The DNC speaker list has set off a frenzy over Joe Biden’s VP selection

| 3:14 pm EDT August 11, 2020
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The DNC released a preliminary speaker schedule for the Democratic National Convention today, and it’s set off a frenzy of speculation about Joe Biden’s running mate. After all, if someone’s name is missing from the overall speaker schedule, then they must be secretly slotted for the running mate speaker slot, right?

That logic has led numerous people to conclude that Susan Rice must be Biden’s VP, because she doesn’t have a speaker slot of her own. But if you look more closely you see that Val Demings, who has also widely been mentioned as a VP possibility, doesn’t have a speaker slot either, so maybe she’s the running mate. For that matter, Beto O’Rourke doesn’t have a speaking slot either, so maybe… no, enough of this silliness.

Once you get past the feeding frenzy, you realize two things are clear. First, the sheer number of big names missing from this speaker schedule makes clear that it’s an incomplete work in progress. If only one big name were missing, you could read into that. But with multiple big names missing, it means this is essentially a rough draft, and we can’t glean anything from this schedule.

Second, there is no way Joe Biden would have already told the DNC schedule makers about his running mate choice, because that’s how things get leaked. Whoever made this schedule, it was done without any knowledge of who the running mate is. There is nothing at all to be learned from this schedule. If Biden’s running mate does end up being one of the names that’s missing from the schedule, it’ll only be out of coincidence. NBC News is now reporting that Biden could announce as soon as later today, so we’ll find out soon enough.