Settle Down - The Veepstakes Takes A While
While it's great to advocate for specific candidates, here's a reminder that, ultimately, VP/Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris should, and will, take her time deciding.
Hello, friends,
Last week, amidst the sea change that was President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek a second term, we discussed how this shifted the context within which we lived. Since then, a myriad of touchstones have happened the likes of which it’s hard to collect into an article not explicitly about it:
- There have been numerous victory calls, including a ‘White Women For Harris’ call that had over 160,000 attendees and raised millions. My wife and her best friend were on it for a while; I was on the LGBTQ+ call. My only critique is that these calls were very spontaneous, without a lot of lead time and often overlapping, so attendance was spread out and not pre-planned.
- The internet meme factory has shifted to JD Vance being a weird little freak amid likely-to-be-false allegations that he claimed in his book Hillbilly Elegy he was intimate with a latex glove held between couch cushions. Today, people are critiquing his Twitter search history as a post of his implies he may have searched for some Human-Dolphin interspecies erotica. No, I am not making this up. He’s also out there picking fights with “childless cat ladies.”
- Harris has pretty much erased any lead Trump may have had, and is leading in some polls. This equity follows a national milestone event combining an assassination attempt and a post-convention bump, suggesting Trump is at a peak while Harris is just getting started. Oh, and voter registration is spiking, suggesting Harris is bringing new people into the electorate. These people aren’t likely to get polled, but I imagine most of them plan to vote Democrat.
That’s Nice, But What’s This Article About, Again?
With all that said, there is still phenomenal internet discussion about one topic, and one topic only: Who the hellfires is Harris going to pick as her VP?
After all, there are numerous layers of strategy to picking a Vice President. Would picking a particular candidate help deliver a critical swing state? What are the VP’s politics, so that Harris can send out a message about her own beliefs? Talking Realpolitik for a second, what is the background of the VP? Harris seems inclined on picking a white man, and that’s fine.
But with all that in mind, there remains one truth we have to accept: This decision is not easy, and is usually only announced at the Democratic National Convention, anyway.
Right now, we seem to be in a phase where every pundit out there is offering their own opinion. I won’t be shy, my preferred candidate (at least based on what I’ve learned about the various options) is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He’s a former teacher, so we’ve got that in common; he accomplished a hell of a lot in a short time while contending with a one-seat majority in his state’s legislature, with a favorite of mine being laws that guarantee kids are fed at school; and he has, thusfar, performed admirably in the current publicity cycle.
But.
There are other candidates who have strengths, as well. I won’t get into details, because that’s not really what this article is about.
It’s about pacing.
I can’t find a specific video of his, but Beau Of The Fifth Column has suggested that it might well be in Harris’ interest to drag this out a bit. Sure, maybe after a while of speculation she releases a short list. Maybe she even releases a secondary, ‘shorter-list’ type of thing! But ultimately, the suggestion is that she hold off on confirming her choice right up until the convention.
Why would she want to do this?
Well, the theory goes that the media speculation, such as the tiny little scoops that people will get, the drip-drip-drip of information, will create a nigh-permanent talking point about it. This will all drive voter excitement in Harris’ favor. The theory is that the longer this goes on, the more climactic the reveal will be.
Meanwhile, JD Vance continues to be reamed as a weird freak, and every one of Harris’ VP candidates are going to make a big deal out of every stupid thing that comes out of his mouth, all while tying it back to Trump for being the one who chose him.
No Plan Is Perfect.
I think there is merit to the idea of making it a spectacle, but there’s always a risk of things backfiring.
If a major scandal involving a leading candidate breaks out, that could do some harm to Harris’ campaign. She’d have to at the very least disavow that person for their offenses, and that might weaken the Democratic coalition.
As election day approaches and the pressure mounts, different factions supporting varying candidates might wind up attacking each other with negative ads, media campaigns, or the like. That would be a scandal in its own right, and would subsequently damage the Democratic coalition.
Lastly, peoples’ attention spans are short, and things simply happen. A major news event might take the focus off the Veepstakes for a bit, and it might be hard, if not impossible to bring attention back to it. It may even prove counter-productive, since other issues may garner more public attention in the first place.
However, as long as Democrats commit to cheering on the ultimate winner of this little contest, and agree that whatever happens we’ll move forward in order to achieve victory?
Well, that’s all we need to win.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a former hyperlocal journalist and sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.