In the last few months, Joe Biden – the middle-of-the-road establishment candidate that the DNC promoted against Bernie Sanders due to being the “safe” choice – has pivoted to radical socialist policies in line with Sanders’ platform.
By all accounts, Biden’s talking points are actually being driven by former Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has long been closely aligned with Sanders.
With that in mind, the media has been promoting the idea of Warren for Vice President, and polling – for what it’s worth (not much, bettors!) – puts her squarely in the lead among both black and white constituents.
The betting lines haven’t quite caught up with the new developments, however, which means that you can get tremendous value wagering on Warren for VP right now at all the best Vegas election sportsbooks. The following numbers are current as of Monday morning:
2020 Democratic Vice-Presidential Nominee
Via Bovada:
- Kamala Harris +130
- Susan Rice +250
- Tammy Duckworth +725
- Val Demings +1000
- Elizabeth Warren +1400
- Karen Bass +1800
- Michelle Obama +2000
- Keisha Lance Bottoms +4000
- Michelle Lujan Grisham +4000
- Stacey Abrams +8000
- Gretchen Whitmer +10000
- Hillary Clinton +10000
- Tammy Baldwin +15000
- Andrew Cuomo +20000
- Catherine Cortez Masto +20000
- Tulsi Gabbard +20000
Via BetOnline:
- Kamala Harris +115
- Susan Rice +250
- Tammy Duckworth +450
- Val Demings +800
- Elizabeth Warren +1000
- Karen Bass +1600
- Michelle Obama +1600
- Keisha Lance Bottoms +2000
- Lujan Grisham +3300
- Hillary Clinton +4000
- Stacey Abrams +4000
- Barack Obama +6000
- Tammy Baldwin +8000
Via MyBookie:
- Kamala Harris -105
- Val Demings +1000
- Elizabeth Warren +1500
- Keisha Lance Bottoms +4000
- Stacey Abrams +8000
- Michelle Obama +2000
- Tammy Duckworth +500
- Susan Rice +350
- Gretchen Whitmer +10000
- Hillary Clinton +10000
- Michelle Lujan Grisham +4000
- Tammy Baldwin +15000
- Catherine Cortez Masto +20000
- Andrew Cuomo +20000
- Tulsi Gabbard +20000
While a Warren pick makes sense from a platform standpoint, given that her favored politics are being adopted by Biden in whole, it may not make a great deal of sense from any other traditional analysis of why VP candidates are chosen.
Of course, this isn’t a traditional election by any means, and if the old “rules” were strained and frayed in 2016, they’ve evaporated entirely for the 2020 general.
Nothing that used to matter apparently matters anymore.
By and large, Biden voters are reporting that their pick is predicated on voting against Trump, not voting for Biden.
In other words, it might make no difference which potential VP Biden selects as his running mate, nor what policies he (or his pick) supports.
In rational times, most folks probably wouldn’t want their local police defunded, their local landmarks torn down, their local histories erased by endless bused-in protesters.
Most communities probably wouldn’t want endless coronavirus lockdowns, national mask mandates, widespread school cancelations, and mandatory vaccinations when (and if) a COVID-19 vaccine is ever released.
Given the record gun sales in the wake of the so-called 1619 Riots, most people probably wouldn’t want to be disarmed via the draconian gun control proposed and promised by a Biden presidency. No police to defend you and no guns to defend yourself? The very idea!
On paper, for most of modern American history, Biden would be laughed out of the room as an absurd choice.
But that’s not happening.
So why should his VP selection matter? If the calculus of the Biden campaign is that he won’t be harmed by not selecting a black woman for the bottom of the ticket, then why limit the pick arbitrarily when someone else has policies – and connections – more in line with what he’s trying to achieve? Biden has a much longer history with Warren than anyone else being considered for the post, after all.
But then again, why pick Warren?
One of the VP’s biggest strengths is to deliver a given candidate their home state. If that state – Massachusetts, in Warren’s case – is already a foregone conclusion for the candidate at the polls, what good are they?
This is doubly true for candidates with tremendous baggage, like Warren lying about being a minority for her entire professional life and using said status to further her private and political careers. Even with all the weirdness going on now, that should be a disqualifier in the age of woke politics. She basically wore blackface for 40+ years.
Similarly, by this metric, a pick like Kamala Harris makes little sense. Harris gives Biden California, a state he’s already going to win easily. And she, too, has baggage that – in today’s tinder box of identity politics and the universal mainstream detestation of police – would logically DQ her.
Not many candidates worked quite so intimately with police departments to lock up non-violent criminals for drug offenses, and even fewer have had the nerve to giggle about it on live TV.
Harris, like Warren, should be toxic.
But again, the old rules simply don’t seem to apply.
If Biden wants a VP candidate to swing important purple states in November, his best pick – if “African American” isn’t a prerequisite – would be Amy Klobuchar. By far. (But she already bowed out, and – if Warren is really a frontrunner – she did so much too early.)
If race is a prerequisite, then Val Demings of FL would make the most sense. Trump barely won the Sunshine State in 2016, and Demings – though a former police chief – has very few apparent skeletons in her closet and could be the difference in winning or losing the entire Presidential election. If Biden wins Florida, he wins the White House.
Overall, Biden is lacking in the enthusiasm and galvanization departments, and his most redeeming quality is that he isn’t Donald Trump. It should be his campaign slogan: “I’m Not Donald Trump.”
That, more than anything, seems to be what 2020 is all about at the ballot box.
Whether or not that alone will be enough to deliver Creepy Joe the presidency remains to be seen, but in years past, it certainly wouldn’t be.
But these aren’t years past.
This election is unique in countless ways, with competing policies between candidates that are fundamentally different. That difference is literally as stark as capitalism vs. communism. This is no longer a uniparty “lesser of two evils” situation. It is…something else.
In any case, you might as well put your money to work while you still have it.
Bet early, bet often!