Tag Archives: Democratic ticket

national news

Democrats looking for sure-fire ‘diversity’ on 2020 ticket?

At the risk of confirming my pledge to avoid political predictions by getting another prediction dead wrong, I am going to offer a possible result in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary campaign in 2020.

It’s looking to me as though Democrats — whoever they nominate for president a year from now — will include (a) a woman or (b) a person “of color” on their presidential ticket to run against Donald J. Trump, or (c) maybe both.

A Politico.com story talks about how former Vice President Joe Biden is building on his early front-running momentum as he kicks his presidential campaign into high gear. It also references the chatter about how Biden, the prohibitive early front runner, could produce a political juggernaut if he wins the presidential nomination and then selects Sen. Kamala Harris to run with him as his vice-presidential nominee.

I don’t know who the Democrats will nominate. If it’s Biden, it seems to make all the sense in the world for him to find a young, vibrant running mate. Harris fits the bill. She also, quite obviously is of the correct gender and she also happens to be biracial.

A woman of color!

How does look?

As Politico reports: “Harris is everything the 76-year-old Biden is not. The freshman senator from California is younger, a woman and a person of color. As Biden gets dinged for his bipartisan bromides, Harris is winning applause for her merciless cross-examination of Trump officials.”

OK, I cannot predict a Biden-Harris ticket will materialize. It seems to make perfect sense, though, for Democrats to look consciously for someone who isn’t a white guy for one of the two spots at the top of their presidential ticket.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus call such a lineup to be a political “dream ticket.” They might be on to something.

national news, political news

Why not Bernie for VP?

Cassidy-Bernie-Sanders-Loud-and-Clear-1200

The more I think about it, the more plausible it’s beginning to sound.

Bernie Sanders well might become Hillary Clinton’s running mate against Donald J. Trump.

I had been thinking all along that Clinton might look more toward someone with, say, a Hispanic background. Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro — who’s now housing secretary in the Obama administration — was a logical choice.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s name has popped up. That’s an interesting pick, too. An all-woman Democratic ticket? You go, girls!

But now it seems quite possible that Sen. Sanders — who’s been battle-tested and proven to be up to the fight — might be the right kind of No. 2 to challenge Trump and whomever he selects as his running mate.

Sanders already has pulled Clinton to the left on some of his pet issues: income inequality, war in the Middle East to name just two.

At one level, he’s already won the ideological fight within the Democratic Party. Indeed, if he’s not chosen, I truly can hear Sanders making a “the dream shall never die” speech at the Democratic convention, echoing the stirring address given by vanquished Sen. Ted Kennedy at the 1980 convention that re-nominated President Carter.

However, if Clinton picks Sanders as her VP nominee, then he’ll continue the fight forward.

One obvious drawback is his age. He’s 74. He’d be 79 at the end of a first Clinton term. There might be a commitment to serve just one term as vice president if a President Clinton were to seek re-election in 2020.

Of course, only the candidate knows who she’s going to pick.

As for Trump, he said he’s narrowed his list to “five or six” individuals. He vows to pick an actual Republican and someone with “political experience.” He, too, has a list of former rivals he might consider, although at least two of them — Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich — have all but told Trump to jump in the proverbial lake before asking either of them to run with him.

The mystery of who’ll be running for president in the fall has just about been solved.

Now we’ll await these important choices for the No. 2 spots.

I’m starting to “feel the Bern.”