On the menu today: Apparently Joe Biden really is considering picking Kamala Harris as his running mate, a potential move that is freaking out some of his closest allies; the secret 2024 Democratic presidential primary that is going on right under our noses; and teachers’ unions start asking for a non-in-person, non-online option for educating children. Apparently, they want to use telepathy or something.
How Much Would a Kamala Harris Selection Shake Up the 2020 Race?
Wait . . . is Kamala Harris really atop Joe Biden’s list of running mates? According to CNBC, some people close to Biden think this is the case, and want to ensure he picks someone else.
Some of Joe Biden’s allies are waging a campaign behind the scenes to stop Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., from becoming his vice president.
This disgruntled group of at least a dozen Biden backers, including a few of his top donors, initiated the move against Harris close to a month ago, just weeks before a decision is expected, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Many who spoke to CNBC declined to be named as these efforts have been made in private.
On the Three Martini Lunch podcast the other day, I noted that there’s a lesson in Biden’s selection of Chris Dodd to co-chair his team working on the vice-presidential search and vetting.
No one else in the Democratic Party was wondering, “What does Chris Dodd think?” Dodd does not have a sterling reputation, even in Democratic circles. Slate labeled him a “sex creep,” for a variety of reasons, from the infamous “waitress sandwich” story to his “good friendship” with Harvey Weinstein. No constituency in the Democratic Party is filled to the brim with fond memories of the longtime Connecticut senator, and he can accurately be described as “a lobbyist and embodiment of the white establishment.” He was nicknamed “the senator from Aetna.” He’s the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America who encouraged members to donate to Republicans as political insurance. He was the beneficiary of a bank’s special mortgage offers for VIPs, and the defender of bonuses for executives at financial firms being bailed out by the government. He was a key conduit for the donations from Johnny Huang in the 1996 Chinese fundraising scandal.
Why on earth would somebody like Chris Dodd be one of the guys helping lead Biden’s selection process? Because Joe Biden likes and trusts him, and that’s all the justification that Biden needs.
The lesson is that Biden prioritizes what he thinks of someone over everything else. You can see this as Biden being loyal to the longtime friends that he trusts, and not caring how the usually panicking Washington news cycle responds. Or you can see this as Biden being the typical Washington insider, oblivious or nonchalant about the flaws of his longtime friends, and who will only listen to the same old voices from the establishment clique.
Sometimes this attitude can work. Longtime NFL head coach Bill Parcells had “his guys” — loyal players and assistant coaches who kept moving with Parcells from team to team. Parcells preferred working with known quantities over someone new — and along the way, he inspired loyalty and generally reciprocated it.
But Washington Redsk–er, “Washington Football Team” owner Dan Snyder was surrounded by a crew of longtime loyalists, too, and we saw how that turned out.
If Biden wants his administration to be filled with familiar and trusted faces, it’s probably bad news for the Democratic figures who are younger, who didn’t work in or with the Obama administration, and whom Biden doesn’t know that well. California representative Karen Bass, Florida representative Val Demings, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms — thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.
If past experience working with Biden matters most to the nominee . . . Susan Rice stands out, well ahead of the rest of the pack.
“My favorite unannounced visitor was Vice President Joe Biden,” Rice wrote in her book “Tough Love.”
In those casual visits, as well as in daily national security briefings, Biden and Rice forged an easy working relationship, according to people who worked alongside them during their eight years in the Obama administration. It’s that personal relationship, and Biden’s firsthand knowledge of how Rice would operate in close proximity to a president, that are now seen as among her strongest attributes as Biden considers her to be his running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket. . . .
“His entire theory of politics is personal relationships,” Ben Rhodes, who served as Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said of Biden. “The idea of him taking a leap of faith on someone he really doesn’t know because it seems to check a political box seems very unlikely to me.”
“They developed this kind of mutual respect, but also casual nature to their relationship that he didn’t have with everybody,” Rhodes said.
Meanwhile, the arguments in favor of Harris . . . don’t make a ton of sense to me.
Earlier this month, Chris Cillizza wrote of Harris, “She’s a Black and Indian American woman from a massive Democratic state (in terms of votes and campaign dollars) who has been on the national stage these past 18 months.” Yes, Harris is a black woman, but many of the other names on this list are as well. Biden’s not going to need any help to carry California, and if he needs help raising money in a race against Donald Trump, he’s probably doomed. As for Harris on the national stage . . . it didn’t go so well!
On paper, Harris was a compelling presidential candidate, just as on paper, she’s a compelling vice-presidential selection. In practice, Harris rose fast and then sank faster. Fairly or not, she just didn’t fit the mood of the party. The party’s establishment and African Americans were already pretty satisfied with Biden, the harder-left grassroots already had Bernie Sanders, and everybody else was split among the thundering herd of other candidates. Harris flip-flopped, her staff was beset by infighting, and her campaign never really galvanized behind a particular signature issue or proposal. I have my doubts that a one-party state like California really prepares a Democratic officeholder to win in places such as Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina.
The Secret 2024 Democratic Primary, Going On under Our Noses
Also yesterday on the podcast, my co-host Greg Corombus offered an intriguing theory as to why the nation’s highest-profile Democratic governors are being covered the way they are during this pandemic. The media’s celebration of Andrew Cuomo, and to a lesser extent Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom, is not merely to preserve the reassuring narrative that “blue state governors are wise and good, and red state governors are stupid and bad.” I laid out a month ago that there are other, less-discussed Democratic governors who are doing better jobs than the most-discussed ones, at least based upon the raw numbers.
Greg’s theory is that all the major players in the Democratic Party — and left-leaning reporters, editors, op-ed columnists, and producers are definitely major players — are all operating on the assumption that if elected, Joe Biden is unlikely to be running for another term in 2024. The Democratic Party as a whole may be united behind Biden’s running mate as the successor . . . or maybe not. Democrats may well have a contested primary four years from now — and depending upon how people feel about that running mate, a rising-star governor could successfully beat the veep, be the nominee, and collect the baton from Biden.
(The president’s party has gotten hammered in the midterm elections of 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. It’s quite possible that if Biden wins, by 2022 the country grows dissatisfied, elects a bunch of Republicans, and by early 2023, Democrats are contemplating changing course.)
Teachers’ Unions: We Want the Not-In-Person, Not-Online, Not-Teaching Option
Teachers’ unions are living down to their reputation in the New York Times:
Many unions, while concerned about the safety of classrooms, are also fighting to limit the amount of time that teachers are required to be on video over the course of a day. . . .
The [Sacramento City Unified School District] will open in a remote-only mode on Sept. 3, and has proposed that lessons delivered live over video or audio should be recorded for families to access at times that are convenient for them. But the union has objected, arguing that recording lessons could be a violation of privacy for educators, students and families because their likenesses could be posted and viewed without their explicit permission. . . .
The local [Miami] union president, Karla Hernandez-Mats, said her members were willing to follow a more traditional schedule, but many teachers have expressed anxiety about how they and their homes would look on camera during live teaching.
Oh, really? You don’t want to teach in the buildings, and you don’t want to teach online? Just what are you willing to do to keep receiving that paycheck?
ADDENDUM: Meanwhile, out in Ohio, Cleveland’s government takes action against the preeminent problem of the moment: “Cleveland City Council unanimously approved legislation Wednesday that would prohibit restaurants in the city from offering kids’ meals that include sugary drinks as the only beverage. Mayor Frank Jackson signed it into law this afternoon.”
So, uh, everything else in Cleveland is fixed, right?