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go-redgirl · 4 years

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ORLANDO, Florida—Vice President Mike Pence rallied at a Latinos for Trump event here on Saturday as President Donald Trump now leads his Democrat opponent former Vice President Joe Biden in the Sunshine State.

“It’s great to be back in the Sunshine State with some great Americans who are going to drive a victory here in Florida and all across America,” Pence said as he took the stage here at Central Christian University. “Thank you, Latinos for Trump. I’m here for one reason, and one reason only: because Florida, and America, need four more years of Donald Trump in the White House. The road to victory runs right through Florida.”

Pence’s campaign swing through central Florida during which Breitbart News is traveling with him and is scheduled to interview him—he is also leading a Make America Great Again rally in the Villages later in the day—comes as the vice president has emerged as the Trump-Pence ticket’s top campaigner while the president continues his recovery from the coronavirus in the White House.

Other Trump campaign leaders and first family surrogates have also stepped up campaign activities as part of what the team calls “Operation MAGA.”

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, for instance is hitting the trail aggressively this coming week with more than two dozen scheduled events crisscrossing the nation.

Trump is scheduled to later on Saturday hold his first public event, at the White House, since contracting the virus. Trump was diagnosed a little over a week ago—last Thursday—and then later was transferred last weekend to Walter Reed hospital to begin his recovery.

He began working again mid-week, visiting the Oval Office, and has also now started conducting interviews again as Friday he appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s and Mark Levin’s respective nationally broadcast radio programs as well as giving his first on-camera interview to Fox News’s Dr. Marc Siegel, which aired Friday evening on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Trump will resume campaigning on Monday with a rally nearby here, in Sanford, Florida, his first time back on the trail since the infection.

But in the meantime, Pence—who earlier this week debated Democrat vice presidential contender Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in Salt Lake City, Utah—is the top dog out there for the Trump campaign. This weekend Florida swing comes after a Thursday post-debate campaign trip to Arizona and Nevada, western states the president split with Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016. Trump won the former, and Clinton won the latter.

“I don’t know if you all got to see it, but I was just in Utah the other night—we had a little debate with Kamala Harris,” Pence told the cheering crowd here in Orlando. “Some people think we did alright. But I want to clear: From where I was sitting, that debate was not just a debate between two candidates for vice president. It was a debate between two visions for America.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want higher taxes, open borders, socialized medicine; they want to abolish fossil fuels, and use taxpayer funding to pay for abortion. They want to defund the police. President Donald Trump’s vision is a little bit different. President Trump says rebuild our military. We cut taxes; we rolled back regulations, unleashed American energy, secured our border, supported law enforcement, life and liberty and the Constitution of the United States. When you compare the Biden-Harris agenda with our agenda, the choice is clear.

If you cherish faith and freedom and law and order and life, then we need four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.”Pence’s team is riding high into the Sunshine State, too, as the latest public polling here shows Trump leading Biden in the final weeks by three points. That poll, from Fox35, correctly predicted the 2008 and 2016 elections.

It show Trump performing strongly among Hispanic and black voters, but like other surveys it shows the president’s ticket underperforming 2016 numbers among seniors—a demographic that Biden is making a push for. Pence is working to hit both key demographics—Hispanics and seniors—with his pair of campaign events here on Saturday.

Pence also made a key point to hype Trump’s word against Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, and standing up the communists in Cuba.“Under President Donald Trump, we have stood for freedom across this hemisphere for all freedom-loving people,” Pence told the Latinos for Trump rally-goers here. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States was the first nation on earth to recognize President Juan Guaido as the only legitimate president of Venezuela. Under this president, America has been clear: Maduro must go and America will stand with the people of Venezuela.

Under Joe Biden as vice president, he served at a time when America was appeasing the communist regime in Havana. President Donald Trump kept the promise that he made to Cuban Americans when he reversed the failed policies of the last administration toward Cuba. In this White House, it will always be Que Viva Cuba Libre.

President @realDonaldTrump kept his promise to Cuban Americans when he reversed the failed policies of the last administration. In this @WhiteHouse, it will always be que viva Cuba libre!3:22 PM · Oct 10, 2020

He also hyped economic successes the Trump administration has delivered for Hispanics.

“Nearly half of the jobs that were created in our first three years went to Hispanic Americans,” Pence said. “That’s what we call promises made and promises kept. So I’m excited to talk to you about that and see the enthusiasm here today on this cool and breezy day in Florida. President Trump is keeping his promises. It’s why Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vazquez Garced just endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election as President of the United States. This week, the governor of Puerto Rico asked people in that territory to vote for who’s been there for Puerto Rico in its most difficult moments. She said very plainly it is Donald Trump.

She thanked the president for rebuilding Puerto Rico not just with words but with actions. She said thanks to the president’s leadership, pharmaceutical manufacturing is coming back to the island. China is fired and Puerto Rico is hired.”

These events along the I-4 corridor, which stretches from Daytona through Orlando down to Tampa, are key to the Trump team wooing seniors back from clutches of Biden and the Democrats. A key focus from Pence’s messaging on the trail is zoning in on just how radical the left truly is, and what that would mean for the general public if Biden and Harris were to win and be able to implement their agenda.

That’s something Pence focused on in Wednesday’s debate with Harris, putting her on the hot seat on court-packing, fracking, China, and her questionable-at-best record as a prosecutor in San Francisco and in California.

The vice president’s trip here also comes less than two days before Judge Amy Coney Barrett is set to begin her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday morning, after Trump nominated her a couple weeks ago to be the next Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats and the establishment media have unleashed a barrage of vicious attacks against Barrett, targeting her faith and even her adopted children, in what is expected to be a fierce showdown in the Senate and in the public eye just before the election.

“Last month as a nation we paused to honor the life and service of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Pence told the cheering crowd here. “When the memorials were over, President Trump fulfilled his duty under the Constitution of the United States and he nominated a principled, brilliant, conservative woman who believes in the Constitution to the Supreme Court. He nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

”As “Fill That Seat” chants broke out among the crowd, Pence turned and promised them that Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate will get it done. “Let me make you a promise: After the Senate gets done with the advisement and consent, we’re going to fill that seat,” Pence told the crowd which erupted in applause.“I got to tell you, I’m a big fan of Judge Amy Coney Barrett—not just because she’s from Indiana, but she’s a truly remarkable person,” Pence continued.

“She deserves a dignified hearing, a dignified and respectful hearing in the United States Senate. But, men and women, we have reason to be concerned. You all remember when she was appointed to the court of appeals just two years ago, the Democrat chairman of the Judiciary Committee criticized her Catholic faith. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said ‘the dogma lives loudly within you.’ Hollywood elites have already begun to criticize Judge Barrett and her family for their faith. Well, I got news for the Democrats and their friends in Hollywood: That dogma lives loudly in me.

That dogma lives loudly in you. That’s the right to live and to worship according to the dictates of our faith lives loudly in the Constitution of the United States.

”The president has the lead in Florida—and its 29 electoral votes are crucial to his path to re-election. Assuming the president can keep Georgia, Texas, and Arizona red—those are three traditionally red states that Biden and Democrats hope to flip—and hold onto Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, and here in Florida, along with Maine’s Second District, he would be one state away from locking down a second term in the White House.Public polling out of Georgia and Texas show those two states firmly back in the president’s column, after months of concern on both, and Arizona seems to be trending back that way too with a recent Trafalgar Group poll this week showing Trump back in the lead there.

The Trump campaign feels so confident about Iowa and Ohio, too, that they pulled down television ad buys in both states to focus resources more effectively elsewhere. North Carolina’s public polling has been shifting back Trump’s way, too, all while the Democrats’ U.S. Senate candidate there Cal Cunningham is rocked by a serious sexting scandal that has found him under investigation by the U.S. Army Reserves for the inappropriate relationship with an enlisted serviceman’s wife.

Public polling out of Maine’s Second District, from the Bangor Daily News, shows the president with a healthy 8 percent lead over Biden. If Trump holds all those plus all the other traditional red states together, he would be at 260 electoral votes and winning just any one of the upper rust belt states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota—would put him over the top of the required 270 electoral votes necessary to win re-election.

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Ann Neumann, Family Care for All, 51 The Baffler (April 2020)

Supporting the work that makes all other work possible

Once the coronavirus pandemic began to shut down American businesses earlier this year, it wasn’t long before Congress passed a massive stimulus package to prop up major industries and extend loans to small businesses. By the end of March, well over ten million people filed for unemployment compensation. At the same time, entire segments of the labor force went untouched by emergency bailouts and social insurance. One of the largest such groups consists of domestic care laborers: home health care workers, disability aides, nannies, housekeepers, and cleaners.

They are the workers who scrub our toilets, fold our laundry, and care for our children and aging parents. They are often paid in cash and for the most part work without basic labor protections. There are, according to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, about two million of these workers in the United States, and even in “good” economic times, they struggle to support their families. (By comparison, there are more than three million farmworkers—another group mostly written out of the protections of labor law.) Many face ever-expanding job descriptions: nannies doing laundry and cleaning, home health aides picking up groceries for their patients. Some experience chronic discrimination or sexual assault; trafficking is a known problem. They have no sick leave, no job security, no health insurance. Now they face joblessness or else the risk of contagion if they continue to work during the pandemic.

Few organizations focus on the rights of these workers[*]. Many maids, nannies, and cleaners work for individual families instead of companies, so they are not in a position to join a union or bargain collectively for better wages and benefits.

Even before the pandemic, domestic workers subsisted in an economic system showing multiple stresses: a rapidly growing elder population; childcare that may be barely affordable for middle-class families, let alone for the workers who serve them; a bloated and byzantine health care industry that is inaccessible to at least thirty million Americans; immigration policies that penalize the very people who are holding our families and households together. Now we face a reckoning: some of the most invisible workers in America are, in fact, essential. If we are going to rebuild the economy, it will take more than corporate bailouts. It will require visionary changes to labor law—and social insurance—that recognize how important domestic care workers are to a functioning and humane society.

I Really Do Care, Don’t U?

Such a vision has been taking shape over the last thirteen years at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which advocates for the rights of those who care for our homes and children and parents, striving to make domestic jobs into quality jobs, with the pay and protections necessary to support those who are getting a foothold on the economic ladder. With four local chapters, sixty affiliate organizations, and a presence in nineteen states, their movement is driven by the idea that our social and health challenges can be solved with innovative social policies that bring care workers out of the dark and make the care we need affordable.

I met with the NDWA’s director, Ai-jen Poo, in mid-February when the dire urgency of the coronavirus was still a few weeks away. We spotted each other in the lobby of a workspace in lower Manhattan and had a brief hug. Poo seemed unchanged since the time we first met as co-presenters at a New York University event about a decade ago. She is steady, direct, and in all likelihood one of the most informed persons in America about the real-life concerns of domestic workers, who she has been organizing for nearly two decades. In 2014 she won a MacArthur Genius Grant and used it to write a book, The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America, which came out a year before my own book on end-of-life care.

Poo and I talked about how the NDWA has grown, the challenges of advocacy in the Trump era, and a sweeping, practical solution to the care crisis in the United States—one that is even more compelling now that the old jerry-rigged system seems to be crumbling. For several years, she has been imagining such a plan: “Our solution is called Universal Family Care,” Poo tells me—a social insurance fund that we all contribute to but also benefit from, one that provides childcare, long-term care, and paid family leave. “It will totally revolutionize how we take care of each other,” she says. “It’s like putting a new infrastructure in place to support family life in the twenty-first century.”

Many Americans assume that Medicare covers long-term care, but it does not. So it’s frustratingly common for elders to arrive at the point of crisis without a plan. “It’s a tragedy,” Poo says. “Most people have nothing in place, and they end up spending down their resources, completely impoverishing themselves, to be eligible for Medicaid.” While Medicare covers health care for all older Americans, Medicaid was created for those in poverty—and it was never intended as a long-term care program.

By socializing the costs of care, a Universal Family Care fund would prove durable enough to even out the risks and expenses. Social insurance works best when you have a massive pool and, as Poo notes, “there’s no bigger pool than American families.”

The Caretaker Diaries

In my years as a hospice volunteer, I met many women who care for elders in their final days. Maria, with her long nails and quick laugh, was paid so little that she would often stay overnight in the abandoned nanny’s room at our patient’s house so she wouldn’t have to pay for transportation from the Upper West Side to Brooklyn. Maxi had chronic back pain from hoisting our patient out of a chair and out of the shower. Both were hired for a limited job—assisting the patient with daily activities—that over time began to include cooking, cleaning, and picking up groceries on their way to work. When our patient died, Maria and Maxi were out of work and grieving.

The cost of this kind of round-the-clock care is enormously expensive, even for elders who have savings and other resources, which presents the immediate challenge—absent the national fund envisioned by the NDWA—of providing caregivers with a living wage without bankrupting families.

This necessitates changing our culture to view domestic labor as deserving of all the protections and benefits other kinds of labor enjoy. “The cultural devaluing of domestic work is a reflection of a hierarchy of human value that defines everything in our world,” Poo once said in a TED Talk, “a hierarchy that values the lives and contributions of some groups of people over others, based on race, gender, class, immigration status—any number of categories.” When I ask her how this hierarchy specifically devalues care, she evokes the words of actor and caregiving advocate David Hyde Pierce, who opened his moderation of a panel at the White House a few years ago with the reminder that “to age is to live, and to care is to be human.”

It’s a truth that is nonetheless warped by prejudice, Poo says, by “hierarchies that value the lives and contributions of men over women, of white people over people of color.” Because domestic work and caregiving have for so long been associated with women, the work has been discredited, its importance denied or made invisible. “It’s seen as not having any real value in the economy or culture,” Poo notes. NDWA is hoping to change that by bringing these workers out of the dark as part of a concerted push for a federal Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights that will codify the value of these essential laborers and grant them the necessary protections.

“We are bringing all the tools and all the creativity we have to do this work,” Poo told The New York Times Magazine last year. “We are in a moment where we can either shape the future and be part of how this whole thing unfolds, or we can be victims of it, the way that we have been for generations.”

In 2010, three years after the NDWA was founded, the organization and its affiliates celebrated the passage of the first Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in New York State. It provides protection under the New York State Human Rights Law, overtime pay after forty hours, and three paid days off per year. Through the efforts of the NDWA and other organizations like Hand in Hand, an association of domestic employers who advocate for sustainable jobs for the workers they employ, eight other states have signed similar legislation—as have the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia. With support from Senator Kamala Harris, Representative Pramila Jayapal, and others, the NDWA is now working to enshrine the protections of the Bill of Rights in federal law.

Poo sees this federal legislation as a foundation from which we can revolutionize the way care is provided in the United States. “Caregiving today is still seen as a personal burden or responsibility,” she tells me, “and if you can’t figure it out and you can’t afford it and you can’t manage it, it’s your personal failure.” Central to Poo’s work is remaking caregiving as a social challenge rather than a private shame; to articulate how vital care work is, she has called it the work that makes all other work possible. “This is a problem that the market can’t solve; this requires a collective solution, a public policy solution,” she says.

Alongside these efforts to enact policy at the state and federal level, the NDWA has launched several programs to directly improve domestic workers’ lives. They’ve set up an online service called Alia, for instance, that gives the existing clients of domestic workers a way to contribute to an affordable benefits program. For a mere five dollars per cleaning, Alia enables workers to purchase affordable insurance and access paid time off.

Priced Out

The Trump era presents a fresh challenge: the NDWA is advocating for a sector of the economy with one of the largest populations of undocumented workers during a time of mass incarceration at the border. But Poo doesn’t blanch when I ask her about advancing workers’ rights under an administration that seems hell bent on punishment and carnage. “Trump ran on building a wall and targeting immigrants,” Poo says, “blaming immigrants for the jobs crisis and crime. We knew it was going to be a very hard time for our workforce, and it has been.” But as she points out, the administration’s punitive efforts have only made the injustice more obvious and increased awareness of how border issues are connected to each of our personal lives.

At the start of the current border crisis, the NDWA helped launch Families Belong Together, a network of nearly two hundred fifty organizations working to end family separation and detention through direct action, organizing, and fundraising. Such endeavors are predicated on the interconnectedness of workers, caregivers, and families—and on building a movement that will meet everyone’s needs by making care affordable and making caregiving a sustainable job.

What’s innovative about the work Poo directs is how it orients a number of pressing issues—immigration, labor rights, the rights of women and women of color, health care quality—around the issue of domestic care. Caregiving is a core issue, not a private matter of the domestic sphere—and it is increasingly a source of crisis for families.

Exceptionally few Americans can actually afford the care that they need. So the challenge is two-fold: we have to help families pay for their care and we have to support the workforce with sustainable jobs that offer fair wages. The challenge continues to expand, but perhaps a window of opportunity is opening as well. “We have a once-in-several-generations chance to revolutionize how we support families and how we take care of the people we love,” Poo says.

One of Poo’s data points is that Baby Boomers are turning sixty-five at the rate of approximately ten thousand per day, and because they’re living longer, we will soon have the largest elder population in our country’s history. On top of that, millennial women gave birth to more than three million babies in 2018. “We need more care than ever before,” Poo notes, “and we have nothing in place, no infrastructure, no systems to support that care.” While women once provided all of the uncompensated care that elders and children needed, that hasn’t been our reality in decades.

Another factor in the care crisis is the general erosion of livable salaries; there’s no way people can afford the care they need. Nearly 40 percent of American households make less than $50,000 a year. Poo does the math for me: if the average cost of childcare is $11,000 a year and a private room in a nursing home costs more than $100,000, the numbers just don’t add up.

Fuller House

The first women who did this in-home care work as a profession in the United States were enslaved Africans. Since then, women of color, immigrant women, women of marginalized social status have been the workers in our homes, with our children, and with our elders. “And that is not an accident,” Poo notes. “In fact, it was codified into law in the 1930s.”

She’s referring to the New Deal. As Congress debated the labor laws embedded in this suite of progressive policies, Southern members refused to support any laws that included protections for domestic workers and farm workers, who were predominantly African American. Southern congressmen won out, and these two sectors were excluded. “It was an explicitly racial exclusion,” Poo says, “that has really shaped domestic work and care work in America. It’s a very concrete manifestation of the hierarchy of human value and how it gets codified into law.”

Yet what work is more fundamental to family life and social reproduction in this country? Care workers are in our homes, wiping the chins of our toddlers and parents. It is the fastest growing work force in the economy. And it’s the sector that supports every other working family. “If every domestic worker in New York decided not to go to work one day, imagine the chaos,” Poo says. “Even though that work is invisible, it is central to the operation of so many industries.”

What happens if caregivers don’t go to work one day is strikingly easy to imagine now, as New York State has decreed that all nonessential employees must work from home to prevent spread of the coronavirus. Social media reverberates with tales of mothers and fathers who are struggling with work, childcare, home schooling, and elder care all at once. And yet many caregivers continue to go to their jobs because their charges require assistance for everyday activities; the pandemic has rendered this work not only visible but “essential,” the linchpin in our social structure.

Today, domestic workers struggle to feed their own children, they suffer burn-out and experience physical and mental exhaustion, harassment and racism. And because their wages are so low, the care sector has often lost talented caregivers to better paying work like fast food or retail. But Poo sees yet another opportunity here. “There’s a tremendous amount of waste in our health care system right now,” she observes, “and a lot of it is concentrated at end of life.” I know this from my own work. As much as 25 percent of Medicare’s annual budget goes to the last year of life. Which wouldn’t be so bad if we were providing the kind of care elders needed.

“The very best prevention,” Poo tells me, “is good caregiving.” Workers who are well-paid and well-trained, workers we recognize and invest in, could be an asset to the health care system and a solution to many of its current problems—from unnecessary institutionalizations and re-hospitalizations to management of chronic illnesses and better quality of care.

The Road We’re On

You might think that the partisanship of the current political climate bodes ill for Poo and the NDWA’s vision for Universal Family Care, but caregiving is what Poo calls a “trans-partisan” issue. A recent poll conducted by Maria Shriver’s Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement and Caring Across Generations found that 71 percent of Republican voters would support a federal program to help cover the costs of caregiving. The poll focused mainly on long-term care, but support for a new government program is strong.

In March, in an op-ed for the New York Times, Poo wrote that “domestic workers and caregivers are too often asked to put the needs of the families who employ them over their own and those of their families.” Poo argues that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “should direct more of their resources toward the front-line care professionals” who work in our homes and neighborhoods because they serve as our first bulwark against damages to public health. Providing these workers, predominantly women of color, with safety equipment, testing, and information in multiple languages should have been our first step in preventing the spread of coronavirus.

“What you’re doing, because it is so big, is imaginative, it’s a creative act,” I tell Poo at the end of our conversation. “How can we envision this better future?”

“For me, it’s not hard,” Poo says. “I want people to get excited about the idea of Universal Family Care, the idea that care for families is a part of the infrastructure of the twenty-first century—like roads and bridges and tunnels are now an expected expense because they enable everything else.”

[*] Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 does not represent home health aides. This is not the case; the SEIU represents a large number of home health workers.

#labor #domestic work #domestic care laborers #labor rights #immigration #coronavirus #COVID-19 #front line workers #universal family care #family care #caretakers #domestic worker alliance

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kamalakhanappreciator · 5 years

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The Circle Q Reviews Every Ms. Marvel Issue Ever! #1: Issue 1: Not Normal Part 1 of 5: Meta Morphosis

Hello, Kamala Korps! Welcome to the very first comic review on the blog, and what else but the one that started it all?

Released in February 5th, 2014, the issue was written by G. Willow Wilson (OUR QUEEN!), pencilled and inked by Adrian Alphona, coloured by Ian Herring, lettered by Joe Caramagna, edited by Sana Amanat, Devin Lewis and Stephen Wacker. The cover was made by Sara Pichelli and Justin Ponsor (all info taken from Marvel Database).

So, a quick summery (also from Marvel Database) before I split the review to four areas (Story, Characters, Art and Cover, a system based on the one “The Superman Homepage” uses):

“The legend has returned! Marvel Comics presents the all-new MS. MARVEL, the ground breaking heroine that has become an international sensation! Kamala Khan is just an ordinary girl from Jersey City--until she is suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the all-new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm, and prepare for an epic tale that will be remembered by generations to come. History in the making is NOW!”

Ok, now with that out of the way, let’s review!:

STORY: 5 OUT OF 5

It’s a tale as old as time: A teenager who no one understands get ultimate powers and uses them because “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility”.

We’ve seen SO many teen heroes: From Spidey himself, to all the Robins, The Teen Titans, Supergirl, Batgirl, A chunk of The X-Men, Shuri, The Legion of Superheroes, Zatanna, The Human Torch, Young Avengers... The list goes on and on and on.

What always amazes me is that this type of story still works, because over and over it’s been proven: Find a good twist to the formula, and the teen hero becomes insanley relatable.

And so, we get Kamala’s unique twist: She’s Muslim and a geek.

The totally different perspective and atmosphere that we’re used to in comics is a BIG reason as to why this comic and character work: Kamala is so different, yet so familiar. She becomes likable from the getgo.

However, we’re here to talk story. And Kamala’s story is off to MAGNIFICENT start (kill me)!

While one could argue that the story is uneventful (really, all that happens is Kamala goes to a party and gets powers), one would be wrong: What we get is a masterclass in introducing a character and her world.

Think about it: In 20 pages, we get Kamala herself, her love for heroes (specifically Captain Marvel), Nakia, Kamala and Nakia’s friendship, Zoe, Zoe’s crush on Nakia, Zoe’s arc, Josh, Bruno, Bruno’s love for Kamala, Kamala’s feelings as an outsider, Kamala’s origin, Abu, Ammi, Aamir, the last three’s arcs and relationships with Kamala, The Circle Q... ALL THAT in 20 pages!

And while not much happens, we immediately relate and get invested!

So, yes, 5 out of 5 for sure! It’s been a while since I’ve seen a pilot this well made!

CHARACTERS: 5 OUT OF 5

One of my favorite things about this series (and Ms. Marvel herself) are the characters: Truly, one can argue that the ensemble cast in this book is phenomenal!

I named them all before, but seriously! We get the insanely relatable and lovely Kamala Khan, the level headed and good straightman/foil/contrast Nakia, the best friend with a crush Bruno, the (for now) problematic and insensitive Zoe, Josh (who becomes important later), and Kamala’s family, each one with different levels of religious feelings and contrast to Kamala.

Characters serve as foils and contrasts to each other all the time: Kamala and Nakia are NOTHING like Zoe and Josh, while Bruno stands in the middle, feet in both worlds. Kamala is Muslim, but she looks absolutely different to her family. And when Kamala sees her heroes, she is small and insignificant compared to these gods.

The theme of being different and alone is constantly used: Even with Nakia and Bruno, Kamala feels utterly alone and outside of the pack. It’s what makes her so good!

While we still don’t get a sense of her heroism, we understand Kamala as a person. This is why the MCU (and all other good superhero media) works: We love the man before the hero. We must first love Kamala, not Ms. Marvel, for after all, it is Kamala who is the true hero, and Ms. Marvel which is the mask.

And love Kamala we shall! From her relatable jokes and sad moments to her funny faces, love of heroes and loneliness, Kamala is practically one of the readers sucked in to the world of heroes. And her success is truly impressive! I am a white male and am not even close to being ANYTHING like Kamala. Yet I sympathize and relate to her every step of the way. THAT is good character writing.

Of course, praising Kamala only is selling the rest of the cast short, all of whom are introduced perfectly: In just a few pages, we know all we need to know (for now) about them.

From Bruno’s absolute perfection as a friend, to Nakia’s groundedness, from Zoe’s insensitivity that becomes complex later on to Kamala’ s family’s differing contrasts to her, all the principal cast members are introduced to the extent that we can easily keep track of who they are!

And they all provide great moments of hilarity and interaction to make sure that Kamala isn’t the only star! (After all, my second fave is Zoe, and we will GET to why she is!)

But a book doesn’t only need good characters and story: IT MUST HAVE GOOD ART!

ART: 5 OUT OF 5

What makes the art of Ms. Marvel so special and so unique like the rest of the book is its art.

Half cartoony, half embedded with life and charm, it looks like no other book in the market.

Colors aren’t bright, but they differ enough. Characters look real up front and silly far away. Everything feels warm and set in stone from the get go: Locations become almost homely, despite spending zero time in them.

Unfortunately, I’m not much of an art expert, so I can’t give the best judgement, but I can say if I liked it. And I did!

It looks different, which is my main love for it. It’s Ms. Marvel from the get go! And that’s all I need!

COVER: 5 OUT OF 5

Again, not an art expert. But a good cover is a good cover! And Ms. Marvel #1 is definitely a good cover!

The simple clothing with the thunderbolt logo, Kamala’s determined face, the headscarf... It’s just a striking image that says “Kamala is here, and she’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before!”. One of my favorite covers of this character!

FINAL SCORE: 20 OUT OF 20

Yes, a perfect first issue! From the excellent writing to the perfect characters to the lovely art, I see no fault in this debut! One of the best Number ones I’ve read in my life, “Meta Morphosis” introduces you to Kamala Khan perfectly, and is easily one of the best issues she’s ever had!

Next week, we take a look at Kamala’s next adventure, as she tries to get used to her new powers and look! Stay tuned!

EMBIGGEN!

(ALL ICONS TAKEN FROM @kamala-korps. Thank you for such excellent icons! Do please follow them!)

SpongeGuy.

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man-vs-cube · 4 years

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Biden: Flawed Man, Amazing Brand?

In many ways it's difficult to understand why Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee for President.

His record as a politician is bad, from a modern Democratic point of view. His history of alleged sexual misconduct is bad. His history of lying is bad. His alleged cognitive decline - or whatever is fueling his incoherent campaign performances - is bad. He's struggling to attract donors or rally attendees.

(Here's an article describing the substantial case against Joe Biden. Here's an article discussing his latest sexual misconduct allegation.)

It's easy to think he will lose just like Hillary did.

But I don't count him out yet. Hypothesis: Joe Biden has amazing branding. Not only is his brand much more positive than his flawed reality, it is also arguably a good counter-brand to Trump.

If Biden hadn't been Obama's Vice President, does anyone think he would even be in the race for President? I observe that Biden got a big boost to his brand by his stint as VP. I speculate that people who remember Obama and the Obama years fondly think fondly of Biden as well. That's brand.

From what I can tell, the Democratic public generally sees Biden as an honest man of good character. That's absurd. His character is arguably the worst of any of the major Democratic primary candidates. He's telling self-serving lies about his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and the sexual assault allegation against him is both a more severe and more credible allegation than that against Kavanaugh. (I do not intend that sentence to suggest I believe the Ford allegation is false; I believe it is most likely true.) How do so many Democrats think he has a good character relative to the other options? That's the power of a good brand.

Comparing Biden to some of the other candidates, he has the appearance and demeanor that suit our prejudices of who is a Respectable, Trustworthy Person. Bloomberg is short. Buttigieg has a funny looking face. Warren is a nerd. Bernie has a bad haircut and hunches. Warren, Kamala, and Booker all have sexism and/or racism to contend with. These are all brand problems.

So I speculate Biden's excellent brand comes from a) being Obama's VP and b) looking the part.

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Hold on a second.

What about the alleged cognitive decline?

I don't know for sure what's going on with Biden. The clips I've seen indeed look like he's losing his train of thought or struggling to express himself clearly. But using my subjective, nonexpert interpretation of clips chosen by his opposition to discredit him to diagnose his overall cognitive capacity seems epistemically risky.

Still, I think it's likely that 77-year-old Biden is losing some cognitive ability. He's old and the clips make him look bad. And if that's true, I think it is an astonishing rebuke to the idea of him becoming President. This is a country of over three hundred million people and the best the Democrats can propose to rule it is an elderly man in cognitive decline? To be one of the most powerful humans on Earth, with sole authority over the world's largest nuclear weapons stockpile for the next four years until he's eighty-two years old?

Incoherent speech and "cognitive decline" sounds like really bad branding, doesn't it? Shouldn't it sink my argument?

I'm not so sure.

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I mean, sure, when I say, "the man with sole authority over the world's largest nuclear stockpile shouldn't be someone who is losing executive function to age", it sure sounds bad. But I think that for many people, that's not the context that Biden's brand is being evaluated in.

They're comparing him to Trump. Many perceive Trump's style as brash, disruptive, uncivil, arrogant. They see him as a loose cannon. They're exhausted at having their attention drawn to his latest inflammatory statement or tweet, his latest insult, his latest retaliation towards those he deems disloyal.

(Do I think Trump is a loose cannon? I think that characterization is easy to exaggerate. The biggest loose cannon president of my lifetime was George W. Bush, when he started the Iraq War for no good reason. That's a lot more consequential than insulting a deceased veteran's family or tweeting about the press being the "enemy of the people".)

The manifestation of Biden's alleged cognitive decline could be characterized as "the opposite of loose cannon". Watching him, you're worried not so much that senility might lead him to drastic, risky decisions. You're worried he might be totally inert, unable to do much or to lead the country anywhere, for better or for worse. It seems entirely reasonable to speculate that a President Biden might choose a younger, more capable VP, appoint a boring technocratic cabinet, lean out of the presidency, and stick to low-volatility decisions. That's a sharp contrast to Trump! It even potentially stands out compared to the other Democratic candidates, many of whom would surely draw more attention to themselves than Biden. On the single issue of "who will make the Presidency itself a less exhausting attention sink", Biden might legitimately be the best candidate.

Trump himself has nicknamed Biden "Sleepy Joe". But to a voter looking for a less provocative President, that might be a compliment. Vote for Sleepy Joe, and you won't have to wake up in the morning wondering what Trump's latest inflammatory tweet is. No more "I hate to pay attention to him but I don't feel I can ignore him either." Vote for Sleepy Joe, and you'll sleep better too. I think this could be a reason Biden has been so successful. In this framing, cognitive decline enhances his brand. It doesn't diminish it.

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Some are predicting that Trump will beat Biden in a blowout victory. Anything could happen - including a Trump blowout. But my best guess is that it'll be close. I'll be surprised if Trump wins by a large margin. Sure, Biden doesn't look very good when held up to scrutiny. But maybe he's just got a great brand.

#biden politics branding

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dcmeterwrites · 5 years

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oh boy, did you get tom ellis for an eight a.m.? wait no, that’s NOAH MADDOX. i heard the forty one year old professor gives a pretty tough lecture in archaeology. he tries to be thoughtful and even-tempered but on the stressful days, he’s prideful and evasive. when he gets a chance to relax, catch him at the local bar listening to start // end by eden.

— RUNDOWN.

full name: noah rhys maddox

name meaning: rest, enthusiasm

 date of birth: october 7th

place of birth: cardiff, united kingdom

 age: 41

 star sign:  libra

 department: archaelogy

specialisation: near eastern and greek antiquity, classical archaeology

alma mater: university of oxford, harvard university

alignment: neutral good

mbti: infj

spoken languages: english ( native speaker ), coptic ( proficient ), arabic ( proficient ), aramaic ( intermediate ), hebrew ( intermediate ), welsh ( intermediate )

mother’s name: elizabeth maddox née llewellyn

father’s name: peter maddox

siblings, if any: andrew and derek maddox

birth order: middle

height: 6′3″

hair colour: black

eye colour: dark brown

— BACKSTORY.

noah over here was born in cardiff, wales, the middle of three brothers. you couldn’t find a more accomplished family anywhere. his mother was a retired olympic gold-winning cyclist, and his dad an ex-member of parliament.

within just five years, three boys were born to the couple and they fought furiously. when they weren’t trying to get their parents’ attention and praise, they were trying to prove to themselves that they were capable of besting the others. if andy was student gov president, noah had to be the captain of the rugby team, and derek the captain of the swim team.

this installed performance anxiety from the very beginning. noah always felt like he had to earn love and praise — that nobody would ever give it to him unless he was working for it, and that he didn’t deserve love at all if he wasn’t.

noah made it to university with star-struck academic records and extracurricular participation. he opted for history and economics: but ended up giving a lot more priority to history in his college years.

trouble was, though, that the spirit of competition that had fueled him to oxford was just — gone. college left him so confused. no matter what he did, there was always someone else that he wanted to do better than, but just couldn’t. was there even a point to working hard if he was just barely keeping his head above water ?

in the last year of his degree, he accepted that there was no fucking point. in just a few months, noah began to drink more, go out to more parties, let himself go. at first, it was difficult. he was a reserved man by nature, but the books and the conversations were becoming reminders of his own inadequacy, so he took on a life that he used to look down upon.

this was the life that gave him instant gratification. a busy night meant that he was valued by the woman in his bed, or by the bars he visited, or by the mindless crowd that cheered when he uncorked a bottle of champagne.

one of the addictions that stuck with him a little too far was ecstasy. at one of his earliest raves, noah was offered some because he looked as though he was on the verge of a panic attack, and he started using regularly when he was twenty four. by twenty six and a half, it had utterly destroyed his life. he was irritable and aggressive when dealing with his family, concealed the fact that he used from close friends, leaving him a large circle of acquaintances, and no one to trust completely.

when he was nearing twenty seven, his secret was out. when high and euphoric, noah started a fight in a belfast nightclub. it was a lifetime of resentment at himself and everyone around him bursting out in a vicious break of violence.

noah doesn’t remember much of that night. he remembers waking up nearly a week later with an awful headache. turns out he’d suffered a skull injury that night, not to mention several bruises and a twisted ankle. but if he was bad, you should’ve seen the other guy, named dave watkins.

a lot had to be done even before noah was out of the hospital. for one, noah owed an enormous fine for possession of mdma. for another, watkins was more than eager to press charges. hundreds of thousands of pounds were paid in an out-of-court settlement as compensation.

if you ask him, noah would take the injuries all over again over the shame. the one thing he was supposed to do was not fuck up royally — and that was exactly what he ended up doing. the entire family had to come together to clean up his mess.

nearly two years of his life went by in in-patient rehab and generalised therapy, during which he relapsed once. because finding work was going to be difficult due to social stigma, it was recommended that he return to studies, so he returned to his old love, history.

the degrees he completed were in antique studies and classical archaeology — because he was steadily rediscovering a practical use for what he loved about the subject. delving into lives he was not lucky enough to live, putting together puzzles and answering questions.

in the span of two years, he developed a friendly acquaintance with a fellow graduate student called elene keo, as they worked with the same professor on a research project. the project inspired him to do his own digging ( if you’ll pardon the pun ).

his paper on coptic egypt was a sensation in the field of archaeology. he’d struck gold. not only had he earned a bit of money, but also an invitation to work with researchers at harvard university. after negotiating a short undergraduate teaching gig there as well, just to pay the bills, noah was well on his way to a doctorate.

then — new people entered his life. kamala jones was part of the same doctorate program he was, alongside callum winston, a bright scholar with a similar background and education to noah. the two men hit it off instantly as a result, but noah never told either him or kamala what exactly he was trying to get away from.

the three of them began to go on expedtions and excavations together, collecting information and soaking in the atmosphere of the rest of the world. it was a good time.

too good. noah got soft. kamala was so clever and quick on her feet, ever ready for a new adventure with no hesitation. it was like having every good memory you’d ever had around you. he couldn’t help but get the stirrings of something for her, but what, he never quite had the courage to define.

then she got married, and he had to sit through every minute of it. not to mention the stag night, planning the wedding, fixing out tuxes as best man. it was a miserable night all in all.

noah stayed friends with callum for the while, but their collaboration was mostly professional, on joint research proposals, seminars, and most importantly — publications.

at the age of thirty-eight, he and callum published their seminal work, essentially a textbook on myths and symbolism. soon after, callum and kamala split up. noah was curious, he couldn’t deny that much. but he chose not to pry.

while he had been getting teaching and research positions all across the united states, noah needed tenure, somewhere. the best way for him to find institutions to join was to look at where the people he knew went — and the only name that he remembered and respected was elene keo, who had ended up at riverbank university.

a small caveat: kamala was there too. but he had to be over her — it had been years since they talked, even longer since they were friends, and calling callum a friend was becoming a little generous. they could certainly have a totally professional relationship. bury the past and all that.

he applied for a specialisation in the near east and was given a position, but as a result of his past, the university’s mental health services kept a watchful eye on him. occasionally, he had been asked to talk to students about addiction, an offer he repeatedly and vehemently refused.

at the moment, he’s doing — meh. he’s got a job, one that he likes. slowly and steadily, he’s built his life back up from the damage. withdrawal from dependency leaves him with serotonin and dopamine imbalances for which he takes anti-depressants.

it seems, however, that things are coming back on track.

#drugs tw #violence tw #hey ... psst..... *whispers*#its Bad writing ! :D #ive also decided to begin the practice of bolding other muses' names in my intros for bants... looks nice #* introduction.#* introduction / noah maddox.#* nobody ever sees the parts of you that smoulder / noah maddox.

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orbemnews · 3 years

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The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 Senate challengers had their first big opportunity to impress last week, with first quarter fundraising reports due to the Federal Election Commission. Those who are proud of their hauls often announce them ahead of time, sometimes eager to keep would-be primary challengers at bay. And for incumbents, early fundraising numbers are an indication of how seriously they’re taking their races (or whether they’re even planning on running). Four of the 10 seats on CNN’s ranking are currently held by retiring Republican senators, including the newest addition to the list. Missouri wouldn’t have made it if Sen. Roy Blunt were running for a third term — and if a certain former disgraced governor weren’t running to replace him. (The Show Me State replaces the increasingly blue Colorado, where Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet hasn’t attracted any significant GOP challengers yet). Retirement remains a big question in Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson has not said what his plans are. Open seats often make defending the seat more perilous (see Missouri) but Democrats are feeling increasingly confident that running against the conspiracy-peddling Johnson is an attractive option, and Wisconsin retains its spot as No. 3 on this list. The Senate race in Alaska — where GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski hasn’t officially announced her reelection plans — is getting a lot of attention as the first major proxy battle between former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But the contest still doesn’t make the top 10. Murkowski has proven she can overcome a challenge from the right, and the state’s new top-four ranked choice voting system may give her an advantage. The start of the second fundraising quarter likely means there’ll be a wave of new candidate announcements soon. But one factor to watch in several of these states is whether the top talent instead decides to go for the gubernatorial contests, which are often less nationalized (read: partisan) affairs, making it easier to be elected as a Democrat in a red state or a Republican in a blue state. Here is CNN’s second ranking of the 10 seats most likely to flip in 2022: 1. Pennsylvania Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring) As an open seat that Biden carried last fall, Pennsylvania remains the seat most likely to flip in 2022 with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey not running for reelection. Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman raised about $4 million in the first quarter — an impressive haul for the first three months of the off-year. But the former Braddock mayor is still going to have competition for the Democratic nomination. He got a reminder of that late last month when the current mayor of the western Pennsylvania town endorsed one of his opponents, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta from Philadelphia, who raised just $374,000 in the first quarter. The field is still growing, with Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh launching her campaign earlier this month. Yet another Philadelphia politician, state Sen. Sharif Street, announced an exploratory committee, while members of the congressional delegation, like Reps. Conor Lamb, Chrissy Houlahan and Madeleine Dean, are eyeing the race, although they also have redistricting on their minds and would probably have to forgo reelection before knowing what their House districts look like in 2022. So far, it’s mainly businessman Jeff Bartos running on the Republican side, who raised about $792,000 and loaned his campaign $400,000 in the first quarter, although current and former members of the congressional delegation could still join that contest too, as could several former Trump officials. While Democrats may be contending with a messy primary, they see the wide interest in the seat as a sign of the opportunity to flip it. 2. Georgia Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock Months after twin Senate runoffs here flipped control of the Senate to Democrats, Georgia continues to be the center of the political universe, this time with a controversial election law that has led major corporations to boycott the state and the President to condemn it as “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” While voting rights advocates say the law makes it harder to vote for Black Georgians — a key part of Democrats’ winning constituency in this longtime red state — it may also embolden minority voters to turn out, which has traditionally been a problem for Democrats in midterms. It could also inspire liberal donors to keep Georgia in their checkbooks, despite the state not being a presidential battleground this cycle. That would all be good news for Sen. Raphael Warnock, who won this seat by just 2 points in the January special runoff election and is running for a full six-year term. He’s already well-positioned financially, heading into the second quarter with $5.6 million in the bank. But Republicans argue that Warnock and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams — who may also be on the ballot next year if she runs for governor again — will be punished for the economic hit to the state from corporations siding with their opposition to the law and boycotting Georgia. The GOP field is still taking shape, but this is one place Republicans are on offense where they feel good about a deep bench of potential candidates. Warnock’s opponents from last fall, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and former Rep. Doug Collins, are eyeing the race, and GOP Rep. Drew Ferguson — a member of House GOP leadership — may also be a contender. The big question is how Trump will get involved in this race given his penchant for meddling in Georgia politics. As CNN reported last month, he’s pitched former NFL running back Herschel Walker, who lives in Texas, to run here. 3. Wisconsin Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson GOP Sen. Ron Johnson remains very vulnerable as the only incumbent running for reelection in a state carried by the opposite party’s presidential nominee in 2020. And he doesn’t seem to be doing himself any favors, giving voice to an elongating string of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. But he still hasn’t said whether he’s running for reelection. He raised about $545,000 in the first three months of the year after ending 2020 with just half a million dollars in the bank. His quarterly haul is much less than he had raised during the same period the last time he was facing reelection (about $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2015.) A prominent Republican is pushing him to stick around: “Run, Ron, Run!” Trump said in a statement earlier this month. If Johnson doesn’t run, Republicans will be in the same boat as Democrats — trying to navigate a late primary, which could suck up candidate resources ahead of what’s sure to be an expensive general election. On the Democratic side, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry raised about $1 million (including a $50,000 personal loan) after getting into the race mid-quarter. Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, a former lieutenant governor nominee, raised about $264,000. And a new fundraising quarter brought a new candidate: state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski is running on a message about fighting climate change, raising the minimum wage and ending the filibuster. “Instead of conspiracy theories, we can focus on actually helping families,” she says in her announcement video, calling out Johnson and his defense of Trump. While Republicans wait to see what their incumbent does, they’re also eager to see what Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes decides, believing he’d be a formidable opponent regardless of who their candidate is. 4. North Carolina Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring) Democrats have fallen short in North Carolina Senate races lately, and Republicans feel better about holding a seat in this Trump state than they do in either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. But with Sen. Richard Burr not running again, there’s more of a chance Democrats could pick it off. State Sen. Jeff Jackson is already running, as is former state Sen. Erica Smith, whom Republicans tried to boost in last year’s primary. But two other Black women could soon change the dynamics. Cheri Beasley, the former state Supreme Court chief justice who narrowly lost reelection in 2020, has been expected to announce this month and would be a formidable candidate. Former NASA astronaut Joan Higginbotham — the third Black woman to go into space — could also enter the race soon. North Carolina Republicans interested in the race rushed to criticize Burr’s vote to convict Trump earlier this year, all eager to proclaim their Trumpiness in a state he won, but it remains to be seen if an actual Trump will enter the race. Lara Trump, the ex-President’s daughter-in-law, may have taken herself out of the running by signing a deal with Fox News. Former Rep. Mark Walker (who raised only $208,000 in the first quarter) got some company when former Gov. Pat McCrory entered the race last week with an announcement video saying, “It’s time we join together and take back the Senate from Kamala Harris.” The former governor, perhaps best known for backing the state’s so-called bathroom bill, lost reelection in 2016 when Trump carried the state. The field is still likely to grow here, especially if Trump passes on the race. 5. Arizona Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly Mark Kelly, who just won this seat last fall, raised $4.4 million in the first quarter for his quest to win a full six-year term. Kelly only won by about 2 points and Biden only narrowly carried the Grand Canyon State last year, so it’s by no means a slam dunk for Democrats to hold this seat. But it’s not yet clear who Republicans have to run against the former astronaut. Gov. Doug Ducey, who’s been censured by the state party, has said he’s not interested in running for Senate, leaving a fractured GOP without an obvious candidate who could win the general election against a first-time politician who seems to be following a moderate path in Congress. The governor’s race could also attract Republicans who would rather run in an open race than face such a strong Senate fundraiser. Rep. Andy Biggs, the chairman of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, could challenge Kelly, but while he’d likely appeal to the base, he might struggle to appeal to some more moderate suburban voters. With a late primary, there’s still plenty of time for Republicans who have ruled it out to change their minds or new folks to jump in, but that late primary also means that Kelly will have a significant head start on the eventual GOP nominee. 6. Nevada Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is facing her first reelection. On the Republican side, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, whom sources told CNN last month is considering it, is the name everyone’s waiting on. He’s a former statewide elected official and could gain traction in a state Biden only narrowly carried last fall. Democrats argue, however, that Laxalt would be motivating to voters on the left since he’s been a Trump defender, helping bring various lawsuits over the 2020 election. Republicans admit their chances here will largely depend on what the environment looks like next year. Cortez Masto, meanwhile, fresh off a term as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, raised $2.3 million in the first quarter and has nearly $4.7 million in the bank. 7. New Hampshire Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan Republicans feel increasingly bullish about the Granite State because of the chance that Gov. Chris Sununu will enter the race. But he hasn’t yet, which means this race is staying where it is on the list for now. New Hampshire voted for Biden last fall — by a significantly larger margin than it did for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Of the most competitive seats Democrats are defending, it’s the one that Biden carried the most comfortably. That said, Sununu has the name recognition and profile to make this a real race for first-term Sen. Maggie Hassan, who raised nearly $3 million in the first quarter. The GOP governor has likely frozen the field until he makes anything official, which he has said he wouldn’t do until after the end of the legislative session in June. There’s plenty of time for the field to take shape here too — New Hampshire is another state with a late primary — but if and when Sununu gets in, expect this race to get much more competitive. 8. Ohio Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring) While the Democratic field may be shrinking here, the Republican field is growing bigger — and messier — as candidates trip over each other to claim the Trump mantle in a state he won comfortably twice. The most public sparring has been between former state Treasurer Josh Mandel and former state party chair Jane Timken, but there are others who are tying themselves to the former President, too. Businessman Bernie Moreno recently announced his campaign, touting the involvement of Kellyanne Conway and some other former Trump officials. Businessman Mike Gibbons, who lost the 2018 primary to Mandel, launched another bid. And members of the delegation are still eyeing the race, like Rep. Mike Turner, who recently tweeted a polished bio video. Another big name who could shake up the race is “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance. If he runs, he’ll benefit from a super PAC that Peter Thiel has already kicked $10 million into. On the Democratic side, former State Health Director Amy Acton, a Democrat who served in a GOP administration, has passed on the race, likely leaving Rep. Tim Ryan — who hasn’t yet officially launched — the biggest name. Republicans are relieved Acton is out and feel better about running against someone with a voting record. Ryan raised $1.2 million in the first quarter — an impressive sum for a House incumbent but less than the impressive sums some Senate Democratic challengers have recently posted. 9. Florida Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio Trump’s endorsement of the incumbent likely removes one major headache that Sen. Marco Rubio could have faced: a Trumpier primary challenger, who, at the very least, could have cost Rubio some extra money defending himself, and in the worst case scenario for Republicans, put the seat at greater risk. But with the former President (and Florida resident) behind Rubio, Republicans feel good about this seat even though Trump only carried the state by 3 points, less than he won Ohio. Rubio has a track record of success here, whereas Democrats don’t yet know their candidate. As a moderate with a compelling personal story, Blue Dog Coalition cho-chair Stephanie Murphy could make this race competitive. She’s considering but hasn’t entered the race yet, and while others could still get in too, the governor’s race may also attract some top talent. 10. Missouri Incumbent: Republican Roy Blunt (retiring) Missouri wouldn’t be on this list if it weren’t for one man: former Gov. Eric Greitens, who unabashedly launched a pro-Trump Senate campaign after Sen. Roy Blunt announced he wasn’t running for reelection. Greitens resigned from office following a probe into allegations of sexual and campaign misconduct, leading to Republican fears that he could endanger the Senate seat (and the rest of the map next year). That kind of situation isn’t without precedent: in 2012, Todd Akin cost Republicans the Show Me State and became a name GOP nominees around the country had to answer for. Sen. Josh Hawley — an avowed Greitens enemy — is said to be working behind the scenes against him. But the announcement of Kimberly Guilfoyle as the national chair of Greitens’ campaign boosts his pro-Trump bona fides in a primary. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is also running, and several members of the delegation are eyeing the race, but the more people who get in, the more the anti-Greitens vote will be split. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Scott Sifton was already running, while Marine veteran Lucas Kunce, a progressive who says “It’s time to Marshall Plan the Midwest,” announced after Blunt said he was retiring. Several bigger names, like former Sen. Claire McCaskill and 2016 nominee Jason Kander, who only lost to Blunt by 3 points, have passed. For now, the possibility that Greitens’ candidacy entices some bigger-name Democratic candidates (even those who have already ruled it out) into the race or eventually becomes the GOP nominee is enough to land Missouri a spot on this list. Source link Orbem News #Flip #Politics #seats #Senate #The10Senateseatsmostlikelytoflipin2022-CNNPolitics

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/the-10-senate-seats-most-likely-to-flip-in-2022/

The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022

Senate challengers had their first big opportunity to impress last week, with first quarter fundraising reports due to the Federal Election Commission. Those who are proud of their hauls often announce them ahead of time, sometimes eager to keep would-be primary challengers at bay. And for incumbents, early fundraising numbers are an indication of how seriously they’re taking their races (or whether they’re even planning on running).

Four of the 10 seats on Appradab’s ranking are currently held by retiring Republican senators, including the newest addition to the list. Missouri wouldn’t have made it if Sen. Roy Blunt were running for a third term — and if a certain former disgraced governor weren’t running to replace him. (The Show Me State replaces the increasingly blue Colorado, where Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet hasn’t attracted any significant GOP challengers yet).

Retirement remains a big question in Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson has not said what his plans are. Open seats often make defending the seat more perilous (see Missouri) but Democrats are feeling increasingly confident that running against the conspiracy-peddling Johnson is an attractive option, and Wisconsin retains its spot as No. 3 on this list.

The Senate race in Alaska — where GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski hasn’t officially announced her reelection plans — is getting a lot of attention as the first major proxy battle between former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But the contest still doesn’t make the top 10. Murkowski has proven she can overcome a challenge from the right, and the state’s new top-four ranked choice voting system may give her an advantage.

The start of the second fundraising quarter likely means there’ll be a wave of new candidate announcements soon. But one factor to watch in several of these states is whether the top talent instead decides to go for the gubernatorial contests, which are often less nationalized (read: partisan) affairs, making it easier to be elected as a Democrat in a red state or a Republican in a blue state.

Here is Appradab’s second ranking of the 10 seats most likely to flip in 2022:

1. Pennsylvania

Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

As an open seat that Biden carried last fall, Pennsylvania remains the seat most likely to flip in 2022 with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey not running for reelection. Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman raised about $4 million in the first quarter — an impressive haul for the first three months of the off-year. But the former Braddock mayor is still going to have competition for the Democratic nomination. He got a reminder of that late last month when the current mayor of the western Pennsylvania town endorsed one of his opponents, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta from Philadelphia, who raised just $374,000 in the first quarter. The field is still growing, with Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh launching her campaign earlier this month. Yet another Philadelphia politician, state Sen. Sharif Street, announced an exploratory committee, while members of the congressional delegation, like Reps. Conor Lamb, Chrissy Houlahan and Madeleine Dean, are eyeing the race, although they also have redistricting on their minds and would probably have to forgo reelection before knowing what their House districts look like in 2022. So far, it’s mainly businessman Jeff Bartos running on the Republican side, who raised about $792,000 and loaned his campaign $400,000 in the first quarter, although current and former members of the congressional delegation could still join that contest too, as could several former Trump officials. While Democrats may be contending with a messy primary, they see the wide interest in the seat as a sign of the opportunity to flip it.

2. Georgia

Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

Months after twin Senate runoffs here flipped control of the Senate to Democrats, Georgia continues to be the center of the political universe, this time with a controversial election law that has led major corporations to boycott the state and the President to condemn it as “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” While voting rights advocates say the law makes it harder to vote for Black Georgians — a key part of Democrats’ winning constituency in this longtime red state — it may also embolden minority voters to turn out, which has traditionally been a problem for Democrats in midterms. It could also inspire liberal donors to keep Georgia in their checkbooks, despite the state not being a presidential battleground this cycle. That would all be good news for Sen. Raphael Warnock, who won this seat by just 2 points in the January special runoff election and is running for a full six-year term. He’s already well-positioned financially, heading into the second quarter with $5.6 million in the bank. But Republicans argue that Warnock and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams — who may also be on the ballot next year if she runs for governor again — will be punished for the economic hit to the state from corporations siding with their opposition to the law and boycotting Georgia. The GOP field is still taking shape, but this is one place Republicans are on offense where they feel good about a deep bench of potential candidates. Warnock’s opponents from last fall, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and former Rep. Doug Collins, are eyeing the race, and GOP Rep. Drew Ferguson — a member of House GOP leadership — may also be a contender. The big question is how Trump will get involved in this race given his penchant for meddling in Georgia politics. As Appradab reported last month, he’s pitched former NFL running back Herschel Walker, who lives in Texas, to run here.

3. Wisconsin

Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson remains very vulnerable as the only incumbent running for reelection in a state carried by the opposite party’s presidential nominee in 2020. And he doesn’t seem to be doing himself any favors, giving voice to an elongating string of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. But he still hasn’t said whether he’s running for reelection. He raised about $545,000 in the first three months of the year after ending 2020 with just half a million dollars in the bank. His quarterly haul is much less than he had raised during the same period the last time he was facing reelection (about $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2015.) A prominent Republican is pushing him to stick around: “Run, Ron, Run!” Trump said in a statement earlier this month. If Johnson doesn’t run, Republicans will be in the same boat as Democrats — trying to navigate a late primary, which could suck up candidate resources ahead of what’s sure to be an expensive general election. On the Democratic side, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry raised about $1 million (including a $50,000 personal loan) after getting into the race mid-quarter. Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, a former lieutenant governor nominee, raised about $264,000. And a new fundraising quarter brought a new candidate: state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski is running on a message about fighting climate change, raising the minimum wage and ending the filibuster. “Instead of conspiracy theories, we can focus on actually helping families,” she says in her announcement video, calling out Johnson and his defense of Trump. While Republicans wait to see what their incumbent does, they’re also eager to see what Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes decides, believing he’d be a formidable opponent regardless of who their candidate is.

4. North Carolina

Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

Democrats have fallen short in North Carolina Senate races lately, and Republicans feel better about holding a seat in this Trump state than they do in either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. But with Sen. Richard Burr not running again, there’s more of a chance Democrats could pick it off. State Sen. Jeff Jackson is already running, as is former state Sen. Erica Smith, whom Republicans tried to boost in last year’s primary. But two other Black women could soon change the dynamics. Cheri Beasley, the former state Supreme Court chief justice who narrowly lost reelection in 2020, has been expected to announce this month and would be a formidable candidate. Former NASA astronaut Joan Higginbotham — the third Black woman to go into space — could also enter the race soon. North Carolina Republicans interested in the race rushed to criticize Burr’s vote to convict Trump earlier this year, all eager to proclaim their Trumpiness in a state he won, but it remains to be seen if an actual Trump will enter the race. Lara Trump, the ex-President’s daughter-in-law, may have taken herself out of the running by signing a deal with Fox News. Former Rep. Mark Walker (who raised only $208,000 in the first quarter) got some company when former Gov. Pat McCrory entered the race last week with an announcement video saying, “It’s time we join together and take back the Senate from Kamala Harris.” The former governor, perhaps best known for backing the state’s so-called bathroom bill, lost reelection in 2016 when Trump carried the state. The field is still likely to grow here, especially if Trump passes on the race.

5. Arizona

Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

Mark Kelly, who just won this seat last fall, raised $4.4 million in the first quarter for his quest to win a full six-year term. Kelly only won by about 2 points and Biden only narrowly carried the Grand Canyon State last year, so it’s by no means a slam dunk for Democrats to hold this seat. But it’s not yet clear who Republicans have to run against the former astronaut. Gov. Doug Ducey, who’s been censured by the state party, has said he’s not interested in running for Senate, leaving a fractured GOP without an obvious candidate who could win the general election against a first-time politician who seems to be following a moderate path in Congress. The governor’s race could also attract Republicans who would rather run in an open race than face such a strong Senate fundraiser. Rep. Andy Biggs, the chairman of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, could challenge Kelly, but while he’d likely appeal to the base, he might struggle to appeal to some more moderate suburban voters. With a late primary, there’s still plenty of time for Republicans who have ruled it out to change their minds or new folks to jump in, but that late primary also means that Kelly will have a significant head start on the eventual GOP nominee.

6. Nevada

Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is facing her first reelection. On the Republican side, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, whom sources told Appradab last month is considering it, is the name everyone’s waiting on. He’s a former statewide elected official and could gain traction in a state Biden only narrowly carried last fall. Democrats argue, however, that Laxalt would be motivating to voters on the left since he’s been a Trump defender, helping bring various lawsuits over the 2020 election. Republicans admit their chances here will largely depend on what the environment looks like next year. Cortez Masto, meanwhile, fresh off a term as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, raised $2.3 million in the first quarter and has nearly $4.7 million in the bank.

7. New Hampshire

Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

Republicans feel increasingly bullish about the Granite State because of the chance that Gov. Chris Sununu will enter the race. But he hasn’t yet, which means this race is staying where it is on the list for now. New Hampshire voted for Biden last fall — by a significantly larger margin than it did for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Of the most competitive seats Democrats are defending, it’s the one that Biden carried the most comfortably. That said, Sununu has the name recognition and profile to make this a real race for first-term Sen. Maggie Hassan, who raised nearly $3 million in the first quarter. The GOP governor has likely frozen the field until he makes anything official, which he has said he wouldn’t do until after the end of the legislative session in June. There’s plenty of time for the field to take shape here too — New Hampshire is another state with a late primary — but if and when Sununu gets in, expect this race to get much more competitive.

8. Ohio

Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

While the Democratic field may be shrinking here, the Republican field is growing bigger — and messier — as candidates trip over each other to claim the Trump mantle in a state he won comfortably twice. The most public sparring has been between former state Treasurer Josh Mandel and former state party chair Jane Timken, but there are others who are tying themselves to the former President, too. Businessman Bernie Moreno recently announced his campaign, touting the involvement of Kellyanne Conway and some other former Trump officials. Businessman Mike Gibbons, who lost the 2018 primary to Mandel, launched another bid. And members of the delegation are still eyeing the race, like Rep. Mike Turner, who recently tweeted a polished bio video. Another big name who could shake up the race is “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance. If he runs, he’ll benefit from a super PAC that Peter Thiel has already kicked $10 million into. On the Democratic side, former State Health Director Amy Acton, a Democrat who served in a GOP administration, has passed on the race, likely leaving Rep. Tim Ryan — who hasn’t yet officially launched — the biggest name. Republicans are relieved Acton is out and feel better about running against someone with a voting record. Ryan raised $1.2 million in the first quarter — an impressive sum for a House incumbent but less than the impressive sums some Senate Democratic challengers have recently posted.

9. Florida

Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

Trump’s endorsement of the incumbent likely removes one major headache that Sen. Marco Rubio could have faced: a Trumpier primary challenger, who, at the very least, could have cost Rubio some extra money defending himself, and in the worst case scenario for Republicans, put the seat at greater risk. But with the former President (and Florida resident) behind Rubio, Republicans feel good about this seat even though Trump only carried the state by 3 points, less than he won Ohio. Rubio has a track record of success here, whereas Democrats don’t yet know their candidate. As a moderate with a compelling personal story, Blue Dog Coalition cho-chair Stephanie Murphy could make this race competitive. She’s considering but hasn’t entered the race yet, and while others could still get in too, the governor’s race may also attract some top talent.

10. Missouri

Incumbent: Republican Roy Blunt (retiring)

Missouri wouldn’t be on this list if it weren’t for one man: former Gov. Eric Greitens, who unabashedly launched a pro-Trump Senate campaign after Sen. Roy Blunt announced he wasn’t running for reelection. Greitens resigned from office following a probe into allegations of sexual and campaign misconduct, leading to Republican fears that he could endanger the Senate seat (and the rest of the map next year). That kind of situation isn’t without precedent: in 2012, Todd Akin cost Republicans the Show Me State and became a name GOP nominees around the country had to answer for. Sen. Josh Hawley — an avowed Greitens enemy — is said to be working behind the scenes against him. But the announcement of Kimberly Guilfoyle as the national chair of Greitens’ campaign boosts his pro-Trump bona fides in a primary. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is also running, and several members of the delegation are eyeing the race, but the more people who get in, the more the anti-Greitens vote will be split. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Scott Sifton was already running, while Marine veteran Lucas Kunce, a progressive who says “It’s time to Marshall Plan the Midwest,” announced after Blunt said he was retiring. Several bigger names, like former Sen. Claire McCaskill and 2016 nominee Jason Kander, who only lost to Blunt by 3 points, have passed. For now, the possibility that Greitens’ candidacy entices some bigger-name Democratic candidates (even those who have already ruled it out) into the race or eventually becomes the GOP nominee is enough to land Missouri a spot on this list.

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maureenmc1 · 4 years

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Vote for Your Life

I remember when La Cage Aux Folles came to the Beechwood Cinema back in the seventies, mainly because I saw it three times in one week. Three of my closest friends, two of whom I was living with at the time, took the opportunity of inviting me to join them to see the movie. Afterwards, they each came out to me.I already knew they were gay, but it meant so much that they made the extra effort to "break the news" to me in such an understanding way. I assured them all that I supported them in voicing who they are, and since that time, I have widened that acceptance to include all LBGTQ+ people.

I have never understood why some people make it their business to pass judgment on their fellow humans because of how they choose to identify themselves, whom they choose to love, or a panoply of other individual characteristics. Maybe because I am a Libra and fairness and justice are so important to me, or maybe just because I am a rational person, I have always believed that people should be free to live their lives as see they fit.

Because I have chosen that stance, I have been belittled in a variety of ways. Luckily, from childhood I got a head start on most people in developing a thick skin because of my views on the civil rights movement, I have not had a damn to give about any detractors. When it comes to being an ally to my incredibly diverse group of friends, I have done my best to walk the walk.

At one point not that many years ago, that meant breaking with the church which I had been affiliated with all of my life. When the church celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding, I wrote a book on the history of the church. While going through piles and piles of documents, I learned that at one point the Methodist Episcopal Church divided into two parts over the issue of slavery. The church which I attended became a part of the pro-slavery wing, the Methodist Episcopal Church South. It wasn't until the 1950's (I think) that the two factions joined back together.I used to teach Sunday School in the church. Once a month, I stood in front of a group of people who were older than me and considerably more well-schooled in the Bible than me and delivered a lesson based on scripture. One of the last lessons I delivered was based on Psalm 19:14, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Being me, of course, I had to play The Melodians version of Rivers of Babylon. After blowing their minds with the first ska most of the class had ever heard, I went on the excoriate the United Methodist on its stand against homosexuality. I told them about the racist history of our own church and then said, "The church was wrong about civil rights and it is wrong about gay people. The Methodist Church is standing on the wrong side of history." That was my swan song to organized religion.

When Occupy started, I thought about whether I wanted to be a part of it, and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my days serving the future, the world that my grandkids Felix and Evelyn are going to inherit. Part of serving the future is working to make the world a more accepting place, where all kids can embrace whatever identity they wish without fear of judgment or reprisal. I got to witness that freedom in my own two daughters, both of whom stood with gay classmates who were being bullied in high school.

I watched the senators' opening statements today in the Senate Judiciary Committee for the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court. I had to stop listening because the Republicans were making me so upset. Setting up a straw man that has to do with Barrett's religious beliefs, even though not one word has been uttered by a Democrat about religion. Democrats are bringing up example after example of how overturning Affordable Care Act would negatively affect all Americans. I understand why they are taking this tack, but at the same time, it would also be nice to hear about how overturning Roe v. Wade or Obergefell v. Hodge, which affirmed gay marriage, would affect people's lives. I

remember the days before Roe v. Wade. I went to New York City to get an abortion when I was 22 because the option was not available in Georgia. I also remember the days before Obergefell v. Hodge, when partners who could not legally marry could not join their beloved in a hospital room because they were not considered family. I think about all the same sex families I know and how much they contribute to this society. They are artisans and musicians, nurses and doctors, police officers and social workers. These are people who make a difference in the world every day and they should not have their rights abridged and their families put at risk.

I fear that if the Supreme Court has a six-three conservative/liberal split that sanctimonious decisions directly affecting people's lives are going to start coming thick and fast. I don't know what to say to all of you whom I stand with - you know who you are - except that I love you and somehow we will find our way through this hateful miasma together. We will win back our rights through more legislation once the kleptocrats are all voted out of office. We will make sure that all of our children are aware that they have dominion over their bodies and that they should respect the same right in other people. We will generate a spirit of joyful celebration that we are all so different and yet the same.

At this point, all of our lives are on the line. Four more years of 45 would bring us closer to and closer to a form of totalitarianism that is antithetical to the the principles upon which this this country was founded. As Kamala Harris said, "They are coming for you."

They are coming for me. They are coming for all of us.

Vote for your life.

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swedna · 4 years

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It was early in Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s vice-presidential search when he asked his advisers a sensitive question about Senator Kamala Harris. He kept hearing so much private criticism of her from other California Democrats, he wanted to know: Is she simply unpopular in her home state?

Advisers assured Mr. Biden that was not the case: Ms. Harris had her share of Democratic rivals and detractors in the factional world of California politics, but among regular voters her standing was solid.

Mr. Biden’s query, and the quiet attacks that prompted it, helped begin a delicate audition for Ms. Harris that has never before been revealed in depth. She faced daunting obstacles, including an array of strong competitors, unease about her within the Biden family and bitter feuds from California and the 2020 primary season that exploded anew.

Though Ms. Harris was seen from the start as a front-runner, Mr. Biden did not begin the process with a favorite in mind, and he settled on Ms. Harris only after an exhaustive review that forged new political alliances, deepened existing rivalries and further elevated a cohort of women as leaders in their party.

ALSO READ: Democratic VP candidate Kamala Harris hit by 'birther' conspiracy theory

Ms. Harris was one of four finalists for the job, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser. But in the eyes of Mr. Biden and his advisers, Ms. Harris alone covered every one of their essential political needs. Ms. Rice had sterling foreign-policy credentials and a history of working with Mr. Biden, but was inexperienced as a candidate. Ms. Warren had an enthusiastic following and became a trusted adviser to Mr. Biden on economic matters, but she represented neither generational nor racial diversity. Ms. Whitmer, a moderate, appealed to Mr. Biden’s political and ideological instincts, but selecting her also would have yielded an all-white ticket.

Other candidates rose and faded in the process: Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois powerfully impressed Mr. Biden’s search team, but his lawyers feared she would face challenges to her eligibility because of the circumstances of her birth overseas. Representative Karen Bass of California emerged as a favorite among elected officials and progressives — Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke glowingly of her to Mr. Biden — but the relationship-focused Mr. Biden barely knew her.

In the end, Mr. Biden embraced Ms. Harris as a partner for reasons that were both pragmatic and personal — a sign of how the former vice president, who is oriented toward seeking consensus and building broad coalitions, might be expected to govern. Indeed, Mr. Biden has already told allies he hopes a number of the other vice-presidential contenders will join his administration in other roles.

This account of Mr. Biden’s decision is based on interviews with more than three dozen people involved in the process, including advisers to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, allies of other vice-presidential prospects and Democratic leaders deeply invested in the outcome of the search.

Mr. Biden’s instincts were not destined to lead him to Ms. Harris: He and members of his family had long expressed discomfort with the way she attacked him at a Democratic primary debate, and his political advisers remembered well the seemingly constant dysfunction of her presidential campaign.

There was a particular distrust in the Biden camp for the sharp-elbowed California operatives with whom Ms. Harris has long surrounded herself, fearing that they might seek to undermine Mr. Biden in office to clear the way for Ms. Harris in 2024.

Yet no other candidate scored as highly with Mr. Biden’s selection committee on so many of their core criteria for choosing a running mate, including her ability to help Mr. Biden win in November, her strength as a debater, her qualifications for governing and the racial diversity she would bring to the ticket. No other candidate seemed to match the political moment better.

ALSO READ: Harris remembers mother; says learnt not to sit, complain but do something

Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, said race had been essential to Mr. Biden’s decision. “I think he came to the conclusion that he should pick a Black woman,” Mr. Reid said. “They are our most loyal voters and I think that the Black women of America deserved a Black vice-presidential candidate.”

Ms. Harris worked to soothe misgivings in the Biden family, including from Jill Biden and Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister and longtime adviser. But Ms. Harris also drew upon a family link unmatched by any other candidate: her friendship with Mr. Biden’s elder son, Beau, who died from cancer in 2015.

The potential for conflict between Biden and Harris advisers was resolved in another way, at least for now: Mr. Biden and his advisers conveyed to Ms. Harris that they expected to have the same understanding with respect to staff hiring that Mr. Biden had followed with former President Barack Obama. During the campaign and, if they win, during a Biden-Harris administration, Ms. Harris’s staff hiring would be approved by Mr. Biden.

Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, told Ms. Harris plainly after she was picked that they would be one team, and that she would have the full support of the Biden staff. In a statement Thursday night, after this story was published online, Ms. O’Malley Dillon said some Harris aides would be coming on board.

“We’ve already begun welcoming members of Senator Harris’ team to the campaign and are all moving forward together, as one unit focused on beating Donald Trump this fall,” Ms. O’Malley Dillon said.

But other Biden advisers made clear that selecting Ms. Harris for the vice presidency did not mean selecting her full political entourage for jobs in the campaign or government — a reality Ms. Harris is said to have accepted.

Within the Biden team, it was understood that rule would apply even to her sister, Maya Harris, a former Hillary Clinton adviser who is Kamala Harris’s closest confidante. But a Biden spokesman said on Thursday night that the matter of Maya Harris did not come up in conversations with the senator.

ALSO READ: Who is Kamala Harris and why she is Biden's best bet for vice president?

Searching for a Partner Having been through a vice-presidential search himself, Mr. Biden was clear from the start about what he wanted in a running mate — and in a selection process. He wanted a full partner in government with whom he felt personally “simpatico.” He did not want a “Survivor”-style process of elimination whereby a large pool of candidates would be gradually slashed down, with the losers identified as such in public, according to people who spoke to him about the process.

And for the most part, that is what Mr. Biden got — a discreet search team, led by four Democratic dignitaries, that held interviews with about a dozen women, a smaller number of whom were then asked to turn over a huge volume of private documents for review. To ensure the contenders’ privacy, he did not allow even his senior staff members to see some of their most personal vetting information.

Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, one of the members of the search team, said Mr. Biden had been emphatic that the process should unfold in a dignified manner that would leave all the participants better off.

“He was committed to this being a career elevation for everybody, and finding the right running mate, and he did both,” said Mr. Garcetti, who declined to comment on the details of the search.

The interviews conducted by Mr. Biden’s search team were revealing and, in some cases, surprising — not because of confidential and damaging information that came to light, but because of the personal candor and raw political ability that some candidates brought to the conversations.

Two of the standout interviews were with Ms. Duckworth, an Asian-American veteran of the Iraq war, and Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, a centrist with formidable academic and business credentials. Both left the search committee dazzled, but they faced other obstacles — in Ms. Raimondo’s case, her limited national profile and adversarial relationship with influential labor unions.

Ms. Duckworth was regarded by Biden advisers as among the candidates likeliest to help him achieve a smashing electoral victory in November. But legal advisers to the campaign expressed urgent concern that Ms. Duckworth could face challenges to her nomination in court: She was born overseas, to an American father and a Thai mother. While Mr. Biden’s team believed Ms. Duckworth was eligible for national office, campaign lawyers feared that it would take just one partisan judge in one swing state to throw the whole Democratic ticket off the ballot.

ALSO READ: Colour code: Does Kamala Harris see herself as Indian? Or as a black?

Ms. Warren, too, was persuasive and compelling to the search committee in her interviews, pleasantly surprising a largely moderate panel, including several members who had looked askance at some of the policies and language she adopted in her own presidential campaign. But Ms. Warren told the committee she fully appreciated that the role of the vice president was different, and that the agenda of a Biden administration would be Mr. Biden’s. “He won; I lost,” Ms. Warren said in one interview, according to people briefed on her comments.

What’s more, Ms. Warren noted that she was past her 70th birthday, and would not be looking to advance a long-range political career in the vice presidency, leaving some members of the search team convinced she did not aim to run for president again. The search team told Mr. Biden they believed they could rely on Ms. Warren as a cooperative governing partner — an assessment Mr. Biden shared.

Of all the interviews conducted, only Ms. Harris’s burst into public view as a matter of controversy, when one of the members of the search team, former Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, told associates that he had been dismayed by what he regarded as an inadequately contrite answer by Ms. Harris about her searing denunciation of Mr. Biden at a Democratic primary debate in June 2019.

Ms. Harris recognized from the start that her attack on Mr. Biden — for having worked with segregationist senators to oppose school busing — was a liability for her as a potential running mate, and she spent considerable time reaching out to Biden allies to seek their advice about how she should approach the former vice president.

One longtime Biden supporter told her bluntly that she should make clear she would not upstage Mr. Biden in the campaign, telling her, “You don’t need to be Sarah Palin to his John McCain.”

Another Biden ally, who served with him in the Obama administration, urged Ms. Harris to at least implicitly engage on the topic of their debate clash, proposing that she bring up George H.W. Bush’s criticism of Ronald Reagan’s “voodoo economics” in the 1980 Republican primary — an attack that did not stop the two from serving beside each other for eight years.

But Ms. Harris’s interviews covered far more ground than just a single debate, and like the other candidates, Ms. Harris faced intensive scrutiny of her personal and political history. Biden advisers asked, for instance, about contributions she received as state attorney general from Steven Mnuchin, President Trump’s Treasury secretary, who at the time was running a bank, OneWest, that was accused of violating foreclosure laws. Ms. Harris declined to pursue prosecutions in the case.

ALSO READ: Biden raises $26 million in 24 hours after announcing Harris as VP nominee

Ms. Harris has said consistently that political donations played no role in her legal decisions as attorney general. In her interviews, and in a final-round conversation with Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris was emphatic on one point: that she would be loyal to Mr. Biden and support his agenda without reservation, according to a Biden aide briefed on their discussion.

Deliberation and Debate

By July, Mr. Biden and his team were converging on a theory of his decision, if not yet an actual vice-presidential pick.

There was broad agreement among his advisers that Mr. Biden should choose a woman of color, though Mr. Biden remained drawn to both Ms. Whitmer and Ms. Warren. There was unanimity that he needed someone with unimpeachable governing qualifications: Private Democratic polling and focus groups found that voters were keenly aware of Mr. Biden’s advanced age, and the possibility that his running mate could become president by medical rather than electoral means.

In some Democratic focus groups, too, voters expressed skepticism that Biden would choose a candidate with strong qualifications: By making gender a nonnegotiable requirement, they wondered, was Mr. Biden indicating he cared more about identity than experience? To Democratic strategists who have studied the obstacles for women in politics, the presumption that there would be better credentialed men available was not a surprising concern.

At least two women besides Ms. Harris seemed capable of matching all those criteria: Ms. Rice and Ms. Bass, the former speaker of the California Assembly.

Ms. Rice benefited from her close relationship with Mr. Biden and a concerted push on her behalf by other alumni of the Obama administration, though not the former president himself. But she had never been a candidate for office before, and Mr. Biden was more familiar than most with how much of a vice president’s time is typically spent on political errands. He concluded it would be too risky to pick a running mate who had never been on the ballot.

Ms. Bass emerged late in the process as a formidable rival to Ms. Harris. Though she was little known outside California and Congress, Ms. Bass impressed the vetting committee, and Mr. Dodd took steps to elevate her during the search process. Several people close to Mr. Biden sang her praises to the former vice president, including Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.

But Ms. Bass knew she had political liabilities, according to people who spoke with her directly throughout the process. She had visited Cuba repeatedly as a young woman and at times had made somewhat admiring comments about the government of Fidel Castro. She discussed those matters openly with the vetting committee, recognizing how politically damaging they could be in the crucial swing state of Florida, with its large and politically active immigrant communities from repressive Latin American countries.

Mr. Biden was aware of Ms. Bass’s Castro-era baggage well before it spilled into the news media. He told one longtime friend that her history with Cuba could cause political headaches, though to other people he suggested he did not see it as politically disqualifying — he intended to win the election in the Midwest, Mr. Biden told them, even if he were to fall short in Florida.

For Mr. Biden, Ms. Bass’s greatest shortcoming as a candidate was simpler: He did not really know her, and the coronavirus pandemic made it difficult to establish a close personal connection in short order.

One candidate who did forge such a bond with both Joe and Jill Biden was Representative Val Demings of Florida, a former Orlando police chief whom one adviser said the Bidens “loved.” Ms. Demings’s background in law enforcement may have hindered her in the vice-presidential search — Mr. Biden was briefed on specific allegations of police misconduct on her watch — but some Biden advisers are hopeful she will challenge Senator Marco Rubio in the 2022 election.

ALSO READ: Kamala Harris nomination adds fuel to fire for China-US ties: China media

As Mr. Biden’s private deliberations wore on, the public dimension to the process began to grow ugly. A report in Politico on Mr. Dodd’s criticism of Ms. Harris enraged her admirers, and this week some of Mr. Biden’s top aides, still irritated at Mr. Dodd’s apparent lapse in discretion, sought to downplay the selection committee’s clout, suggesting its members had no more pull than his other advisers. Supporters of Ms. Harris saw the late surge of advocacy for Ms. Bass — another, more liberal Black woman from California — as the equivalent of a torpedo aimed at Ms. Harris alone, while allies of Ms. Bass and Ms. Rice privately complained that they believed Ms. Harris’s political advisers were circulating negative information about them to the news media.

Mr. Biden and his top aides were cognizant of the sniping, but advisers stressed to the former vice president that there was no way of knowing if it was authorized by Ms. Harris or was being done on a freelance basis — and that they shouldn’t let it color their decision.

Some Democratic women were uneasy, though, about how much criticism all four finalists faced, and made little attempt to hide their frustration.

“We need to be celebrating these women,” said Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan. “They are all talented, passionate, capable people.”

Mr. Biden’s mind was nearly made up by the end of the weekend, but he kept talking with advisers into Monday. On Tuesday morning, the campaign set in motion the announcement that became public within hours. And Mr. Biden went about the hard business of letting down the runners-up that he had come to value as allies and friends.

One by one, Mr. Biden told them he hoped to have them “on the team” in one way or another, according to people briefed on his calls.

To Ms. Harris, he placed a video call and asked, “You ready to go to work?”

#Kamala Harris

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hollywoodjuliorivas · 4 years

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Biden has four great options for a black female running mate. One is his best.

Image without a caption

Jonathan Capehart

Opinion writer

May 18, 2020 at 10:13 a.m. PDT

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he will choose a woman as his vice-presidential running mate. In a previous post, I argued that she needs to be African American. And I stressed an often ignored point: Winning the Midwestern states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 and appealing to African American voters are not mutually exclusive.

Now comes the parlor game of figuring out who that black woman should be.

Biden knows how important it is to have an empowered governing partner who commands respect inside and outside the White House. That’s who he was as vice president to former president Barack Obama, and Biden is right to want the same for himself.

Biden needs a black woman as his VP

Before I list some popular choices, let me obliterate an argument that has cropped up in response to my first post. When folks say that whomever Biden selects should be the most qualified or that “identity politics only gets you so far,” they should be aware of how that hits the African American ear. Since Jim Crow, such sentiments have been used to question our abilities and snuff out our ambitions. No matter how brilliant we are, we are never brilliant enough in a world that still believes someone not straight or white or male (usually all three) is inherently unqualified for any role, let alone being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

The four black women most often mentioned as a possible Biden running mate defy that racist notion. They are worthy of the speculation.

Former Georgia House Democratic leader Stacey Abrams, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington on Nov. 15, 2019.

Former Georgia House Democratic leader Stacey Abrams, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington on Nov. 15, 2019. (Michael A. Mccoy/AP)

Stacey Abrams was the Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives for six years before she resigned her seat to run for governor in the 2018 election. Abrams won the Democratic nomination with 76.5 percent of the vote. Had Abrams prevailed in the general election, she would have been the first African American female governor in the United States.

Abrams lost the race to Republican Brian Kemp by just 55,000 votes. He was the Georgia secretary of state, where he oversaw elections in Georgia for eight years. In that time, according to New York magazine, Kemp went about “purging 1.4 million voters from the rolls, placing thousands of registrations on hold, and overseeing the closure or relocation of nearly half of the state’s precincts and polling sites.”

More than 200 women sign letter urging Biden to pick a black woman as his running mate

Abrams was born in Wisconsin and raised in Gulfport, Miss. Her mother was a college librarian. Her father worked in a shipyard. When Abrams was in high school, the family moved to Atlanta, where both of her parents became Methodist ministers. Abrams would get her bachelor’s degree from Spelman College, a masters in public administration from the University of Texas at Austin and a law degree from Yale. Abrams now runs Fair Fight, an organization she started after the governor’s race to focus on suppression in 20 states.

Why folks are talking about her

Abrams’s name has been on the lips of Democrats since she almost won Georgia in 2018. She nailed one of the toughest assignments in politics when she delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address. And Abrams has been the boldest of all the potential picks in her pursuit of the vice-presidential nod. When I interviewed her at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum last December, I asked her if she would want to do it. “I’m a black woman who’s in a conversation about possibly being second in command to the leader of the free world, and I will not diminish my ambition or the ambition of any other women of color by saying that’s not something I’d be willing to do,” Abrams said to thunderous applause. She has repeated some form of that answer at every opportunity ever since.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) walk to the Senate floor on the last day of opening arguments by the White House defense team during President Trump's Senate impeachment trial, on Jan. 28, 2020.

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) has been in Congress since 2017. The Jacksonville native, whose district includes Orlando, had a front-row seat to impeachment as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and as one of the seven impeachment managers arguing the case against Trump before the Senate.

Biden wants a woman as his running mate. Val Demings could be the one.

Investigating the president was no stretch for Demings. She spent 27 years in the Orlando Police Department, becoming the city’s first female police chief. But she wasn’t the first African American. That distinction belongs to her husband Jerry L. Demings, who is now the mayor of Orange County, Fla., the first African American elected to that post. The Demingses are a Harley-Davidson-riding power couple in Florida’s all-important I-4 corridor whose individual achievements are the embodiment of the American dream.

Why folks are talking about her

The visual of a black female former police chief helping to make the case for the rule of law against the president had many in the Democratic Party in full swoon. During an interview in March, I asked Demings if she’d be interested in being vice president. She leaned into her blue-collar roots.

“I grew up the daughter of a maid and a janitor. I grew up poor, black and female in the South, someone who was told a lot of times that I wasn’t the right color or gender. But my mother pushed me and said, ‘No, you can make it. If you work hard and play by the rules, you can be anything you wanna be and do anything you wanna do,’” Demings said. “So the fact that my name is being called in such a special way for such an important position during such a critical time, it’s such an honor.”

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) smiles during a presidential forum at the California Democratic Party's convention on Nov. 16, 2019, in Long Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) smiles during a presidential forum at the California Democratic Party's convention on Nov. 16, 2019, in Long Beach, Calif. (Chris Carlson)

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) came to Washington in 2017 after serving six years as the attorney general for California and two full terms as district attorney of San Francisco. Harris joined the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in January 2019 but ended her campaign in December.

Harris is the daughter of immigrants. Her late mother was a breast cancer researcher from India. Her father is an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University from Jamaica. They divorced when Harris was 7 years old. Harris graduated from Howard University, where her identity as an African American woman was cemented. She returned to California to get her law degree at the University of California at Hastings.

How to run for vice president

In “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” Harris writes that fighting injustice was a major part of her upbringing. Her decision to become a prosecutor took her family by surprise. In an interview with Harris that I did in conjunction with her book tour in Washington in January 2019, she said, “I had to defend my decision like one would a thesis.” She then made her argument before the audience, saying, “What I tried to live in my career as a prosecutor is the understanding that, in that role, you have the power to be the voice of the most vulnerable among us."

Why folks are talking about her

Harris came to Washington with presidential buzz already around her, which only increased as she questioned Trump administration officials. She so flustered then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions at one hearing that he admitted Harris’s questioning “makes me nervous.”

Harris jumped into the race for the presidential nomination before a crowd of more than 20,000 people in her hometown of Oakland last January. (Disclosure: My husband volunteered at that event.) Her debate performances had memorable moments, including when Harris went after Biden over his past stance on busing. The resulting bump in polling Harris received was fleeting. She ended her campaign before a primary vote was cast. But the VP buzz grew louder. When Harris has been asked about being Biden’s running mate, all she will say is she would be honored.

White House national security adviser Susan Rice briefs reporters about President Barack Obama's then-upcoming trip to Africa at the White House on July 22, 2015.

White House national security adviser Susan Rice briefs reporters about President Barack Obama's then-upcoming trip to Africa at the White House on July 22, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Susan Rice was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama in his first term and then served as his national security adviser in his second term.

If you read her memoir, “Tough Love: My story of the things worth fighting for,” you know that Rice was reared in the elite circles of Washington. Her mother was known as the “mother of the Pell Grant.” Her father was a Tuskegee Airman and economist who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, the second African American to hold such a post.

Susan Rice on Trump’s coronavirus response: ‘He has cost tens of thousands of American lives’

A graduate of Stanford and a Rhodes Scholar with a master’s and a Ph.D in international relations from Oxford, Rice’s first foray in government was as assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration. She has never run for elective office. Nevertheless, she has been battle-tested in the partisan crucible of Washington and the fever swamps of Fox News. See, Benghazi.

Why folks are talking about her

Rice has been unsparing in her criticism of Trump’s response to the coronavirus and uses language that scratches deep that itch among Democrats to take the fight to the president. “He has demonstrated utter lack of leadership, utter incompetence,” Rice told me last month.

When I asked her what she thought about the Biden running-mate talk, Rice responded via email, “I am honored to be among the highly accomplished women mentioned as possible VP candidates. I have great admiration for Joe Biden. Biden will be an excellent president, and I am committed to doing my utmost to help him win and govern effectively.”

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) hugs Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden after introducing him at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit on March 9.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) hugs Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden after introducing him at a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit on March 9. (Scott Olson/Photographer: /Getty)

At a virtual fundraiser last month, Biden said, “I view myself as a transition candidate.” If elected, he would be the oldest sitting president in U.S. history and would lead a nation in desperate need of stability and leadership from the White House. Therefore, Biden needs to choose a future vice president who is young enough to embody the transition he envisions while also being a governing partner. That person has been staring us in the face for months now. Her name is Kamala Harris.

Joe Biden isn’t the Democratic Party’s future. He needs a vice president who is.

Harris has demonstrated broad appeal by winning two local elections and three statewide races in California. So she entered the 2020 presidential campaign somewhat battle-tested. Having run for president herself, Harris knows the rigors of that kind of campaign and has endured the microscopic press scrutiny that comes with it.

Harris would not be rattled by the inevitable bullying by Trump and his campaign. She is neither afraid of a fight nor afraid of him. “I know he has a reason to be afraid of me,” Harris replied when I asked her last November if she thought Trump was afraid of her. Considering he has yet to give Harris a sophomoric nickname, I’m convinced the president is really afraid of her.

Opinion | Vice President Biden, you need black women voters. This is how to win us.

Black women are the Democrats’ most reliable voting bloc. Here’s how seven prominent black female activists and media figures say Joe Biden can win them over. (Kate Woodsome, Joy Sharon Yi/The Washington Post)

Biden will need a fighter. And Harris would be for Biden what he was for Obama: a loyal vice president who fights for his agenda. But as the last person in the room with the president, Harris would not be shy about sharing unvarnished opinions.

Harris’s friendship with Biden’s late son Beau, then the attorney general of Delaware, produced a deep well of mutual respect and admiration that was tested by last June’s debate. But I think they both learned something from that bruising encounter. Biden learned that Harris is a fighter. Harris learned that some punches need not be thrown.

Biden still needs black women. Here are 3 things he needs to do.

Vice-presidential nominees might not influence the outcome of elections, but what they can do is excite the electorate where votes are needed most to win the electoral college. As I’ve argued, Biden must ensure that African Americans turn out in November if he wants to win. He must ask for their vote in Detroit (Michigan), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Atlanta (Georgia) and Miami (Florida).

As we learned in 2016, when the black vote is taken for granted or not even requested, black voters don’t show up. The nation cannot afford to have that happen again. Biden must give African Americans a reason to vote. A Biden-Harris ticket is a reason to vote.

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go-redgirl · 4 years

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Mike Pence Moves to Seal Deal for Trump in Sunshine State: ‘Road To Victory Runs Right Through Florida’

Other Trump campaign leaders and first family surrogates have also stepped up campaign activities as part of what the team calls “Operation MAGA.” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, for instance is hitting the trail aggressively this coming week with more than two dozen scheduled events crisscrossing the nation.

After beginning his treatment there with a dose of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail medication, and treatment with remdesivir and the steroid dexamethosone, Trump returned to the White House earlier this week to continue his recovery. He began working again mid-week, visiting the Oval Office, and has also now started conducting interviews again as Friday he appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s and Mark Levin’s respective nationally broadcast radio programs as well as giving his first on-camera interview to Fox News’s Dr. Marc Siegel, which aired Friday evening on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Trump will resume campaigning on Monday with a rally nearby here, in Sanford, Florida, his first time back on the trail since the infection.

They want to defund the police. President Donald Trump’s vision is a little bit different. President Trump says rebuild our military. We cut taxes; we rolled back regulations, unleashed American energy, secured our border, supported law enforcement, life and liberty and the Constitution of the United States. When you compare the Biden-Harris agenda with our agenda, the choice is clear. If you cherish faith and freedom and law and order and life, then we need four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.”

Pence’s team is riding high into the Sunshine State, too, as the latest public polling here shows Trump leading Biden in the final weeks by three points. That poll, from Fox35, correctly predicted the 2008 and 2016 elections.

Helping energize Hispanic voters for the president are multiple factors, including a key endorsement in recent weeks from Puerto Rico’s Gov. Wanda Vazquez Garced—an endorsement Pence hyped here—and strong support in the Cuban community in the state. Pence also made a key point to hype Trump’s word against Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, and standing up the communists in Cuba.

“Under President Donald Trump, we have stood for freedom across this hemisphere for all freedom-loving people,” Pence told the Latinos for Trump rally-goers here. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States was the first nation on earth to recognize President Juan Guaido as the only legitimate president of Venezuela.

Under this president, America has been clear: Maduro must go and America will stand with the people of Venezuela. Under Joe Biden as vice president, he served at a time when America was appeasing the communist regime in Havana. President Donald Trump kept the promise that he made to Cuban Americans when he reversed the failed policies of the last administration toward Cuba. In this White House, it will always be Que Viva Cuba Libre.”

When Joe Biden was Vice President, America appeased the communist regime in Havana. President @realDonaldTrump kept his promise to Cuban Americans when he reversed the failed policies of the last administration. In this @WhiteHouse, it will always be que viva Cuba libre!3:22 PM · Oct 10, 2020

He also hyped economic successes the Trump administration has delivered for Hispanics.

President Trump is keeping his promises. It’s why Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vazquez Garced just endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election as President of the United States. This week, the governor of Puerto Rico asked people in that territory to vote for who’s been there for Puerto Rico in its most difficult moments. She said very plainly it is Donald Trump.

As “Fill That Seat” chants broke out among the crowd, Pence turned and promised them that Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate will get it done. “Let me make you a promise: After the Senate gets done with the advisement and consent, we’re going to fill that seat,” Pence told the crowd which erupted in applause.

“I got to tell you, I’m a big fan of Judge Amy Coney Barrett—not just because she’s from Indiana, but she’s a truly remarkable person,” Pence continued. “She deserves a dignified hearing, a dignified and respectful hearing in the United States Senate. But, men and women, we have reason to be concerned. You all remember when she was appointed to the court of appeals just two years ago, the Democrat chairman of the Judiciary Committee criticized her Catholic faith. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said ‘the dogma lives loudly within you.’

Hollywood elites have already begun to criticize Judge Barrett and her family for their faith. Well, I got news for the Democrats and their friends in Hollywood: That dogma lives loudly in me. That dogma lives loudly in you. That’s the right to live and to worship according to the dictates of our faith lives loudly in the Constitution of the United States.”

The president has the lead in Florida—and its 29 electoral votes are crucial to his path to re-election. Assuming the president can keep Georgia, Texas, and Arizona red—those are three traditionally red states that Biden and Democrats hope to flip—and hold onto Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, and here in Florida, along with Maine’s Second District, he would be one state away from locking down a second term in the White House.

Public polling out of Georgia and Texas show those two states firmly back in the president’s column, after months of concern on both, and Arizona seems to be trending back that way too with a recent Trafalgar Group poll this week showing Trump back in the lead there.

Despite establishment media whining to the contrary, Biden’s campaign seems to understand this predicament—if Trump holds that core together, he would need to four-for-four in the upper rust belt to win—as evidenced by the former vice president’s campaign schedule. While he spent a large chunk of September not actually campaigning—Biden regularly calls a lid for the day well before lunchtime on the east coast—where he is spending his time when he does decide to campaign is indicative of what his campaign is concerned about.

Biden, for instance, is again campaigning on Saturday in Pennsylvania—the state he has spent most of his time in. He also has traveled for events in recent weeks to Minnesota and Wisconsin, and has only made one trip—the day after the vice presidential debate—to Arizona, where he joined his running mate Harris to counter Pence on the ground on Thursday, and barely spent any time here in Florida either.

Republicans feel very confident about Florida, given a voter registration advantage in the state this year as Republicans have outpaced Democrats about two-to-one in ground game efforts. Recent trends in the state, too, show it shifting redder as in recent years the GOP has won most statewide contests since Trump’s 2016 panhandle-fueled victory.

In 2018 in the midterm elections, despite a shellacking nationwide elsewhere when Democrats retook the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, the GOP held the governor’s mansion as now Gov. Ron DeSantis fended off Democrat Andrew Gillum in a hard-fought battle and Republicans wiped out incumbent Democrat then-Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) as now-Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) emerged victorious from that fight.

With the election just weeks away, and people nationwide already voting, surely anything can happen—especially in a state like Florida which despite its recent red-ward trend is still closely contested every go-around—but the Trump team believes this one is moving their way in the final days, a sigh of relief and a burst of energy for the president as he battles brutal national polls and an onslaught of attacks from his political opponents in the Democrat Party and the media.

What’s more, emerging signs of Trump’s strength—according to the RealClearPolitics breakdown of battleground state polling the president is doing nearly a full percent better than this day in 2016, all while Gallup has recorded a record-high level at 56 percent of Americans who believe they are better off today than four years ago—are a shot in the arm for the campaign in the home stretch. With sweltering heat in the high 80s beating down on the crowd outside, Pence mid-speech joked that he didn’t know who set up this event outdoors.

“But I’m ready to take the heat to drive a victory,” Pence said.

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newyorktheater · 4 years

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“Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman” Joe Biden said in his speech today introducing his running mate, Kamala Harris. Both speeches are below, in video and transcript.

“This is a moment of real consequence for America,” Harris said. “Everything we care about, our economy, our health, our children, the kind of country we live in, it’s all on the line. We’re reeling from the worst public health crisis in a century. The president’s mismanagement of the pandemic has plunged us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and we’re experiencing a moral reckoning with racism and systemic injustice that has brought a new coalition of conscience to the streets of our country, demanding change. America is crying out for leadership, yet we have a president who cares more about himself than the people who elected him. A president who is making every challenge we face even more difficult to solve.

“But here’s the good news, we don’t have to accept the failed government of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in just 83 days…”.

(The speeches at 27:20 in the video)

youtube

Joseph Biden

Good afternoon everyone. To me and to Kamala, this is an exciting day. It’s a great day for our campaign and it’s a great day for America in my view. Over the past several weeks I have had the incredible privilege of meeting and spending a good deal of time with a group of talented women leaders, all of whom are qualified to be president. With each one, the more I learned about them, the more I talked to them, the more impressed I was even though I knew them before. I want to thank each and every one of them for being part of this process and I look forward to working with them as we rebuild this country to get elected and once we are elected God willing.

A Serious Moment for Our Nation

I approached this with a seriousness of purpose and of mind because this is a serious moment for our nation. We’re at one of those inflection points, you’ve heard me say that before, in our history. A life-changing election for this nation and the choice. The choice we make this November is going to decide the future of America for a very, very long time and I had a great choice. Great opportunities. I had a great choice but I have no doubt that I picked the right person to join me as the next Vice President of the United States of America and that’s Senator Kamala Harris. You know, it seems Americans all across this nation, at least at the outset here agree with me. Yesterday we had our best grassroots fundraising day of the campaign, more than double our previous record, and in doing so, we set a single day record for online political fundraising and I think I know why. So I hope that you’ll join us as well, those of you listening today. Go to joebiden.com today, $5.00, $10.00, whatever.

A Proven Fighter…A Pioneer Kamala, as you all know is smart, she’s tough, she’s experienced, she’s a proven fighter for the backbone of this country, the middle class, for all those who are struggling to get into the middle class. Kamala knows how to govern. She knows how to make the hard calls. She’s ready to do this job on Day One and we’re both ready to get to work, rebuilding this nation and building it better. As attorney general of the largest state in the country, Kamala took on the big banks over mortgage fraud and won. Took on big oil that wanted to pollute without consequences. She was a pioneer in marriage equality and tackled the gun lobby. You know, we’ve all watched her in the United States Senate go toe to toe with Trump officials trying to hide the truth, asking the tough questions that needed to be asked and not stopping until she got an answer and when none was forthcoming it was obvious what the answer was.

As a member of the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee, she’s been the center, in the middle of the most critical national security challenges our country faces. Well aware, well aware of all the threats to this nation and ready to respond to them.

Her story is America’s story

As a child of immigrants, she knows personally how immigrant families enrich our country as well as the challenges of what it means to grow up black and Indian-American in the United States of America. Her story is America’s story, different from mine in many particulars, but also not so different in the essentials. She has worked hard, she has never backed down from a challenge, and she has earned each and every of the accolades and achievements that she has gained. Many of them often in the face of obstacles that others put in her way but never quit, and this morning, all across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities, but today, today just maybe, they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way, as the stuff of presidents and vice presidents.

The 3:00 A.M Agenda

In her campaign in the primary, Kamala often talked about what she referred to as the 3:00 a.m. agenda, about moms and dads awake late at night in their kitchens, worried, scared, uncertain about how they were going to take care of their families, about how they were going to pay the bills, about how they were going to make it, simply make it. Growing up in Scranton and Claymont, Delaware, I saw that struggle with my family as well. Kamala saw it with hers as well and millions of Americans are living that struggle as we speak, especially in this moment of crisis, especially with so many jobs lost. Kamala and I both know that all folks are looking for as my dad would say is an even shot, just give me a shot, a fair shot, a shot at making it and it will be the work of our administration to make sure they get a fair shot.

Whining is What Donald Trump Does Best Working families need someone on their side in this nation because they certainly don’t have anyone in the president now on their side. That’s going to change in a Biden-Harris administration. It’s going to be gratifying to see the strong, enthusiastic reaction to Senator Harris as our next vice president. It comes from people all over the country, it’s already occurring. All over the country, all ideological views, all backgrounds. Events of course, we are predictable, some of them. It comes from all over except of course from Donald Trump’s White House and his allies. You all knew it was coming. You could have set your watches to it. Donald Trump has already started his attacks, calling Kamala “nasty”, whining about how she is “mean” to his appointees. It’s no surprise because whining is what Donald Trump does best, better than any president in American history.

Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman or strong women across the board? We know that more is to come, so let’s be clear. If you’re a working person, worried about whether or not you have a job to go to, whether or not you’ll be able to pay your mortgage, pay your rent, worried about the poison in the air you breathe, the water you drink, worried about your civil rights, even your basic right to dignity which is under attack with this administration, Kamala Harris has had your back and now we have to have her back.

She’s going to stand with me in this campaign and all of us are going to stand up for her. On January 20, 2021, we’re all going to watch Senator Harris raise her right hand and swear the oath of office as the first woman ever to serve in the second highest office in America in this land, and then we’re going to get to work, fixing the mess that President Trump and Vice President Pence have created, both at home and abroad through four years of mismanagement and coddling of terrorists and thugs around the world.

No real leadership or plan from the President

Not only will America dig itself out of this hole they put us in, we’re going to build. We’re going to build back and we’re going to build back better. We have a public health crisis. While he’s in court trying to do away with health care, with more than five million reported infections, 165,000 people dead and climbing as a consequence of COVID-19 and still, months later, no real leadership or plan from the President of the United States how to get this pandemic under control. No real help for the states and local governments trying to fill the vacuum of leadership from the White House. No real help for children and educators, for small businesses and frontline workers, they’re the ones that are holding our country together. Instead, he’s issuing executive orders and making promises that in the end will defund the Social Security system while insisting that this virus will disappear.

The Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration will have a comprehensive plan to meet the challenge of COVID-19 and turn the corner on this pandemic. Masking, clear science-based guidance, dramatically scaling up testing, getting states and local governments the resources they need to open the schools and businesses safely. We can do this. We just need a president and vice president willing to lead and take responsibility. Not as this president says, “It’s not my fault. The governor should thank me more.”

As that old saying goes, give me a break. We have an economic crisis and more than 16 million Americans, 16 million, still out of work. Donald Trump is on track to break another record. On track to leave office with the worst jobs records of any American president in modern history, but instead of doing the hard work, of meeting face to face with congressional leaders, Democrats and Republicans in the White House like every other president has done in a crisis, to get Americans the relief they need and deserve, Donald Trump is on the golf course. If I told you this three years ago you’d look at me like I was being crazy. He hasn’t even met with the leadership. He doesn’t have time it appears.

We have a climate crisis that Donald Trump refuses to even acknowledge. When he thinks about climate change, all we hear is the word hoax. A Biden-Harris administration is going to meet the climate crisis, protect the health of the American public. Along the way, we’re going to deliver one word, jobs. Good paying jobs. We have a racial justice crisis. Donald Trump seeks only to inflame it with his politics of racist rhetoric and appeals to division.

The Third Anniversary of Charlottesville

Today’s not only the day I’m proud to introduce Senator Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. It’s also the third anniversary of that terrible day in Charlottesville. Remember? Remember what it felt like to see those neo-Nazis, close your eyes, and those Klansmen, white supremacists, coming out of fields, carrying lighted torches, faces contorted, bulging veins, pouring into the streets of a historic American city, spewing the same antisemitic bile we heard in Hitler’s Germany in the ’30s. Remember how it felt to see a violent clash ensue between those celebrating hate and those standing against it? It was a wake up call for all of us as a country. For me, it was a call to action. My father used to say, silence is complicity, not original to him, but he believed it. At that moment, I knew I couldn’t stand by and let Donald Trump, a man who went on to say when asked about what he thought he said, there were very fine people on both sides, “Very fine people on both sides.” No president of the United States of America has ever said anything like that, see him continuing to attack everything that makes America America. I knew we were in the battle for the soul of the nation. That’s when I decided to run. I’m proud now to have Senator Harris at my side in that battle because she shares with the same intensity I do, for she’s someone who knows what’s at stake.

Who are we as a nation? The question is for all Americans to answer, who are we as a nation? What do we stand for? And most importantly, what do we want to be? Someone who knows that the future of this country is limited only by the barriers we place on our own imaginations because there’s nothing Americans cannot achieve what we put our minds to it and we do it together.

One of the reasons I chose Kamala is because we both believe that we can define America simply in one word, possibilities. Possibilities. Let me say it again, possibilities. That’s America. That’s what sets this nation apart, is that everyone, everyone, the ability for everyone, and we mean everyone, to go as far and dream as big as hard work and their God-given ability will take them.

The Last Person IN The Room When I agreed to serve as President Obama’s running mate, he asked me a number of questions, as I’ve asked Kamala, but the most important was he asked me, what I wanted most importantly. I told him I wanted to be the last person in the room before he made important decisions. That’s what I asked Kamala, I asked Kamala to be the last voice in the room, to always tell me the truth, which she will, challenge my assumptions if she disagrees, ask the hard questions because that’s the way we make the best decisions for the American people.

A Family Affair

I got a chance to spend some time at my home today with Kamala and Doug, and I want to thank them. I thanked them then, but thank them publicly for agreeing to join and take this journey with Jill and me. Doug, you’re going to have to learn what it means to be a barrier breaker yourself in this job you’re about to take on, America’s first Second Gentlemen. And although they’re not with us here today, I want to thank Ella and Cole as well.

I had a chance to speak to Doug’s mom and dad, and Ella and Cole, and we’re going to get our kids together to let them know what’s coming. My grandchildren are about the age of their children. I got to speak to them. My campaign has always been a family affair, every campaign I’ve run. So I’ve got some news for you, you’re all honorary Bidens. And here’s the best part, Kamala, you’ve been an honorary Biden for quite some time.

I came first to know who Kamala was through our son, Beau Biden. They were friends. They served as attorneys general at the same time. They took on the same big fights together, Kamala in California, Beau here in Delaware. Big fights that helped change the entire country. I know how much Beau respected Kamala and her work, and that mattered a lot to me, to be honest with you, as I made this decision. So now we need to get to work, pulling this nation out of these crises we find ourselves in, getting our economy back on track, uniting this nation, and yes, winning the battle for the soul of America. My fellow Americans, now let me introduce to you for the first time, your next vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris. Kamala, the floor is yours.

Kamala Harris

Thank you, Joe. As I said, Joe, when you called me, I am incredibly honored by this responsibility and I’m ready to get to work. I’m ready to get to work.

Everything we care about, our economy, our health, our children, the kind of country we live in, it’s all on the line. After the most competitive primary in history, the country received a resounding message that Joe was the person to lead us forward. Joe, I’m so proud to stand with you. I do so mindful of all the heroic and ambitious women before me whose sacrifice, determination and resilience makes my presence here today even possible. This is a moment of real consequence for America. Everything we care about, our economy, our health, our children, the kind of country we live in, it’s all on the line. We’re reeling from the worst public health crisis in a century. The president’s mismanagement of the pandemic has plunged us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and we’re experiencing a moral reckoning with racism and systemic injustice that has brought a new coalition of conscience to the streets of our country, demanding change. America is crying out for leadership, yet we have a president who cares more about himself than the people who elected him. A president who is making every challenge we face even more difficult to solve.

But here’s the good news, we don’t have to accept the failed government of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in just 83 days. We have a chance to choose a better future for our country. So Joe, Dr. Biden, thank you for the trust you’ve placed in me. Jill, I know you will be an incredible First Lady. My husband, Doug, and I are so grateful to become a part of your extended family.

Remembering Beau Biden Ever since I received Joe’s call, I’ve been thinking, yes, about the first Biden that I really came to know, and that of course is Joe’s beloved son, one of his beloved sons, Beau. In the midst of the Great Recession, Beau and I spoke on the phone practically every day, sometimes multiple times a day, working together to win back billions of dollars for homeowners from the big banks of the nation that were foreclosing on people’s homes.

Let me just tell you about Beau Biden. I learned quickly that Beau was the kind of guy who inspired people to be a better version of themselves. He really was the best of us. And when I would ask him, “Where did you get that? Where did this come from?” He’d always talk about his dad. I will tell you the love that they shared was incredible to watch. It was the most beautiful display of the love between a father and a son. Beau talked about how Joe would spend four hours every day riding the rails back and forth from Wilmington to Washington so he could make breakfast for his kids in the morning and make it home in time to tuck them in bed each night. All of this so two little boys, who had just lost their mom and their sister in a tragic accident, would know that the world was still turning, and that’s how I came to know Joe.

He’s someone whose first response when things get tough is never to think about himself, but to care for everyone else. He’s someone who never asks, why is this happening to me? And instead asks, what can I do to make life better for you? His empathy, his compassion, his sense of duty to care for others is why I am so proud to be on this ticket.

Family means everything to me Joe and I, yes, we are cut from the same cloth, family is everything to me too. I cannot wait for America to get to know my husband, Doug, and our amazing kids, Cole and Ella. Because whether I’m cheering in the bleachers at a swim meet, or setting up a college room dorm, or helping my goddaughter prepare for her school debate, or building Legos with my godson, or hugging my two baby nieces, or cooking dinner, Sunday dinner, my family means everything to me. I’ve had a lot of titles over my career, and certainly vice president will be great, but Mamala will always be the one that means the most.

My mother and father, they came from opposite sides of the world to arrive in America, one from India and the other from Jamaica, in search of a world-class education. But what brought them together was the civil rights movement of the 1960s. That’s how they met, as students in the streets of Oakland, marching and shouting for this thing called justice in a struggle that continues today, and I was part of it. My parents would bring me to protests, strapped tightly in my stroller. My mother, Shyamala, raised my sister, Maya, and me to believe that it was up to us and every generation of Americans to keep on marching. She’d tell us, “Don’t sit around and complain about things, do something.” So I did something, I devoted my life to making real the words carved in the United States Supreme Court, equal justice under law.

Thirty years ago, I stood before a judge for the first time, breathed deep and uttered the phrase that would truly guide my career and the rest of my career, Kamala Harris for the people. The people, that’s who I represented as district attorney, fighting on behalf of victims who needed help. The people, that’s who I fought for as California’s Attorney General when I took on transnational criminal organizations who traffic in guns and drugs and human beings. And it’s the people who I have fought for as the United States Senator where I’ve worked every day to hold Trump officials accountable to the American people. And the people are who Joe and I will fight for every day in the White House.

The Cast Against Trump and Pence

Let me tell you, as somebody who has presented my fair share of arguments in court, the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut. Just look where they’ve gotten us, more than 16 million out of work, millions of kids who cannot go back to school, a crisis of poverty, of homelessness afflicting black, brown, and indigenous people the most, a crisis of hunger afflicting one in five mothers who have children that are hungry and tragically, more than 165,000 lives that have been cut short, many with loved ones who never got the chance to say goodbye. It didn’t have to be this way. Six years ago, in fact, we had a different health crisis, it was called Ebola. We all remember that pandemic, but you know what happened then? Barack Obama and Joe Biden did their job. Only two people in the United States died. Two. That is what’s called leadership. B

ut compare that to the moment we find ourselves in now. When other countries are following the science, Trump pushed miracle cures he saw on Fox News. While other countries were flattening the curve, he said the virus would just poof, go away, quote, like a miracle. So when other countries opened back up for business, what did we do? We had to shut down again. This virus has impacted almost every country, but there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start, his refusal to get testing up and running, his flip flopping on social distancing and wearing masks, his delusional belief that he knows better than the experts.

All of that is reason. And the reason that an American dies of COVID-19 every 80 seconds. It’s why countless businesses have had to shut their doors for good. It’s why there is complete chaos over when and how to reopen our schools. Mothers and fathers are confused and uncertain and angry about childcare and the safety of their kids at school. Whether they will be in danger if they go, or fall behind if they don’t.

Trump is also the reason millions of Americans are now unemployed. He inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground. Because of Trump’s failures of leadership, our economy has taken one of the biggest hits out of all the major industrialized nations with an unemployment rate that has tripled as of today. This is what happens when we elect a guy who just isn’t up for the job. Our country ends up in tatters, and so does our reputation around the world.

Building the Country Back But let’s be clear. This election isn’t just about defeating Donald Trump or Mike Pence. It’s about building this country back better. And that’s exactly what Joe and I will do. We’ll create millions of jobs and fight climate change through a clean energy revolution, bring back critical supply chains so the future is made in America, build on the affordable care act. So everyone has a peace of mind that comes with health insurance, and finally offer caregivers the dignity, the respect, and the pay they deserve. We’ll protect a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own body, root out systemic racism in our justice system, and pass a new voting rights act. A John Lewis voting rights act that will ensure every voice is heard and every voice is counted.

The Civil Rights Struggle The civil rights struggle is nothing new to Joe. It’s why he got into public service. It’s why he helped reauthorize the voting rights act and restore unemployment discrimination and employment discrimination laws. And today, he takes his place in the ongoing story of America’s march toward equality and justice, as the only, as the only who has served alongside the first black president and has chosen the first black woman as his running mate.

Who We Are As A Country

But as Joe always points out, this election is about more than politics. It’s about who we are as a country. And I’ll admit over the past four years, there have been moments when I have truly worried about our future. But whenever I think that there is a reason for doubt, whenever I’ve had my own doubts, I think of you, the American people, the doctors and nurses and frontline workers who are risking your lives to save others, the truck drivers and the workers in grocery stores, in factories, in farms, working there, putting your own safety on the line to help us get through this pandemic. The women and students taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers. The dreamers and immigrants who know that families belong together. The LGBTQ Americans who know that love is love. People of every age and color and creed who are finally declaring in one voice that yes, black lives matter.

All across this country, a whole new generation of children is growing up hearing the cries for justice and the chance of hope on which I was raised. Some strapped into strollers of their own. And trust me, it’s a song you’ll never forget. So to everyone, keeping up the fight, you are doing something. You are doing something great. You are the heroes of our time and you are the reason I know we are going to bring our country closer to realizing its great promise. But to do it, we’ll need to work, organize and vote like never before, because we need more than a victory on November 3rd. We need a mandate that proves that the past few years do not represent who we are or who we aspire to be.

Joe likes to say that character is on the ballot. And it’s true. When he saw what happened in Charlottesville three years ago today, he knew we were in a battle for the soul of our nation. And together with your help, that’s a battle we will win. Earlier this year, I said, “I do whatever Joe asks me to do.” And so now I’m asking you to do the same. So visit joebiden.com to get involved in this campaign and vote, because electing Joe Biden is just the start of the work ahead of us. And I couldn’t be prouder to be by his side, running to represent you, the people. Thank you and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Delaware Speeches August 12, video and transcript "Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman" Joe Biden said in his speech today introducing his running mate, Kamala Harris.

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brajeshupadhyay · 4 years

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Big lead in polls shifts Biden’s VP search

Joe Biden is approaching the most important decision of his presidential campaign — choosing the woman who will be his running mate — on political terrain that has changed dramatically since he began the search, and amid intense lobbying that has showered uncommon attention on the contenders.

With the former vice president enjoying a strong polling lead over President Trump, some supporters say Biden is under less pressure to make a game-changing pick to galvanize voters than when he was first struggling to unify the party and Trump seemed stronger.

“We don’t have to shake up the race,” said Wade Randlett, a Biden fundraiser in the Bay Area. “We don’t want to shake up the race — just add an asset. This can be a historic pick and still a do-no-harm pick.”

Biden is still under heavy pressure to pick a Black woman, but contenders of all races have been cycling in and out of the spotlight, with new names surfacing almost weekly, each with her own cheering section. His strong position in the polls may give him more latitude to think beyond short-term political considerations — to choose the person who seems the best long-term fit as a governing partner.

“The more the electoral map looks promising, you start thinking more about compatibility, and whether this is somebody I really want to be my partner for four or eight years,” said Joel K. Goldstein, a scholar of the vice presidency at St. Louis University School of Law.

A “do-no-harm” caution could make it less likely that Biden would make a potentially high-risk, high-reward choice such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive leader who might excite the party’s left wing and young people, but could alienate moderate voters. It might boost the prospects of lower-profile candidates like Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), a Black progressive, or Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a disabled veteran and Thai American.

But lower-profile, low-key types may not be prepared for the pressure cooker of a national campaign, which is why many handicappers believe a top contender is Sen. Kamala Harris of California — a Black former presidential candidate.

Some Democrats are warning against complacency as Biden’s polling lead grows, given the vast uncertainty about the next few months before Nov. 3. And the party must continue to energize its core voters, they say — especially Black Americans, whose reduced turnout in 2016 from the record high of 2012 contributed to Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

“There is a temptation when you’re this far ahead in the polls to start to focus on the moderate Republican swing voters,” said Karen Finney, a top aide to the Clinton campaign in 2016 and one of more than 200 Black women who signed a letter urging Biden to pick a Black female running mate. If Biden doesn’t select a black woman, Finney said, “there is a significant potential that will have a suppressive impact on Black voters.”

Biden months ago announced he would pick a woman for his running mate. In a recent MSNBC interview, he said he was considering, among others, four black women. Although he did not name them, sources close to the campaign say that top contenders include Bass, Harris, former Obama national security advisor Susan Rice and Rep. Val Demings of Florida, a former police chief.

Biden also said he had gotten to an advanced stage of vetting four women — one being Warren, according to a source familiar with the process. Biden said he will get a two-hour report about the serious contenders from his four-person vetting committee before deciding whom to interview.

The protracted process in the five months since Biden became the prospective Democratic nominee has helped draw money and attention to his campaign — especially from the party’s all-important female constituency — at a time when the pandemic has made it hard to break through.

The process also shows a lot about how Biden makes decisions: He is consulting a wide array of sources, but is expected to make the final decision in a small, tight and leak-averse group of family members and longtime advisors. Still, the scrutiny of contenders has been unusually public because the garrulous Biden has talked so much about them.

Presidential nominees sometimes embrace the element of surprise. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, left the political world gobsmacked by picking first-term Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. The little-known conservative firebrand gave his campaign an initial boost, but the decision ended up backfiring when she repeatedly blundered.

Mark Salter, McCain’s campaign manager, said the Palin choice was driven in part by the trailing candidate’s need to shake things up.

“We were behind and needed to find a way to reset the race,” Salter said, adding that Biden “doesn’t have to do that.”

The vice president’s job has long been denigrated as a ceremonial, powerless post, the butt of an oft-told joke: A mother has two sons — one goes to sea and the other becomes vice president. Neither has been heard from since.

In recent years, however, the office has been enhanced because modern presidents — notably Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — chose men they intended as true governing partners in increasingly complicated times.

The stakes are higher still for Biden’s choice. At 77, he is in line to be the oldest president ever, raising doubts about whether he’ll seek a second term. His vice president would have a leg up to succeed him.

That’s why an especially vigorous lobbying campaign is being waged by and for the potential running mates.

Harris, who has participated in at least eight virtual campaign events and fundraisers for Biden, is perceived as a front-runner, but progressives view her record as a prosecutor with suspicion and are pushing alternatives.

Warren and her progressive supporters are trying to keep her in the mix despite the clamor for a woman of color. She raised $8 million for Biden at a fundraiser — a total topped only by Obama. A Black former Bernie Sanders supporter, Phillip Agnew, co-wrote an op-ed endorsing Warren. Supporters circulated a poll showing that she is the favored choice among undecided voters in battleground states.

“Another day, another poll showing Warren as VP adds the most new votes for Joe Biden,” said Jorden Giger, a Black Lives Matter leader in South Bend, Ind., who supported Sanders in the primary race but has been pushing Warren for vice president.

Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is gaining favor among progressives. She was one of three Black women — and the only one thought to be under consideration by Biden — who was endorsed this week by the large bloc of Sanders delegates in California’s delegation to the Democratic convention.

Markos Moulitsas, an influential progressive blogger who had strongly backed Warren for president and vice president, on Wednesday changed course and backed Bass. He argued that her low profile was an advantage because Trump and his allies would have a harder time attacking her, while Warren’s selection would galvanize Trump and his base.

“Call this the ‘do no harm’ approach, or maybe Napoleon’s ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake’ strategy,” Moulitsas wrote.

Jockeying for the No. 2 job is usually a delicate dance in which contenders deny they are seeking the post. Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost the Georgia gubernatorial election in 2018, broke protocol and for months publicly promoted herself for vice president. That may not have been the best way to appeal to Biden, who in 2008 declined the job when Obama first asked him to be considered.

Abrams, a young Black progressive, generated lots of interest, but the publicity also called attention to her lack of national political experience. She seems not to have made it onto Biden’s short list.

Contenders often have hometown allies pushing for them. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was an early promoter of Bass. John Morgan, a major Democratic donor and Orlando attorney, has urged Biden to pick Demings, his hometown congresswoman and a lifelong friend.

Demings does not have the national profile or obvious presidential ambitions of someone like Harris, and Morgan argued that could be an advantage. Biden, he said, “will want a No. 2 who understands the role of a No. 2. He doesn’t want someone with her own agenda and running for president the day after the election.”

Valerie Jarrett, a former senior White House advisor to Obama, said that no amount of lobbying or polling shifts will change Biden’s primary goal: To find a partner as “simpatico” with him as he was with Obama.

“He’s realizing the importance of looking beyond the election,” Jarrett said, “to find a partner who will help him govern.”

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Joe Biden delivered decisive wins in Missouri and Mississippi on Tuesday, dealing an early blow to Bernie Sanders on a night when six states were up for grabs.

Both men were focused intensely on Michigan, the night’s biggest prize. That’s where the Vermont senator scored an upset that lent much-needed credibility to his 2016 primary challenge of Hillary Clinton — and where President Donald Trump’s victory four years was so narrow that Democrats are desperate to show they have the strength to flip it back. The former vice president made a final push there in recent days, rallying autoworkers and touting a fresh round of high-profile endorsements.

Beyond Michigan, Sanders could get a boost in Idaho, North Dakota or Washington state, where polls haven’t yet closed.

Even as the contours of the race took shape, the campaigns faced new uncertainty amid fears of the spreading coronavirus. Sanders and Biden both abruptly canceled public events in Ohio that were scheduled for Tuesday night. Sanders’ campaign said all future events would be decided on a case-by-case basis, while Biden called off a scheduled stop in Florida. The Democratic National Committee also said that Sunday’s debate between Sanders and Biden would be conducted without an audience.

Tuesday marked the first time voters weighed in on the Democratic contest since it effectively narrowed to a two-person race between Sanders and Biden. It was a test of whether Sanders can broaden his appeal among African Americans after earlier setbacks in the South. Biden, meanwhile, sought to show that he can keep momentum going after his surprise Super Tuesday turnaround.

As soon as polls closed in Mississippi and Missouri at 8 p.m. Eastern time, The Associated Press declared Biden the winner in both states’ Democratic presidential primary.

The AP called Biden the winner even though state officials had yet to release any results from Tuesday’s election. The news agency did so based on results from AP VoteCast, its wide-ranging survey of the American electorate. That election research captures the views of voters on whom they vote for, and why.

The VoteCast survey showed Biden with a wide lead in both states. Importantly, Biden was leading in all parts of both states. He led among both men and women, as well as among both white voters and African American voters.

With 125 delegates at stake, Michigan got most of the attention Tuesday. Trump won the state by only about 10,000 votes during the general election in 2016, and Democrats are eager to take it back.

A win for Biden might show his party he can do it again against Trump in November. But Sanders presented himself as a credible alternative and aimed to block Biden from piling up a wide lead in delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer in Milwaukee.

Sanders has predicted victory in Michigan and scrapped a scheduled Mississippi stop to spend more time there. Biden went there less frequently, but sought late-breaking support there and toured an auto plant in Detroit on Tuesday.

“You’re the best damn workers in the world!” Biden shouted through a megaphone at the auto plant as workers in hard hats chanted, “Joe! Joe!”

Biden ticked off the names of six former presidential rivals who have endorsed him just in the past week, saying he is “the candidate that they think can win.” The former vice president has campaigned in recent days with two of them, Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, and appeared with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. All three have been mentioned as possible vice presidential picks if Biden wins the nomination.

The confidence Biden exudes is a remarkable turnaround for someone who just two weeks ago looked to be falling too far behind Sanders to catch up. Now he’s trying to present an air of inevitability as the primary race’s winner.

It wasn’t all good feelings, though. At the auto plant, Biden was interrupted repeatedly by protesters angered by his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and reluctance to embrace sweeping environmental proposals outlined in the Green New Deal. In a scuffle with demonstrators, Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders was knocked to the ground but unhurt.

Biden also endured a testy exchange with a worker who accused him of “actively trying to end our Second Amendment right.” Biden responded, “You’re full of shit,” and went on to say that while he supports the Second Amendment, “Do you need 100 rounds?” His gun control plan reinstates the assault weapons ban and includes a voluntary buyback program for assault weapons, stopping short of a mandatory buyback program that some of his opponents had supported in the primary.

Although he has rejected notions he could drop out of the race if Tuesday goes badly, Sanders says he is now battling the “Democratic establishment.”

“In a general election, which candidate can generate the enthusiasm and the excitement and the voter turnout we need?” Sanders asked.

Detroit neighbors Fayette Turner and Margaret Marsh were split on which to support: Turner voted for Sanders on Tuesday, while Marsh voted for Biden. But they agreed on one thing: the desire to beat Trump.

“Anybody but Trump,” Turner, 64, said. Marsh, 69, said her family has identified as Republican her entire life — until Trump took office.

“I think Biden’s the sanest one left,” Marsh said. “Hopefully he’ll have a good vice president.”