Jonathan Chait found nine reasons why it’s a great idea for Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams to join together at the outset of the Democratic primaries and run as ticket. As I read his piece, I found myself nodding along in agreement on point after point. They really do complement each other nicely: “old/young, white/black, male/female, North/South, experience/potential.” Biden needs help covering for his vulnerabilities and Abrams can do this for him very effectively. She would get instant credibility and months of time to prove herself on the big stage as someone who is more than a veteran of the Georgia State Assembly.
What Chait doesn’t mention though is the wisdom of floating this idea in public before it has been decided upon as a strategy. What if Biden decides to listen to the detractors who don’t see this as a brilliant plan? What it he decides not to run with Stacey Abrams after all? How is that going to help Biden overcome his “cringe-inducing and sometimes ghastly history of retrograde positions on segregation and criminal justice,” and demonstrate that he’s a “different kind of politician with different policies than those he advocated in the 1970s and 1980s”? It seems to me that Biden isn’t in a position where he can really afford to spurn Abrams, which argues against using a trial balloon in this case.
One obvious downside of the move is that it would remove the suspense surrounding the veep pick should Biden win the nomination. Chait correctly points out that this concern is dwarfed by the imperative to win the nomination in the first place, but he could have at least kept this a tight secret and then made a big splash with the announcement. If he goes ahead with it now after people have been discussing it for weeks, it won’t have the same impact.
To me, the mistake here is that we’re talking about something that hasn’t happened. If it doesn’t happen, Biden will be badly wounded. And if it does happen, there will be a lot of yawning.
Nonetheless, the most important thing is whether it would help Biden win the primaries and if it would be a formidable ticket that could win in November 2020. I think the answer to those are questions are “yes” and “yes,” although just because something helps doesn’t mean it will serve as some kind of magic trick.
I’ve said repeatedly that Biden is in a stronger position that most people are giving him credit for, but if he was really that confident he wouldn’t be looking at gimmicks like naming his running mate at the outset. He knows he has a mountain to climb and he doesn’t sound like he’s ready to do it alone.
Maybe that’s a sign of self-awareness and a sound strategy. On the other hand, maybe it’s just a sign that he’s got no real chance of reaching the summit.
Every candidate should run as a ticket. Start a new, forward-looking trend. Show who your team will be since it’s “the team” that actually gets the work done. And then, you also get Oprah with this ticket!!!!
The natural choice for a VP pick is the person who performed strongly against you for n the primary. Primary season is the time candidates define themselves and discover their strengths and weaknesses. It’s not the time you want to find yourself defending someone elses youthful indiscretions.
What about Beto-Oprah? That would be an interesting ticket.
Biden/Abrams would be a great idea the day after he wins the nomination.
Before the nomination, it would be a signal that Joe doesn’t believe he can win on his own merits and the odds are high that she would outshine him very quickly given the passiion of her constiuency.
That would be great for her long-term prospects (Abrams 2024!) but not for his 2020 prospects.
Bad Idea, rules out all candidates currently running for president as vice presidential material. Would really narrow the field.
If Democrats really want another middle-of-the-road, wishy-washy, “let’s all sing Kumbayah and get along with Republicans” candidate, then they’ve got Beto, who at least is new and unsullied by generation old jokes that go something like this:
That joke is so old it needs a translation index. If you’re not old enough to understand it, that’s the point. That’s how long Joe Biden has been around in Democratic politics. Nixon is long gone, Gary Hart is a little remembered Colorado Senator who briefly had a presidential run as a Biden-Dukakis style New Dem technocrat in the ’80s.
And Joe is still running for President. People will have to dig hard to think up reasons why they should vote for him except “we have to beat Trump!” That’s not good enough.
Even better, Biden/Obama.
That’s a good one.
I guess I have to clarify: SNARK! and I hope yours was too.
Has anyone asked Stacey Abrams what she thinks of this idea?
She met with him, so she probably approves. The upside for her is huge with little downside. Biden has a lot of downside here, though. It signals desperation, which is a bad look anytime, but doubly so when you’re currently leading the polls.
Biden may be “in a stronger position that most people are giving him credit for” but he looks and sounds old.
I do not think Abrams would solve his problems, and already I am seeing women in my Twitter object on the grounds that Abrams isn’t “a prop,” which was my immediate reaction as well.
The raw facts are whenever Biden has shown himself to primary voters he has been soundly rejected. Maybe this time will be different but it would be foolish to ignore that in considering how to move forward.
I don’t think the running mate solves the “old white guy” problem. Biden is going to deflate a big part of the base (and a very important part) no matter who he chooses.
I’ll be brief. No thanks.
NO!
This is beginning to look more and more like the Obama/Hillary Clinton “inevitability” strategy last time around — not good, but also not surprising.
And there’s another problem. Nowhere (unless I missed it) does it say how Abrams feels about this, or that Biden or his camp have even talked to her about it.
It’s true that Biden is just another old white guy, fairly retrograde at that, but I think it’s also true that at this early point (by default at least) he’s supposedly “got” the black vote, simply because he’s considered the front runner and was Obama’s veep. You can see the way Biden is thinking here.
anybody but Joe. I simply can’t comprehend how anyone could think he’s the right person to run in 2020, given his long history of bad conservative ideas.
Oh yes, it’s a brilliant idea.
What could better send the message of the future than having a white guy that turned 18 in 1960 (!!!!) having as his subordinate a black woman, who his staff will then tell where to go, when to be there, and whom to speak to.
The one rather large upside is Biden would flame out in record time, because culturally he won’t be able to stop himself from patronizing her in public. Maybe we would get lucky, and witness him mansplaining to her why Alita Hill was a lying slut who was just mad she couldn’t have Thomas to herself.
.
Abrams smacked this down. Apparently she’s met with several candidates to get commitments from them about focusing on addressing voter suppression, and on paying attention to Georgia. How it got into the media as anything other than that is troubling.
How it got into the media as anything other than that is troubling.
Isn’t it obvious? Because Biden’s people put it out there.
Yes, Phil!!!
Od course.
The old “Run it up the flagpole and see how it flutters” thing.
Wonderful!!!
The Old Politics is sill alive.
Dottering, maybe, but still alive.
Sigh…
AG
Not too keen on this particular pairing but in theory at least running as a ticket would let them cover almost twice as much ground in the primaries. I would think there’s some value in that.
As we say in racing: “To finish first you have to first finish”.
And you can’t be President unless you win the nomination – so why not try for an early edge?
Neither Joe Biden nor Shirley Abrams represent a hopeful future for the Democratic Party. She does a good stemwinder speech and he’s a good representative of what Democrats imagine when they imagine the good old days. Together or apart they do little to advance a progressive agenda. Personalities vs. policy fights. Who’s got the policies? Who’s going to fight for them? Those are the questions. Biden and Abrams are both personalities. They have that in common. Beyond that we know Biden goes to the highest bidder (in grand old Democratic Party tradition) and Abrams, who knows? Either way, doesn’t inspire much confidence.
It’s Stacey Abrams, not Shirley Abrams. Abrams is actually quite good on policy. But, as one who lives in her state, she is also a very good, pragmatic and progressive politician and elected official. She was effective as a stage legislator in the minority working with a majority GOP controlled body and she’s the one that started a state wide effort 4 years ago to register minority Georgia voters. I think you have her pegged entirely wrong.
…sincere apologies for brain-farting her name. (So embarrassing.) I like her, a lot. The first five minutes of her speech recently was great; but then it went on, and on, and on. Stemwinders need to learn when to put a period on it. To have a (short) beginning, a mind-blowing middle (still short), and a rousing finish (as short as possible). Stacey’s substituting ongoingness for substance. Not that she needs to.
When Stacey is on the ballot for president or vice president next year, I’m going to enjoy my heart out pulling the lever for her. I just hope she keeps her inauguration speech short.
This is not a brilliant move by the Biden people. Floating the name of a vice-presidential candidate at this point looks like shades of the Democratic 2016 nomination process. Presenting inevitability at this point is so insulting to this Dem voter after Hillary Clinton’s maneuvers.