The Veepstakes

Serious, under the radar, considerations

While it is up to Vice President Harris to select the person she believes would be her best partner, and help ensure electoral success, there are other considerations. In the final analysis, she needs to consider HER best choice, independent of any other potential consequences.

For Vice President Harris, this includes the issue of “issues”. As the sitting Vice President, she must stay aligned with President Biden’s positions because they lead the administration. However, she can go a step further, as she is doing masterfully in prosecuting the case against the anti-choice pro-birthers.

Certain potential choices would balance some of the administration positions. For example, Senator Kelly is great ballast related to guns and the border. While in favor of gun control, and married to a shooting victim, he does own guns, and is on record as a supporter of the Second Amendment. He has criticized some of the Biden Administration border policies over the past several years. This would enable him to be the point person on those two issues, indicating to undecided voters that a Harris-Kelly administration would be “better” than the current administration.

A consideration about Senator Kelly, however, is that his absence from his day job would bring our lead in the Senate down to 50-49, and Joe Manchin is NOT in on judicial confirmations, and both Senator Kelly and Vice-President Harris would be on the campaign trail. This is only a problem where judges are concerned. No legislation is coming out of the House, which may well leave today or tomorrow until September.

We all know the criticality of judges, and we want President Biden to be able to confirm as many as possible over the remainder of his term. But if we win in Roevember, this is less critical, as Democratic continuity will allow for the confirmation of more great people. (And hopefully a new SCOTUS, but I digress.)

The vast majority of choices on the public short list are governors, and should they cease being governor, or even, in some cases, leave their state while campaigning, interesting things can happen in some of their home states. For example, if Josh Shapiro becomes Vice President in January, Austin Davis, the current Lieutenant Governor, would become Governor. BUT the new Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor would be the President Pro Tem of the State Senate, who would serve in both roles. This position is currently held by a Republican, and Democrats would have to win 4 seats in the state senate to win a majority. We will likely win 3, thus tying the chamber, and it could be chaos. Remember last year when the State Assembly was tied? If you don’t live in Pennsylvania, you probably have no idea, but for those of us political junkies who live here, it was a nail-biter for months.

Roy Cooper? North Carolina law transfers power to the Lieutenant Governor when the governor leaves the state. That means during campaign season, nutcase Mark Robinson would be in charge. Read and learn how insane he is. Prepare to be appalled. Sample quote: Transgender women should defecate in public. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

Cooper is term limited, and Robinson is running against Josh Stein, who is on track to win. So, Cooper’s election is not a problem, campaign season is. The damage Mark could do in a day or two is unprecedented. However, on the upside as a potential veep candidate, no one has won more times, nor with bigger margins, against the GOP than Governor Cooper. He’s got great crossover appeal. Then again, at 67, he’s the oldest of all the short list candidates.

Bottom line: it’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of Vice President Harris’ choices. ALL have great upsides, and ALL have some limitations. Personally, I trust the Vice President to make the best selection.

If you want to see drill down details of all the implications of all the short list candidates, I highly recommend this article. It’s a long piece, but very detailed and properly sourced. I guarantee that between the facts, the maps, and the analysis, you’ll learn things you’d never considered.

Here is the “public” short list in alphabetical order:

• Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear

• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper

• Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.)

• Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro

• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

• Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

• While not on the official short list, scuttlebutt says Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is also being considered.

Who do you want Vice President Harris to choose? Who do you think she WILL choose? Please use the comments, Substack limits the number of choices in a poll to five, so I can’t use their poll function and include the whole list. I know who I want her to choose, and who I believe she will choose. And anyone who puts their selections in as a comment, will receive back my choices.

A little housekeeping: If you are in the Chester County area, there is a vigil against Project 2025/Agenda 47 this Saturday night at 6:30 at the Old Courthouse, corner of High and Market in West Chester. I plan to be there, and if you have not yet met me, I’ll be in my “Ask Me About Project 2025” tee shirt, and likely the only person there in an N95.