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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPierce: Mike Pence Felt a Cold Chill This Afternoon. He'll Be Debating Kamala Harris.
Mike Pence Felt a Cold Chill This Afternoon. He'll Be Debating Kamala Harris.
Joe Biden chose the California senator to join the 2020 Democratic ticket.
By Charles P. Pierce
Aug 11, 2020
Long about 4:20 ET Tuesday afternoon, Mike Pence of Indiana felt a cold chill Down There and he didnt know why.
Joe Biden returned to the inevitable by selecting Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate. This decision put Pence in a nutcracker. Either he has to debate Harris on televisionand hes seen what happened to witnesses before Senate committees when Harriss turn came around to question themor he wont get the chance, because this selection has to make some of the cutthroats on the other side wonder if dumping Pence for, say, Nikki Haley, is the proper countermove. (Narrator: They wont, but you know some of them are thinking about it.) Frankly, given the choice between public evisceration and public defenestration, I dont know which way Pence would go. Maybe he should poll on it.
The pick makes all kinds of sense. It always made all kinds of sense. It energizes the most loyal segment of the Democratic base. It honors the election of Barack Obama and the legacy of Bidens work in that administration, while simultaneously acknowledging the reality, seen now in the streets, that, despite the fond anesthetic rhetoric of conservatives, the election of Barack Obama did not solve entirely systemic racism in this society. It puts a prosecutorial edge on the campaign that any campaign against the current president* needs. It injects the campaign with hot molten steel. At the same time, Harris is a genuinely charismatic person. And it demonstrates that, unlike the incumbent, Joe Biden can handle tough criticism like an adult. Nobody was tougher on him during the campaign than Harris was. (Her summoning up his history on busing was the single most memorable haymaker of the entire cycle.) The pick says as much about him as it does about her. There wont be anyone tailoring intel reports to avoid presidential tantrums.
(Also, Harriss election would enable Rep. Katie Porter to run for Senate in California. Bonus!)
There is some baggage in Harriss past as a prosecutor, and as an attorney general, which gives me pause, and which is why I didnt vote for her in the primaries. But given the way events have unfolded over the past several months, and given the way the entire dynamic of the election has changed so utterly, the logic behind choosing her grew more compelling, not less. I kept coming back to the times I sat in at various hearings in which she challenged the members of the administration* that has led the nation into disaster, and she did so before they led the nation into disaster. She has receipts to carry us into the next decade.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a33577878/joe-biden-pick-kamala-harris-2020-mike-pence/
Skittles
(153,164 posts)fuck that sanctimonious piece of shit Pence
DonaldsRump
(7,715 posts)Will be a cold night at Number One Observatory Circle in DC (where Mikey and Mother live)!
TlalocW
(15,383 posts)Especially for a woman. That would piss off Trump's evangelical base so much. Plus, I feel pretty confident that there are some evangelicals who will admit it to themselves that they're just putting up with Trump and going along with the chosen-by-God BS because if their dreams came true, and Trump got a second term, then Pence would probably run for president, OR what they're hoping for is that statistics concerning health matters would catch up to Trump, and Pence would ascend early, and they could have someone that actually believes in what Trump claims to without the distraction of having to deal with all the affairs.
TlalocW
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)CaptYossarian
(6,448 posts)Bush afterwards: "We really kicked some ass out there."
What a pig!
chriscan64
(1,789 posts)Trump may go through campaign managers like ... oh I don't know, wives? But I think he would see changing the ticket as a sign of weakness. Of course the bottom of the ticket is not the real weakness.