The time-honored American tradition of the vice-presidential audition period is here.<\/p>\n
If you turned on your television this weekend \u2014 mainly cable news, of course \u2014 you would have a difficult time not seeing it: a parade of Democrats vying, fairly overtly, to join Kamala Harris on the presidential ticket. These would-be running mates are mainly White men, a demographic some believe Harris should choose from because she is the first Black woman likely to be nominated to a major party ticket.<\/p>\n
The possible No. 2s include Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who joined CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d Sunday to talk about why he has labeled Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), \u201cweird\u201d; and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who guested on \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d in his personal capacity, arguing that Trump is \u201colder and stranger\u201d than he used to be.<\/p>\n
Walz and Buttigieg are partaking in the not-so-subtle campaign of running to be the running mate, an exercise that\u2019s been honed by prospective vice-presidential candidates, with varying degrees of success, throughout modern political history. From operating covert draft operations to appearing on a nominee\u2019s favorite morning show, those on the veep shortlist are tasked with selling themselves, their record and their ability to effectively message \u2014 all without looking too thirsty or desperate.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s crop of possible running mates is not shy, and their cases are being made especially publicly because of the abbreviated picking season given the sudden emergence of Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket following President Biden\u2019s announcement he would not seek reelection just a week ago. The vice-presidential contenders are blitzing the airwaves and campaign trail to showcase their credentials and try on the role of Harris\u2019s No. 2.<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, Walz, Buttigieg and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared on Sunday television shows, while Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro hit the campaign trail to stump on behalf of Harris.<\/p>\n
In his TV hit, Walz coyly declined to say whether he had received vetting materials after forcefully defending his record in a state where Trump and Vance attended a rally the day before.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a monster,\u201d Walz said during his CNN appearance, responding facetiously to potential attacks on him as a big-government liberal. \u201cKids are eating and having a full belly so they can go learn and women are making their own health-care decisions. And we\u2019re a top-five business state and we also rank in the top three of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over on Fox, Buttigieg made the case that voters shared his concerns about Trump\u2019s age and mental acuity, a day after telling the New York Times that he didn\u2019t think it was \u201cappropriate\u201d to say whether he would be a good vice president or wanted to be vice president.<\/p>\n
Harris is considering roughly a dozen vice-presidential candidates. But three Democrats have risen to the top, The Washington Post has previously reported, including Shapiro, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D). Kelly and Cooper appear to have kept a low profile over the weekend, not making the Sunday show circuit.<\/p>\n
The unprecedented timeline for settling on a No. 2 has turbocharged the search for Harris\u2019s replacement as the party\u2019s vice-presidential nominee, as she is well on her way to the Democratic presidential nod after locking up over two-thirds of the delegates needed to become the official nominee over the course of her week-long candidacy. Those involved with the process cautioned that the search is in its early stages \u2014 though Harris is expected to make a decision by Aug. 7, in line with the Democratic Party\u2019s plans to nominate a ticket virtually.<\/p>\n
Harris made her own headlines over the weekend when she announced Sunday morning that she had raised $2o0 million since entering the race, two-thirds of it from first-time donors.<\/p>\n
Several of the contenders deployed a new line of attack against Trump and Vance, adopted by Harris in recent comments and campaign statements: Trump and Vance are \u201cjust plain weird,\u201d an attack on the Republican ticket that Walz debuted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just weird, I mean they really are,\u201d Pritzker said on ABC News\u2019 \u201cThis Week,\u201d calling out Trump for being \u201cafraid of windmills\u201d and Vance for advocating for higher tax rates for childless adults.<\/p>\n
Buttigieg, who also appeared on MSNBC on Sunday, argued that Vance\u2019s \u201cweird or insulting\u201d characterization of the Democratic Party as \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d also leads to \u201cweird policies,\u201d referencing Vance\u2019s 2021 proposal to bolster the political power of families by giving parents the ability to cast votes on behalf of their children.<\/p>\n
Though not on the Sunday shows, Shapiro rallied for Harris in central Pennsylvania on Saturday before hundreds of voters. Ticking through the vice president\u2019s record, Shapiro argued that she was well-positioned to lead the country and defeat Trump, and warned voters of what would happen if Trump returned to the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019all go crack open that Project 2025,\u201d said Shapiro, referencing a 900-page blueprint for a second Trump term put together by former \u2014 and likely future \u2014 leaders of the Trump administration. \u201cThat is chock-full of some crazy ideas, some dangerous ideas, but ideas that he plans to carry forth if he is given the keys to the White House again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beshear, the twice-elected Democratic governor of a deep-red state, delivered a keynote address at the Iowa Democratic Party\u2019s Liberty & Justice Celebration on Saturday night where he sang Harris\u2019s praises before heading to Forsyth County, Ga., on Sunday morning to headline a campaign event for her. Beshear has also repeatedly attacked Vance for trying to profit off Kentuckians with his novel \u201cHillbilly Elegy\u201d and for misrepresenting Appalachians.<\/p>\n
\u201cJD Vance is a phony, a fake,\u201d Beshear said on CNN\u2019s \u201cThe Source\u201d last week. \u201cThe problem is JD Vance has no conviction, but I guess the problem is his running mate has 34.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some options from different demographic backgrounds have been mentioned as potential options to join Harris on the ticket, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Both have shut down claims that voters are not ready for two women on the ticket.<\/p>\n
But the conventional political wisdom that has crystallized is that if Harris \u2014 the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India \u2014 wants to win, she\u2019d be wise to pick a counterweight to broaden her appeal to voters: in other words, a white man from a swing state.<\/p>\n
That wisdom has spawned a flood of memes since Harris emerged as the likely Democratic nominee. \u201cWho will the VP be?\u201d a user posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, atop a picture of a \u201cwhite mystery\u201d Airheads candy. \u201cKamala\u2019s VP options\u201d: another user posted to describe a picture of an array of white paint samples labeled \u201cTrustworthy Whites: 40 of our best whites.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there is one criteria that Democrats have started to coalesce around, it\u2019s that Harris could benefit from picking a candidate from one of the swing states that are likely to decide the election.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Arizona Democratic Party endorsed Kelly for vice president, the Philadelphia Democratic Party endorsed Shapiro, and the North Carolina Democratic Party endorsed Cooper. Asked about the trend Sunday, Pritzker conceded that \u201cwinning those battleground states is most important\u201d \u2014 but not definitive, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think we\u2019ve seen over the last decades that who you pick as your vice president doesn\u2019t determine whether you\u2019re going to win a state or not,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat it does determine is whether you\u2019ve got the message right across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The time-honored American tradition of the vice-presidential audition period is here. If you turned on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}