In the Democratic Veepstakes, Everyone’s Missing the Obvious Pick

By Jeffrey Blehar

Thursday, July 25, 2024

 

Did you hear the news? In a process that had nothing to do with party democracy (so stop asking questions and get in line, peasant), Vice President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and is off to the races. Forget how she got there. Forget why she got there, even. Joe Biden certainly did nothing whatsoever to explain the answer in his supposed valedictory address to the nation last night, except to selfishly note whilst sitting in the Oval Office that he suddenly stepped away from the presidential race — but not the presidency (yet), mind you! — to “unite the party.” (Thanks for making it clear who comes first, President Joe.)

 

In fact, forget anything you ever may have heard or read about Kamala Harris prior to three days ago. For in the eyes of all mainstream media, this woman has been not reborn like a phoenix but, even more dramatically, born anew, sprung fully formed from the fallen head of an aged Zeus after he nodded off one too many times. This Kamala Harris? You’ve never seen a charismatic powerhouse like this before, friends. This woman has no sins upon her name, and how MAGA of you to suggest otherwise.

 

You say that Kamala was prominently assigned, in public, a “border czar” task? You made it up. Was she rated the most liberal senator in America by GovTrack in 2019 when she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination? It never happened. She advocated mandatory gun buybacks? You’re wrong. Enthusiastically embraced single-payer health care? No way. Endorsed ending the Senate filibuster to pass the full Green New Deal? Not a chance. She is not cleansed of her sins; her sins never existed in the first place.

 

Of course, all of these things and more happened. Kamala Harris has a past, and no matter how many times the mainstream media tries to gaslight the public like Jonathan Frakes smugly telling you you’re wrong for 47 seconds, no true “fresh start” can really be in the offing for her. She inherits the Biden administration’s record as well as her own prior to that; she comes attended by her own natural weaknesses; she sheds only his age and decrepitude as an issue. So the closest she can really get to a fresh start is a fresh face as her vice-presidential pick. And that can matter around the margins — after all, whoever they pick will at least have the distinct advantage, unlike J. D. Vance, of not having gone onto Tucker Carlson’s Fox show a few years ago to denounce America as being ruled by “childless cat ladies.”

 

CBS News has helpfully informed us (via the Harris campaign, and for all the usual head-fake and ego-stroking reasons) of a list of potential running mates being vetted. There are twelve names on the list, but we can safely dismiss a number of them as fairly obscure longshots that offer no ballast to the ticket. Admiral William McRaven, the man who helmed the successful Bin Laden raid under Obama, has already withdrawn his name from consideration in a bow as much to reality as to anything else. Some others, like Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker, put me in mind of the dog in that famous Far Side cartoon. Parked behind the open clothes dryer crudely labeled “CAT FUD,” he prays, “Oh please, oh please,” as he waits for his rival to take the bait. (Pritzker’s sole qualification for national office is money, gobs and gobs of money.) Some tout Minnesota governor Tim Walz as a sleeper pick, but his midwestern appeal isn’t going to change the game in states like Pennsylvania or Michigan, and any Democratic campaign seeking to shore up Minnesota has already lost the race.

 

For despite the chaos of the last month, the electoral map remains fundamentally unchanged: Harris’s lone plausible path to victory — given the likely loss of Sun Belt states picked off by Democrats in 2020 — is hitting all three of the party’s Rust Belt targets: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. One is not enough. Two is not enough. Only all three will get them over the edge.

 

Therefore, I think her strongest choices for what remains an underdog campaign are Arizona senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, in that descending order, though none of them is anything like a magic bullet that will save a campaign otherwise dependent on external forces — media-fueled buoyancy and the Trump-Vance ticket’s inherent weaknesses — for success at this late date. Kelly, of course, doesn’t come from the Rust Belt at all, but his public reputation — forget the reality here, we’re selling narrative — as an uncontroversial, sensible, reputedly moderate politician, not to mention an astronaut and husband of former representative (and survivor of an assassination attempt) Gabrielle Giffords, is probably best suited to the moment for Democrats.

 

Shapiro, an enthusiastic pro-abortion culture warrior, would in any normal circumstance be the ideal choice for Harris, and in a world where October 7 had never happened he would be the obvious pick. But his having struck a tone of distinct sobriety and dignity in the public ructions since October 7, as an avowedly pro-Zionist Jew, might cause a substantial portion of the Democrats’ coalition to spit the bit. And not just in Michigan, but among a committed youth and activist vote nationwide. (It is a despairing commentary on the state of the Democratic coalition that such calculations are now openly discussed by political oddsmakers on all sides, and we barely pause to consider how insane this is.) Whitmer would signal, tonally at least, a “girl power” ticket — and for conservatives who loathe her, I warn you that some of her steelier appeal may translate in ways you fail to anticipate.

 

Finally, there appears on the list Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, once known to the world as “Mayor Pete,” the buttoned-down, McKinsey-consultant embodiment of Harvard-elite progressivism, complete with an enthusiasm for bike lanes. He somehow leapfrogged his way from small-town mayor of South Bend, Ind., to a comically narrow win in the 2020 Iowa caucuses before vaporizing like a cloud of fresh-linen-scent Febreeze once the race hit South Carolina. (All you need to know about how controversial Buttigieg’s victory in the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses was is that, because of it, there will likely never be an Iowa Democratic caucus again.) This showing was enough to vault him into Biden’s cabinet, where he has (with karmic perfection) presided over a series of historically chaotic interstate transportation disasters the likes of which are unparalleled in living memory. So perhaps Mayor Pete’s closest literary analogue was right when he said that “chaos is a ladder.”

 

But I well recall December 2003, when National Review ran a legendary cover of Howard Dean bellowing angrily at the top of his lungs (this was before his flameout in the 2004 Iowa caucuses, mind you) with the headline “PLEASE NOMINATE THIS MAN.” I can myself offer only the same plea to Democrats about Buttigieg. I remain as unwilling to vote for Donald Trump as ever; that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy watching immensely what happens when the Democrats try to double down on the exact aspects of their political identity that are already dissolving the original core of their coalition like hydrochloric acid. What can I say? I love science experiments.

 

So who knows what Kamala may end up doing? Most people would tell her to pick someone safe and boring. Me, I like to think of myself as more of an outside-the-box guy, a galaxy-brain type if you will. Kamala needs a game-changer, a choice that shows America what can be, unburdened by what has been. Kamala Harris should tag none of these sad-sack losers. No, I instead recommend she lunge boldly to the center by making a true unity pick, bringing every faction of the Democratic Party together. Think about it: We all remember how brutally Kamala Harris savaged Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign as a racist and a hypocrite for opposing busing, and we remember how graciously forgiving Biden was in choosing her as his running mate and then assigning her such weighty responsibilities. I therefore suggest that history should repeat: Kamala will unite the clans by burying the hatchet with her oldest enemy as well. Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for Vice President Tulsi Gabbard.