Coronavirus and Biden's Mission

Also, VP Talk

Dear Friends,

I will hopefully have an op-ed coming out in the coming days that takes a bigger view of the Coronavirus, but here I want to focus more narrowly on 2020.

Take care of yourself and those around you.

-Michael

Coronavirus and Biden’s Mission

From the beginning of his campaign, former Vice President Biden has made clear that he is running for president not just to prevent Trump from winning a second term, but to “beat him like a drum.” There has been much debate about whether Trump should be viewed as an aberration, and just how integral Trumpism is and has been to the Republican Party, but Biden fell squarely on one side of that debate. Honestly, so have I, if not as a matter of clear-eyed analysis, then as one of political visioncasting: if you reject Trump’s brand of politics, and wish to see it never return to power, you have to offer those who voted for him in 2016 a genuine opportunity to reverse course, to admit they were wrong and have the admission taken seriously.

I have never been one to believe Joe Biden was a sure bet to win in 2020, but I have always thought that he gave Democrats the best chance to win big. Pre-Coronavirus, if Biden wins with 350+ in the Electoral College, perhaps it sends the message to the GOP and the country that Trump and Trumpism have been fundamentally rejected. Now, is a referendum on Trumpism even possible? Trump certainly would have found something or someone to blame if he lost, and many of his supporters would have been primed to accept those rationalizations, but many others would not. But this is a pandemic, a global phenomenon. And while certainly Trump’s response to it has potentially exacerbated its impact, it is at some fundamental level, beyond Trump’s control. That is to say, any president is likely to suffer a political cost for this happening on their watch.

Hopefully, in my view, Biden will defeat Trump handily, and the public will view the coronavirus as the leading example of why a belligerent, selfish, undisciplined man like Donald Trump is ill-suited for the presidency. His callousness toward Americans’ situation related to this crisis will be viewed as of a piece with his callousness toward immigrants. His lack of respect for critical institutions like the media and government bureaucracy will be viewed as infecting his entire presidency, not just his ability to respond in this moment.

But it’s possible this pandemic robs the American people of the opportunity to reject Trump in total. Biden might win without defeating Trump.

First Female VP?

Here is the best justification I can come up with for Biden announcing in Sunday’s debate that he would pick a woman as his running mate: He already knows who he wants as his VP.

If that is the case, he’s not prejudging, he’s offering a preview. A preview that helps pivot from a conversation about the primary to one about the presumptive nominee’s general election campaign. Try staying relevant now, Bernie!

Also, by announcing his running mate would be a woman now, he’s giving the media and Americans an opportunity to get used to the idea of a female VP now, so that when she is announced, the biggest news is who she is, not that she’s a woman.

That’s the best rationale I can offer.

That said, here’s why it concerns me politically when it comes to the general election.

While there are compelling arguments for what Biden did (see Jay Newton-Small’s op-ed, for example), but as a political matter here is a sticky, logical set of questions media and Republicans will likely prosecute:

1. Did you vet and consider any males to serve as your running mate?

2. If so, why? Were you unsatisfied with the potential female candidates?

3. If not, do you believe American employers should be able to operate in the same way? Why should you be able to automatically disqualify not just white men, but all men, for such an important decision for reasons of representation, but not employers?

Again, if you are of a certain ideological background, these questions do not seem challenging at all. But I’m not sure how widely-shared that POV is in the electorate, and I think it’s definitely unclear whether the announcement that the running mate will be female (which is quite different from the selection of a female running mate itself) carries more upside than downside in the context of a general election against Donald Trump.

There are going to be a series of uncomfortable questions for Biden and his running mate once she is announced. An ingenious answer for a primary debate may prove to not be so smart for the general. Sooner rather than later, Democrats need to understand a general election is the ultimate destination here, and run accordingly.

When Biden announces his running mate, he needs to be able to say that he made a choice that is in the best interest of the country. He needs to be able to say he considered all of the available options, and she, whoever she is, came out on top. His debate commitment was a preview, not a prejudgment; a hint, not a litmus test.

How to Choose a VP

Finally, I just want to comment on what I view as some real misreadings of why Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008. This wrongheaded analysis is now driving much of the speculation and prognostication regarding Biden’s selection process.

The leading question for a nominee should not be “which potential running mate best attracts the voters I need in order to win who will be most difficult for me to win on my own?” I mean this both in a high-minded, idealistic way—the leading criteria should be some combination of “who will best serve as my governing partner for the good of the nation?” and “who do I believe will best serve as president if I am unable to carry out my duties?”—but also as a matter of electoral strategy. To nuance this further, by electoral strategy, I also mean something in addition to the obvious fact that voters want the running mate to plausibly meet the governing test.

As a matter of electoral strategy, the best running mates complement the ticket, not provide a striking contrast to the nominee. A good running mate will amplify the strengths of the nominee, and yes, provide reinforcement to some vulnerabilities. But it’s so important that there is some nuance employed here, and that we do not think of the selection of a running mate as something that is straightforwardly transactional. In the modern era of American politics, the running mate selection that most matches how so many seem to be analyzing Biden’s options would be Kennedy’s selection of LBJ. There, you have a relatively straightforward need to balance a Northeastern patrician with someone from the South which was essential given the political environment of the time. Even there though, LBJ provided not just geographic balance, but also experience to shore up JFK’s youth. Likewise, a clear governing case could be made given LBJ’s legislative prowess.

But a false, or at best incomplete, story is being told regarding why Obama picked Biden. The basic logic here goes: Obama had progressives and people of color locked in, and so picked Biden to reach the Midwest and white working class he wouldn’t have reached otherwise? This is wrong, of course, and falls in line with what I have identified as a persistent trend of folks allowing their ideological lens to filter out aspects of Obama’s appeal that runs counter to their imaginings of him. Biden was not added to the ticket to bring a completely new constituency and temperament with him, but rather to double-down on aspects of Obama’s existing profile the campaign wanted to emphasize, while also shoring up, much like JFK picking LBJ, Obama’s relative weaknesses on experience and legislative history.

All this to say that the idea that Biden “has the white Midwest locked in, and so needs to pick a running mate who will appeal to other aspects of the base” is foolish. First of all, this idea that Biden’s base is made up exclusively of the white working class has obviously been disproven by this primary. We have actual data, actual votes, that allow us to know who is supporting Biden. He has already built a coalition that is diverse in terms of gender, socio-economic status and race. Moreover, weaknesses in a primary do not necessarily follow a nominee through the general. The median white working class voter in a Democratic primary is quite different from the median white working class voter in a general. That said, I do think Biden potentially has weaknesses going into the general when it comes to Hispanic voters and young voters, BUT it is not necessarily the case that the way to address that is to pick a young Hispanic running mate, for instance. This, too, should be clear to anyone who watched the Democratic primary unfold.

I will be judging the running mate selection at two levels:

1. Does the running mate make sense as a governing partner?

2. Does the running mate amplify politically desirable characteristics/aspects of the nominee? Does the running mate allow the Biden campaign to position itself in a way that increases the likelihood of victory in November?

That second question has several plausible answers, but some are more plausible than others, in my view. And in the coming weeks, I’ll take a look a possible running mates through this lens.

Let me know in the comments who you’d like to see as Biden’s VP.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.

-Michael

P.S. If this work is valuable to you, would you consider becoming a subscriber?