manner in place of Harris’s searing speeches, and pointy glasses in place of Demings’s dress blues, but she was the one House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put in charge when it came to actually writing the police-reform bill. “During this precarious, pivotal moment in America’s history, our nation and the Congress are fortunate to be led by” Bass, Pelosi said in an uncharacteristically profuse emailed statement. Bass “has earned the esteem of all who know her for the grace, grit and gentility she brings to her work to make real the promise of a more just, equal and fair America.”

This was a bill that could easily have collapsed in the usual Democratic infighting. Instead, every Democrat voted for it—all of the moderates, all of the progressives—and three Republican votes did, too. The bill would ban local police forces from using choke holds, limit municipalities’ access to military equipment, increase police accountability and transparency, mandate body cameras, and take steps to end racial profiling.

I asked Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, a member of the moderate No Labels group, how Bass was able to pass a bill that got his vote, and all of the others. “She was the right person at the right time,” he replied. “Theologically, we say that God always has a ram in the bush.” Omar—who is literally on the Justice Democrats poster, and who represents the Minnesota district where Floyd lived and died—said, “In everything she does, Karen is always prepared on the facts, the policy, and the strategy.” She called Bass “a mentor and an example of someone who achieves big goals without compromising her values.”

There are still plenty of reasons to doubt that Biden will pick Bass. She’s supposed to get picked to be vice president because of a bill that the Senate probably won’t pass and that President Donald Trump would never sign? She’s supposed to convince undecided voters that she’d be ready to serve as president on day one, if necessary, because she’s well liked in the House and she chaired the Africa subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee? American politics has been defined by larger-than-life characters, and Bass’s greatest admirers admit that she isn’t one. But “she can grow that profile even more as his running mate,” Representative G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina told me.

The Biden campaign has been trying to decide whether to pick a running mate who satisfies the left or one who represents the racial and ethnic diversity of his party, since Biden himself does neither. Here’s where another argument for Bass kicks in: She shows that Biden doesn’t have to choose. Although Bass doesn’t have much of a relationship with Bernie Sanders, she hasn’t attracted the disdain of his most vocal and committed supporters. That helps explain the satisfaction among Bass’s Sanders-aligned House colleagues when she was named the head of the Biden campaign’s Biden-Sanders unity task force on the economy. Several top Sanders allies told me they were eager to see Bass picked—so much so that they wouldn’t go on the record, out of fear that making her look too aligned with the senator from Vermont could backfire and hurt her chances.

As the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Bass also has deeper connections than Harris with institutional Black forces in the party. She’s close with important voices in Biden’s ear: Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement helped earn Biden the nomination; Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a co-chair of Biden’s campaign who preceded Bass as chair of the CBC; and Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who’s one of the four members of Biden’s VP-vetting committee. (She also has a long relationship with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, another member of the vetting committee.)

Reflecting how seriously some of Bass’s competition is taking her is the sudden attention to her 2016 statement after the death of Fidel Castro. “The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba,” she wrote, seeming to have figured that the title was just the Google Translate equivalent of commander in chief, and not realizing it’s a loaded term of praise for those who fled the revolution.

Bass told me she didn’t know what she was saying, and didn’t mean to offend. “I live in Los Angeles. It’s easy to say certain things from that perspective and not think about how that comes across to people in other states,” she said. Admitting ignorance about the sensitivities around Castro, an issue that could theoretically pull Florida, with its large Cuban population, out of contention for Democrats, isn’t likely to calm those who say that Bass isn’t prepared for the national stage.

But Bass insists she’s prepared. “You know what? I’m ready for anything and everything. Let me just tell you something. This is really the way I view life. After having lost my kids, I can do anything. You understand what I mean?” she said. “I’ve always been clear about what I was doing and why I was doing it. And that has always been what has steadied me, allowed me to move forward in spite of really difficult odds.”

Villaraigosa helped talk Bass into running for speaker of the California State Assembly instead of the state-Senate campaign she’d been planning. Pointing out to her that a Black woman had never held the job was part of what persuaded Bass to do it. Her counterpart in Sacramento was Kevin McCarthy, then the Republican leader of the assembly, and now the Republican leader of the House of Representatives. Bass was not as well regarded by Republicans in Sacramento as she and her fans like to assert. But nonetheless, of the 435 members in the U.S. House, Bass is the only one who has actual, personal relationships with both McCarthy and Pelosi. “Anybody who can maintain a relationship with both is an amazing, angelic person,” Cleaver said.

The Biden campaign declined to comment on any of this, as it does with all running-mate speculation. But those who have been watching Bass over the years are reading tea leaves of their own. “She doesn’t give him donors; she doesn’t have a national profile; she tweets stuff and no one cares. The only reason you throw out Bass as a name is because you’re really considering her,” Michael Trujillo, a California-based Democratic strategist who has known Bass since her first assembly run, told me.

So much of any vice-presidential candidate’s role in a campaign comes down to performing in a debate. Harris and Warren would shine in that format. For all her years marching in the streets and working on bills, Bass has never done anything like that. I asked her what she thought debating Vice President Mike Pence might be like.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure how comfortable he is with women.”

She seemed to be referencing the old story, which Pence aides deny, that he won’t eat alone with women who aren’t his wife.

“Yeah,” Bass said. “Maybe she’d have to be there.”

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

I wasn't familiar with her before she came up as a possible VP choice, and my fear would be the same as one of the ones articulated in the article- that she lacks the larger than life presence needed for the campaign trail.

That said, there are some pretty strong arguments for her. I've said before that I believe the strongest choice for Biden would be picking a black progressive, because it would short-circuit narratives that pit black voters and progressives against each other. Since Stacey Abrams doesn't seem to be under serious consideration, Bass is a very strong option- and a timely one, given her central role on the police reform bill and role as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Edit: If she's genuine about not having Presidential ambitions, and presuming her feelings don't change over the course of Biden's time in office, then that would also leave the field clear for a competitive primary, and a potential AOC run, in 2024 or 2028, which is a nice bonus for me.

[The Romulan Republic]

New poll has Joe up 5% in Texas:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5 ... texas-poll

This is probably an outlier, fivethirtyeight's polling average gives Trump a .3% lead in Texas, but still.

In other news, the Biden campaign has now made a modest TV ad buy in Texas, in addition to the adds they're buying in several other swing states, signalling that they believe they can make a play for Texas (or at least force Trump to expend resources defending it).

https://npr.org/2020/07/14/890753387/wi ... s-in-texas

[The Romulan Republic]

Twitter accounts including Biden's hacked:

https://cnn.com/2020/07/15/tech/twitter ... index.html

San Francisco (CNN Business)Twitter (TWTR) accounts belonging to Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Apple, among other prominent handles, were compromised on Wednesday and posted tweets that appeared to promote a cryptocurrency scam.

The accounts, along with those of former President Barack Obama, Kanye West, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg, posted similar tweets soliciting donations via Bitcoin to their verified profiles on Wednesday.
"Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time," Gates' tweet said, promising to double all payments to a Bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes.
A spokesperson for Twitter said the company is looking into the issue.
"We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates," a spokesperson for Gates told CNN Business. "This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account."
"Like many others, our @Uber account was hit by a scammer today," the company tweeted. "The tweet has been deleted and we're working directly with @Twitter to figure out what happened."
This is a developing story. Check back for more...

Looks like it was scammers, not partisan or directed at Biden specifically, but it doesn't speak very well of Twitter's security.

Although all the names listed here are people who are involved in politics and are or have recently been at odds with Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

On Warren's growing influence over Biden's economic policy:

https://axios.com/warren-biden-influenn ... 5ebe9.html

As Joe Biden rolls out new policy details and speeches around his major campaign platforms, the hand of one primary-rival-turned-VP-contender is increasingly visible: Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Why it matters: If Biden wins in November, it's clear that Warren will significantly shape his approach — on domestic policy in particular — whether or not her name's on the ticket.

Her influence helps explain why Warren is still seen as a strong potential pick in a year when being 71 and white probably works against her.
Biden is expected to announce his running mate in early August from an all-female shortlist of candidates.
Driving the news: The climate plan Biden touted in a speech this week includes an expedited target date for 100% clean electricity on a timetable favored by Warren and another former contender, Jay Inslee, as Reuters noted.

Several elements of Biden's economic recovery plan released last week were directly influenced by Warren and her team, three people familiar with the discussions told Axios and Biden campaign officials confirmed.
The big picture: Biden has so far publicly adopted at least six policy stances shaped by Warren and her team.

On March 14, Biden endorsed Warren's bankruptcy proposal, which includes a student debt relief portion.
About a week later he tweeted about increasing Social Security checks by $200 per month and forgiving a minimum of $10,000 per person in federal student loans — two of Warren's plans.
For his "Build Back Better" economic recovery plan, three sources familiar told Axios that the Biden and Warren teams consulted closely together on this plan and many of Warren’s ideas are reflected in it.
Specifically, the procurement investment and a focus on green manufacturing were derived from two of Warren’s plans she unveiled during the primary.
"Biden’s recent bold moves seem less like a political hat tip to progressives and more like he’s genuinely aiming to meet this moment and smartly consulting with people like Elizabeth Warren as he comes up with big plans for this moment," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which endorsed Warren in the primary.
Between the lines: People familiar with Warren's engagement told Axios they generally don't read it as a strategy to secure a spot on the ticket so much as a reflection of her keen interest in policy and defeating President Trump.

She's earned a name for herself as a policy wonk who loves "nerding out," and "I've got a plan for that!" was a signature line of her campaign.
Warren and Biden have been holding regular policy discussions since she dropped out in early March.
While Biden and Warren mostly work together behind the scenes, they've appeared together in joint op-eds, outlining policy proposals for addressing government corruption and providing more oversight.
Warren's progressive brand has rubbed off Biden rhetorically as well as substantively. “We must reward work as much as we rewarded wealth," Biden he said in a speech last week in Pennsylvania.
The backstory: The VP calculus changed as George Floyd's killing led to louder demands from activists, allies and politicians alike that a Black woman should be selected as Biden's running mate. Sen. Amy Klobuchar took herself out of the running and said Biden should pick a woman of color.

There's a real desire for representation, but a greater desire to find someone who can authentically speak to the concerns of Black communities. Many Black and racial justice leaders say that describes Warren.
She is, according to several Democratic activists and donors and people close to Biden, the only remaining white woman in serious consideration for the 2020 ticket.
Warren has "established a track record of speaking inconvenient truths about racism and taking on the fight that matters," Angela Peoples and Phillip Agnew wrote Wednesday in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
In an online survey in April of 800 Black voters across eight battleground states, conducted for BlackPAC, 15% of those who stayed home in 2016 said they'd be more likely to turn out in November if Biden picks a Black woman — but Warren had the highest favorability.
The bottom line: Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, told Axios that if Biden were to choose "any other white woman" besides Warren, "they will need every day to explain to black people why they did that."

[The Romulan Republic]

Also of interest is the fact that Biden's VP options appear to have narrowed to "A Black woman, or Warren"- and that this appears to reflect the preferences of Black voters.

[Knife]

I get that the old, black, female voters are the 'base' of the Democratic party. But the dems better be careful. Biden is the black female choice, his sweep of the black vote in the southern states in the primary is why he is the candidate. Pushing to get the VP as their choice as well will alienate other camps.

[The Romulan Republic]

I get that the old, black, female voters are the 'base' of the Democratic party. But the dems better be careful. Biden is the black female choice, his sweep of the black vote in the southern states in the primary is why he is the candidate. Pushing to get the VP as their choice as well will alienate other camps.

This is a major oversimplification. Biden won the older vote across racial lines. He lost the youth vote across racial lines. Old people turn out more, so Biden won. Since Democratic voters in Southern states tend to be heavily black, that can create the impression that Biden won because of his appeal to black people specifically, but the actual numbers show that age was a more determinative factor than race.

And the overly-simplistic narrative that "black people picked Biden", and its corollary, that "progressives can't win the black vote", is an exceedingly dangerous one (which the Clinton/Centrist crowd as well as some "progressives" hold a lot of blame for pushing), because it can and will foster racial resentment on the part of white progressives, and be used to falsely paint black people as an obstacle to progressive candidates and policy. The Republicans will push this narrative hard, because it will both facilitate the recruitment of more "anti-establishment" white "progressives" into the culture of white resentment and fear on which the Republican Party depends, and because it would potentially split the Democratic Party's base.The smart thing for Biden to do would be to pick a black progressive, or at any rate someone palatable to both black voters and progressives, in order to shut down that narrative.

You seem to take the view that picking a candidate that "black voters", or older black women, want means alienating the rest of the party. It doesn't. I've posted about two candidates in the last few days (Elizabeth Warren and Karen Bass) who would have broad appeal to black voters and white progressives. Of those, Bass would likely be palatable to "moderates" as well.

There is a very strong practical and moral argument for Biden to pick a black woman, especially in light of the events of the last couple of months. Ideally, however, Biden would pick a VP who appealed to a wide range of voters. Warren fits the bill: she has broad appeal to women, progressives, and black voters (the three cornerstones of the Democratic base). So, for example, does Karen Bass. There is literally no good reason not to pick someone who has that broad appeal.

To me, the most important consideration (besides being qualified to take over the Presidency, which all of the candidates are) is probably that he pick a VP who appeals to both black voters and progressives, in order to short-circuit the growing narrative of black people as an obstacle to progressives. Warren or Bass appear to be the best options in that respect (Kamala Harris as well perhaps, though her record as a prosecutor may be an issue).

In any case, though, the idea that picking a black VP, or a white VP that black people support, is somehow giving black people too much, is as preposterous as it is offensive.

[Knife]

Are progressives really going to be happy with Bass? Pretty sure they're not going to be with Harris. Warren? Sure, unless they're hardcore Bernie fans. But that's the point, Biden painted himself into a corner with the whole "I'll pick a women, maybe black" paraphrasing bit. If the moderate base gets to choose both spots, runs the table as it is, they'll alienate other camps. It's not about giving 'black people too much'. This isn't racists, it's voting blocks. Appeasing 30% of the base will make 70% feel left out.

Yes, the Orange Menace should keep everyone in line, long enough to flip it to the Dems. But then what? Winning is just the first step, then you have to govern. We just went through a term where we were governed by 30%. Not saying the black, old, female voting block would be as bad as Trumpolini's 30% base, but it will cause problems. The Dems are now the big party tent, and need to adjust a bit to accommodate the other camps or it will fracture.

Really, the only thing I want in a VP right now is someone who knows how to run a country in a competent way. Biden is 77 with the average life expectancy in the US is 78, and a POTUS term is 4 years. Who every is VP needs to really be able to step in, let alone be the incumbent next election cycle.

[The Romulan Republic]

Are progressives really going to be happy with Bass? Pretty sure they're not going to be with Harris. Warren? Sure, unless they're hardcore Bernie fans. But that's the point, Biden painted himself into a corner with the whole "I'll pick a women, maybe black" paraphrasing bit.

Bass has fairly low name recognition in general, but she is not actively disliked by any major faction of Biden's supporters or the Democratic base, and Sanders supporters who do know her seem to like her, as noted in the Atlantic article I posted a few days back.

As I said, Harris would likely be a good pick if not for her prosecutorial record.

The only Bernie people who will be likely to fervently oppose Warren are hard core Bernie or Busters who probably won't vote for Biden anyway. Most Sanders supporters, even if they dislike her personal conduct toward Bernie during the primary, would probably recognize that she's the most progressive VP we could hope to get in a Biden administration, and that she will advance many policies that we support. By any sane estimation, Warren's influence on Biden's economic policy, and the prospect of a Warren Vice Presidency if she does get the nomination, would be an enormous win for progressives.

I also don't see how the recalcitrance of a few Bernie or Busters leads to the idea that Biden shouldn't have pledged to pick a woman/hinted at picking a black woman. In fact I'd say its offensive to argue that Biden "painted himself into a corner" with his pledge, because that implies that it left him without a range of good options to choose from. Its the old "they shouldn't pick someone based on their identity, they should just pick the most qualified person" trope that gets used every single time a woman or minority is hired for a traditionally white male job, an argument which appears superficially reasonable and fair but rests on the unstated assumption that picking a woman or person of colour must mean picking someone less capable/qualified, and that they could only have gotten the job because of their "identity", at the expense of a more "qualified" white person/man.

If the moderate base gets to choose both spots, runs the table as it is, they'll alienate other camps. It's not about giving 'black people too much'. This isn't racists, it's voting blocks. Appeasing 30% of the base will make 70% feel left out.

Wait, so now you're talking about moderates controlling the party, not black people? Or are they one and the same, in this argument?

And yeah, when your argument is "a black woman, or anyone supported by black women, will only appeal to the black voting block", then yeah, it is very much about racists, and saying otherwise is disingenuous.

Yes, the Orange Menace should keep everyone in line, long enough to flip it to the Dems. But then what? Winning is just the first step, then you have to govern. We just went through a term where we were governed by 30%. Not saying the black, old, female voting block would be as bad as Trumpolini's 30% base, but it will cause problems. The Dems are now the big party tent, and need to adjust a bit to accommodate the other camps or it will fracture.

This is one of the most outrageous comparisons I've seen to date. The idea that picking a VP candidate who appeals to black voters means that they will then be a minority controlling everything at the expense of the rest of the country is... pure racism, frankly.

Its also ridiculous because Joe Biden is not Donald Trump, and has repeatedly shown that he intends to win and govern by consensus and building the widest possible coalition, not by being an autocrat relying on a fanatical base and suppressing his opponents.

But please, do explain to me how the nomination of Warren or Bass, for example, would create a country where old black women are dictating to everyone else.

Really, the only thing I want in a VP right now is someone who knows how to run a country in a competent way. Biden is 77 with the average life expectancy in the US is 78, and a POTUS term is 4 years. Who every is VP needs to really be able to step in, let alone be the incumbent next election cycle.

And we're back to the "qualification" canard.

Has it occurred to you that he could pick a woman, even a woman of colour, who is also competent to be President Warren fits that bill. Harris does too, even if she'd piss off some voting blocks. In fact, I am confident that every single person who appears to be in serious contention is competent to exercise the duties of the Presidency.

You're bringing up a lot of vague complaints, but none of them actually apply to the people Biden is considering, and they all seem to rest on the underlying belief that picking a woman or black person, or someone who appeals to black voters, inherently means picking a weaker choice that will alienate the rest of the party. And framing it as a choice between "pick a woman/person of colour" and "pick the most qualified person" is a racist, sexist trope. If that's not the message you intend to convey, maybe you need to reconsider your argument.

[The Romulan Republic]

In other news, that new poll that gave Biden a 15% lead is devastating for Trump:

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-gets-wides ... 00816.html

Quinnipiac University's Wednesday poll gives former Vice President Joe Biden his best chances yet of winning the 2020 presidential election.

Voters back Biden over President Trump 52 percent to 37 percent, up from 49 percent to 41 percent from a month ago, the national poll shows. And while things can drastically change in the next 16 weeks, "this is a very unpleasant real-time look" at Trump's probable future, Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy says.

A movement of independents to Biden's side is key to his new gains. They back the former vice president 51 percent to 34 percent, as opposed to a 43 percent to 40 percent split in Biden's favor last month. Meanwhile Trump's approval rating tanked six points from June, down to just 36 percent this month. Approval of Trump's handling of the economy has almost reversed, from 52 percent approval an 45 percent disapproval in June to 44 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval in July. Voters narrowly say they now believe Biden will handle the economy better than Trump.

Past polls have typically given Trump an advantage in one way or another, or revealed a group of voters he could potentially turn the tides with. But this time, "there is no upside, no silver lining, no encouraging trend hidden somewhere in this survey for the president," Malloy said.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,273 registered voters from July 9–13 via cell phone and landline, with a 2.8 percent margin of error.

Yeah, sure, probably this poll is a bit of an outlier. But still.

The fact that Biden is now getting higher approval on the economy is especially damning to Trump, as that was the one issue where he could always claim to have the confidence of the voters (however undeserved).

[Ziggy Stardust]

Really, the only thing I want in a VP right now is someone who knows how to run a country in a competent way.

You SAY that, and yet your ENTIRE post (and the post before) is talking ONLY about the gender and race of the prospective candidates, NOT about what their respective records have to say about their competency.

If all you actually cared about was competency, then that would be what you would have actually talked about. Since you only talked about gender and race, it is clear that is all you care about, and it implies that you think women and black women in particular are not competent enough to be president.

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are just a complete moron and phrased it this disastrously by mistake, but seriously, dude, the argument you are expressing in this thread is part of the problem. And the exact kind of subtle racism and white privilege that the BLM movement has been trying to talk about the past month or two.

[Knife]

Really, the only thing I want in a VP right now is someone who knows how to run a country in a competent way.

You SAY that, and yet your ENTIRE post (and the post before) is talking ONLY about the gender and race of the prospective candidates, NOT about what their respective records have to say about their competency.

If all you actually cared about was competency, then that would be what you would have actually talked about. Since you only talked about gender and race, it is clear that is all you care about, and it implies that you think women and black women in particular are not competent enough to be president.

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are just a complete moron and phrased it this disastrously by mistake, but seriously, dude, the argument you are expressing in this thread is part of the problem. And the exact kind of subtle racism and white privilege that the BLM movement has been trying to talk about the past month or two.

It's unfortunate that the voting block is that way and I'm very much away speaking about it lends to people throwing such nonsense my way. But it is what it is. If you're going to talk about voting blocks in the Dem party, a very prominent one is black and female (and old and conservative as it were). There is also the white college educated female suburban mom. They're a smaller block but there. There is also younger college educated white guys, but way smaller. Then there are the young white progressives. Middle aged white male union peeps. Etc...

And it was TRR with his 'gotta pick a black female VP' bit that I more or less replied to. Could care less if it was a female, I've been going on for at lease a year or two how I was a Warren fan. Could care less about race but unfortunately the Dems are divided into sub groups with it. Biden is the nominee because he swept the south. That block voted for him. But of course pointing that out is making me open to you saying I'm racist. To be honest, I'm more worried that particular block is more older and conservative (call it moderate or corporate what ever). Biden's short list though, is troubling. While I have nothing against Stacy Abrams, I don't really see much in her record to run the USA. I'd rather she run for Senate or wait it out and kick Kemp out in 2022. Harris would be awful in my opinion. As mentioned, I'm a Warren fan so I'd love that. But like I said, I'm worried about competency to run the country because I'm very worried about Biden's health. Susan Rice would be an excellent choice but I've heard nothing about it bandied in the media. But mostly I think it's dumb to limit it to 10-50% of the population.

[The Romulan Republic]

It's unfortunate that the voting block is that way and I'm very much away speaking about it lends to people throwing such nonsense my way. But it is what it is. If you're going to talk about voting blocks in the Dem party, a very prominent one is black and female (and old and conservative as it were). There is also the white college educated female suburban mom. They're a smaller block but there. There is also younger college educated white guys, but way smaller. Then there are the young white progressives. Middle aged white male union peeps. Etc...

To a point, but none of those groups are entirely homogenous (even though they're generally treated that way), and they can overlap. For example, people talk about "the Black vote", but the older Southern Black vote is a different thing from the young Northern Black vote, and so on.

And it was TRR with his 'gotta pick a black female VP' bit that I more or less replied to.

I think there's a strong argument for it, on both moral and practical grounds, especially given recent events with Black Lives Matter. That said, I also specifically noted Warren as a candidate who is not herself Black, but is broadly acceptable to Black voters.

Could care less if it was a female, I've been going on for at lease a year or two how I was a Warren fan. Could care less about race but unfortunately the Dems are divided into sub groups with it. Biden is the nominee because he swept the south. That block voted for him. But of course pointing that out is making me open to you saying I'm racist.

Yeah, but, part of my point here is that this narrative, that the party is split along racial lines, with conservative blacks being an impediment to white progressives, is extremely over-simplistic and somewhat illusory. On Super Tuesday, Biden won old people across racial lines, and Sanders won young people across racial lines.

And its a really dangerous narrative, because the more that it gains traction, the more it is going to split the party along racial lines, the more it is going to fuel racial resentment from white progressives, and the more it will enable Republicans to siphon off angry white "anti-establishment" voters like the Bernie or Busters. It isn't really true now, or at least its greatly overplayed. But I worry that it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if given enough fuel.

To be honest, I'm more worried that particular block is more older and conservative (call it moderate or corporate what ever).

The actual biggest split in Democratic primary voting is along age lines, without a doubt. Which is really good news for progressives, as it means we're almost inevitably going to gain ground over time.

Biden's short list though, is troubling. While I have nothing against Stacy Abrams, I don't really see much in her record to run the USA. I'd rather she run for Senate or wait it out and kick Kemp out in 2022. Harris would be awful in my opinion. As mentioned, I'm a Warren fan so I'd love that. But like I said, I'm worried about competency to run the country because I'm very worried about Biden's health. Susan Rice would be an excellent choice but I've heard nothing about it bandied in the media. But mostly I think it's dumb to limit it to 10-50% of the population.

Abrams doesn't appear to be in serious contention any more, if she ever was. Rice's name gets bandied about occassionally, the old Obama insider crowd was reportedly pushing hard for her, but she's not talked about as much as Warren, Harris, or, lately, Tammy Duckworth.

Personally I stand by my view that for the long-term good of the party and short-term electoral gains, as well as a matter of right and wrong, Biden needs to pick either a black progressive, or at least someone who is widely seen as acceptable by both progressive and Black voters. Of the names under consideration, the main ones that would seem to fit the bill include Abrams (depending on how broadly you define "under consideration"), Harris (depending on how broadly you define "progressive"), Bass, and Warren, and perhaps some others.

I think every person on that short list is fit to be President if need be, although I can to an extent understand why people who emphasize the importance of a long political resume would have doubts about Abrams, given that she's never held Federal or statewide office. Harris, I have concerns about her prosecutorial record, and the fact that her most memorable moment in the primary was denouncing Biden as a racist (however deserved the critique was) will be awkward too.

So to my thinking, Warren and Bass appear the obvious choices. Both have broad appeal to multiple key demographics in the party, both have many years of experience in legislating at the Federal level and have played a major role in shaping the Democratic response to current major crises. Warren brings more name recognition and excitement to the ticket, and is a proven debater. Bass is less well-known, but by the same token less contentious and has less baggage.

[Knife]

Isn't Bass the former cop? How is that going to sit?

[The Romulan Republic]

Nope, she's not. I believe you're thinking of Rep. Val Demmings of Florida. Karen Bass is a former progressive activist, first Black woman to be elected Speaker of a state legislature, and Congresswoman from California, and current chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as the person taking point on the House's recent police reform legislation. She's not a big name with the general public, but is apparently well-liked by everyone from Bernie people to Pelosi to prominent Republicans.

Here, I'll repost the Atlantic article on her:

https://theatlantic.com/politics/archiv ... te/613975/

The first time Representative Karen Bass heard Joe Biden talk about the car crash that killed his wife and infant daughter, she dropped into her chair, overwhelmed.

It was 2008, and Bass was watching the Democratic National Convention video introducing Biden as the party’s vice-presidential nominee. Less than two years earlier, Bass’s daughter and son-in-law had died in a car crash on the 405. Bass, then in her 50s, had thrown herself into her job as the speaker of the California assembly and hoped to get past the pain. But there was Biden, 36 years after the tragedy that shattered his family, still talking about the magnitude of his loss. “I had this moment,” Bass told me, “where I had to come to grips with the fact that losing my daughter and son-in-law was always going to be a part of the narrative of who I am.”

Four years later, as Biden and Barack Obama were being reelected, Bass won a seat in the House, representing parts of Los Angeles. But she didn’t tell Biden what he’d meant to her until this March, when she introduced him at a Super Tuesday chicken-and-waffles event. “We both just shared that you learn how to get up in the morning,” she told me. “You learn how to live, but your life is fundamentally changed, dramatically changed.”

Now, much to Bass’s—and pretty much everyone else’s—surprise, Biden’s team is taking her seriously as a potential vice-presidential running mate. One theory is that she’s being vetted to help Biden win favor with the Congressional Black Caucus, which she chairs. Another is that Biden is trying to use the process to elevate as many black women as he can. Yet another is that he’s looking to distract people from speculating about some of the more likely choices. But inside the Biden campaign is another consideration: Over the next month, he’s effectively going to decide whether there will be a competitive Democratic primary in 2024 (or maybe 2028, if he wins and tries to serve until he’s 86 years old). He’s the leader of the party now. Will he decide its future by anointing a successor, or pick someone, like Bass, who’s less likely to run for president?

Biden has wanted to be president for almost 40 years. Now that the White House finally seems within reach, he does not want to be outshone, according to people who know him. He wants to win, but he wants the win to be about him, not his running mate.

I asked Bass whether she’d see the vice presidency as the culmination of her career or a stepping-stone to the presidency. She started with a long answer about wanting to focus on the work in front of her, and mentor the younger political generation, which has inspired her. “The vice president has considered himself like a transitional leader. That’s how I view it, because I envision a next stage of my life, whenever that comes,” she said.

I stopped her: If there were an open race for the presidency in 2024 or 2028 and she was Vice President Bass, would she run?

“I cannot envision that. That’s the best I can say. I mean, I’m 66. I can’t see that,” she said.

“Joe Biden is going to be 78,” I pointed out.

She paused. “Well. I don’t know how much time I have.”

When Barack Obama picked Biden as his running mate in 2008, Biden was also 66. Obama told Biden to think of the job like “the capstone of your career,” and the assumption that Biden wouldn’t be angling to run for president himself was part of the rationale for putting him on the ticket.

Bass came up as a community organizer in Los Angeles and worked as a physician assistant in emergency rooms during the AIDS crisis. She was at the infamous intersection of Florence and Normandie as the sun set in 1992 during the LA riots, and almost got hit by bricks. For the past month, she’s been shepherding a policing-reform bill through the House without losing a single progressive or moderate vote.

She “was not high on the list that the team had initially proposed,” a donor who’s spoken with Biden about the deliberations told me. But she seems to have moved up as the vetting committee has looked at her record and considered her upsides against the little obvious baggage she’d have. In this case, being largely unknown nationally means that she wouldn’t start out as polarizing. “He wants what he did for Obama,” the donor told me. “He sees that as what that job is: You speak truth to power; you step out there on the edge when it’s an existential issue. He sees her and her record as proven and time-tested—though she’s not known among large voter blocs, and not lifted up with a strong media presence.”

The donor is right about Bass’s distinctive appeal: Probably no other person alive would be the subject of a column by the conservative columnist George Will calling for Biden to pick her as “transitional leadership to get the world’s oldest party, and the world’s oldest democracy, to calmer days,” and also be described to me by Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota as not only “a colleague, but a dear friend.”

At the end of may, Bass flew to Houston to attend George Floyd’s funeral. She looked at the picture of him with the dates of his life underneath, and realized that the year Floyd was born, 1973, was when she’d first become active in her L.A. neighborhood, pushing for police reform. Now Floyd was dead, and she was in charge of a bill he inspired. She felt humbled. “And then, of course, it saddens you in the sense that, 47 years later, people discover, ‘Gee, there’s a problem.’”

Bass was from the south side. Antonio Villaraigosa, the future mayor of Los Angeles, was from the east side. She was organizing around police abuse. He was organizing around immigrant rights. “We were calling ourselves ‘progressive’ when nobody did,” Villaraigosa told me last week. He said they realized early on that they’d be able to do more by fusing a Black-brown coalition, and they showed up for each other’s issues, and for collaborative fights, such as pushing back on the proliferation of liquor stores. They became friends. “We had each other’s phone number,” Villaraigosa said. They still do. “She was someone who, back then, I took notice of because she was a worker bee. She didn’t need to be in front of a camera all the time,” he told me, which sounds like a line, but reflects a career in which Bass spent 30 years launching, then deliberately moving on from, a series of community organizations. She still doesn’t like having her picture taken, and thinks it’s silly. “If it’s meaningful to somebody, then I’m okay with it. But it ain’t my favorite thing.”

This would not seem to be the best mindset for a political career in the 21st century—and certainly not, if she’s picked, for a national campaign that will play out largely via socially distant camera shots. And Biden has privately expressed concerns about whether, given how underexposed Bass has been, she would be able to take or deliver a hit without stumbling under the pressure. Biden is risk-averse, and Bass does not have the cross-examiner’s mentality of Harris, or the economic incisiveness of Elizabeth Warren, or the Situation Room experience of Susan Rice, or the Purple Heart heroism of Tammy Duckworth. She still takes the approach she did organizing on the sidewalks in the ’70s, as displayed in her response to the massively disproportionate coronavirus rates among Black Americans. Treat and trace now, she argued, and grapple with systemic inequities when the hospital rooms aren’t full of dying Black patients. “I always say, ‘If the house is on fire, you send the fire department; you don’t send a structural engineer to talk about the foundation of the house,’ which is what everybody was doing,” Bass told me. “Everybody was talking about ‘Well, Black folks have all these underlying conditions.’ Well, that’s true. But right now, we’ve got to put the fire out.”

Biden’s vetting team has been watching prospective candidates for the past few months. The conventional wisdom about the Floyd protests is that they suddenly boosted the chances of Harris and Val Demings, the two-term congresswoman from Florida who was previously the Orlando police chief. Bass has a low-key manner in place of Harris’s searing speeches, and pointy glasses in place of Demings’s dress blues, but she was the one House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put in charge when it came to actually writing the police-reform bill. “During this precarious, pivotal moment in America’s history, our nation and the Congress are fortunate to be led by” Bass, Pelosi said in an uncharacteristically profuse emailed statement. Bass “has earned the esteem of all who know her for the grace, grit and gentility she brings to her work to make real the promise of a more just, equal and fair America.”

This was a bill that could easily have collapsed in the usual Democratic infighting. Instead, every Democrat voted for it—all of the moderates, all of the progressives—and three Republican votes did, too. The bill would ban local police forces from using choke holds, limit municipalities’ access to military equipment, increase police accountability and transparency, mandate body cameras, and take steps to end racial profiling.

I asked Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, a member of the moderate No Labels group, how Bass was able to pass a bill that got his vote, and all of the others. “She was the right person at the right time,” he replied. “Theologically, we say that God always has a ram in the bush.” Omar—who is literally on the Justice Democrats poster, and who represents the Minnesota district where Floyd lived and died—said, “In everything she does, Karen is always prepared on the facts, the policy, and the strategy.” She called Bass “a mentor and an example of someone who achieves big goals without compromising her values.”

There are still plenty of reasons to doubt that Biden will pick Bass. She’s supposed to get picked to be vice president because of a bill that the Senate probably won’t pass and that President Donald Trump would never sign? She’s supposed to convince undecided voters that she’d be ready to serve as president on day one, if necessary, because she’s well liked in the House and she chaired the Africa subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee? American politics has been defined by larger-than-life characters, and Bass’s greatest admirers admit that she isn’t one. But “she can grow that profile even more as his running mate,” Representative G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina told me.

The Biden campaign has been trying to decide whether to pick a running mate who satisfies the left or one who represents the racial and ethnic diversity of his party, since Biden himself does neither. Here’s where another argument for Bass kicks in: She shows that Biden doesn’t have to choose. Although Bass doesn’t have much of a relationship with Bernie Sanders, she hasn’t attracted the disdain of his most vocal and committed supporters. That helps explain the satisfaction among Bass’s Sanders-aligned House colleagues when she was named the head of the Biden campaign’s Biden-Sanders unity task force on the economy. Several top Sanders allies told me they were eager to see Bass picked—so much so that they wouldn’t go on the record, out of fear that making her look too aligned with the senator from Vermont could backfire and hurt her chances.

As the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Bass also has deeper connections than Harris with institutional Black forces in the party. She’s close with important voices in Biden’s ear: Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement helped earn Biden the nomination; Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a co-chair of Biden’s campaign who preceded Bass as chair of the CBC; and Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who’s one of the four members of Biden’s VP-vetting committee. (She also has a long relationship with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, another member of the vetting committee.)

Reflecting how seriously some of Bass’s competition is taking her is the sudden attention to her 2016 statement after the death of Fidel Castro. “The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba,” she wrote, seeming to have figured that the title was just the Google Translate equivalent of commander in chief, and not realizing it’s a loaded term of praise for those who fled the revolution.

Bass told me she didn’t know what she was saying, and didn’t mean to offend. “I live in Los Angeles. It’s easy to say certain things from that perspective and not think about how that comes across to people in other states,” she said. Admitting ignorance about the sensitivities around Castro, an issue that could theoretically pull Florida, with its large Cuban population, out of contention for Democrats, isn’t likely to calm those who say that Bass isn’t prepared for the national stage.

But Bass insists she’s prepared. “You know what? I’m ready for anything and everything. Let me just tell you something. This is really the way I view life. After having lost my kids, I can do anything. You understand what I mean?” she said. “I’ve always been clear about what I was doing and why I was doing it. And that has always been what has steadied me, allowed me to move forward in spite of really difficult odds.”

Villaraigosa helped talk Bass into running for speaker of the California State Assembly instead of the state-Senate campaign she’d been planning. Pointing out to her that a Black woman had never held the job was part of what persuaded Bass to do it. While Bass was working her way up in Sacramento, she overlapped with Kevin McCarthy, who served as Republican leader of the California Assembly and is now his party's leader in the House of Representatives.* Bass was not as well regarded by Republicans in Sacramento as she and her fans like to assert. But nonetheless, of the 435 members in the U.S. House, Bass is the only one who has actual, personal relationships with both McCarthy and Pelosi. “Anybody who can maintain a relationship with both is an amazing, angelic person,” Cleaver said.

The Biden campaign declined to comment on any of this, as it does with all running-mate speculation. But those who have been watching Bass over the years are reading tea leaves of their own. “She doesn’t give him donors; she doesn’t have a national profile; she tweets stuff and no one cares. The only reason you throw out Bass as a name is because you’re really considering her,” Michael Trujillo, a California-based Democratic strategist who has known Bass since her first assembly run, told me.

So much of any vice-presidential candidate’s role in a campaign comes down to performing in a debate. Harris and Warren would shine in that format. For all her years marching in the streets and working on bills, Bass has never done anything like that. I asked her what she thought debating Vice President Mike Pence might be like.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure how comfortable he is with women.”

She seemed to be referencing the old story, which Pence aides deny, that he won’t eat alone with women who aren’t his wife.

“Yeah,” Bass said. “Maybe she’d have to be there.”

* This article previously misstated when Karen Bass and Kevin McCarthy overlapped in Sacramento.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com

[Knife]

Fair enough, I think I was thinking of Lori Lightfoot actually. But yeah.