Joe Biden’s running mate

| 4:00 pm EDT April 12, 2020
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Now that Joe Biden is the de facto 2020 Democratic nominee for President, he’s free to announce his running mate any time he wants. Because there are so many people who are obvious candidates for the job, it’s led to endless speculation. We’ve also seen factions surface on social media, pushing for various people to be his running mate. Here’s the thing to keep in mind.

We’re seeing a phenomenal amount of push on social media for Joe Biden to pick Kamala Harris. There’s good reason to think she could be it. Biden has already publicly confirmed that his pick will be a woman. Biden keeps holding events with Harris. And last week Biden made very clear during a recent online event that he wants Harris to be a core part of his administration.

But this doesn’t mean she’s going to be his Vice President. Biden could just as easily be referring to Kamala Harris as Attorney General. We don’t know if Kamala would rather be VP or AG. VP is higher ranking, but AG is her wheelhouse. She’d excel at either, but we don’t know what she wants, let alone what Biden wants. Also keep in mind that cabinet positions aren’t traditionally announced until after you win an election. Biden can announce his cabinet now, but it would be an unusual move. So even if Biden doesn’t pre-announce Kamala for AG, he could still be planning to do it.

The point is, we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. A lot more usually goes into these decision making processes than ever does become public. If Biden makes a pick that doesn’t make sense to you, consider that you don’t know everything that he does about the situation. There could be offers made, and offers turned down, that we’ll never know about.

You’re also going to see a number of false stories about who Biden’s going to pick. When it comes to this kind of thing, the media knows it can run with “leaks” from the most unreliable of sources, with no repercussions, because no one knows the real truth yet anyway. Even Biden’s own allies could end up leaking that he’s going to pick this or that name, because they’re trying to publicly pressure him into picking that person. Of course these leaks usually come from “allies” who aren’t particularly close to the candidate, or they wouldn’t be resorting to such desperate tactics, so these kinds of leaks are not usually enlightening.

Biden’s timetable is tricky. He’s already the nominee, so he can announce his VP at any time. But with the pandemic, the media isn’t giving much attention to what Biden says or does. Why waste the VP announcement now, when he can wait a few weeks and get more traction from it?

Poll numbers make clear that Trump isn’t helping himself by hogging all the attention with this daily press briefings. Biden pops up here and there, in order to remind people why he’s the better choice, but he’s mostly letting Trump hang himself for now. Why interrupt Trump’s mistakes, by asking for attention with an early VP rollout?

While we wait for the VP announcement, take everything you hear with a gallon of salt. Biden has only told us two things: 1) His VP will be a woman. 2) He clearly wants Kamala somewhere on his team. Beyond those two things, nothing you hear will be reliable until Biden makes an announcement, and we don’t know when that will happen.