Election 2020: Biden’s “Short Game”

Rumor has it and recent leaks confirm mounting resistance within the Biden campaign to the idea of Kamela Harris as former Joe Biden’s choice for VP on his ticket in 2020.

Which brings a nagging question: is another “Joe Lieberman debacle” brewing?

To refresh our memory, former Senator Joe Lieberman was Al Gore’s VP pick during the 2000 Presidential Campaign. Curiously, the same folk within the DNC who discounted Bernie Sanders’ viability as “electable” in 2016 AND 2020 because he is an “Independent,” forget that Joe Lieberman after the 2000 campaign, “left” the Democratic Party. In sum, Lieberman left, Bernie joined (1).

The same argument is surfacing again, this time questioning Kamela Harris’ ability to “compromise,” “get things done,” etc. — pick your ‘explano-bromide.’ In other words, ‘she is too independent, too ambitious.’

Biden has a hidden “Kamela” problem. She backs the Sanders/AOC “Green New Deal” initiative, which is anathema to corporate Democrat donors.

Which brings us back to Sen. Joe Liberman. In 2020 voters barely knew him, the Wall Street donor class loved him.

One wonders if the 2020 election will yield a one-term a one-term Vice-President as well as a one-term President.

Biden is committed to playing the “short game,” eg. resonating what a friend characterized as Biden the “comfort food candidate.”

The “longer game,” ensuring a viable future for our country, is off the table.

Biden risks losing the “youth vote,” sacrificing this segment to courting the “suburban whomevers.”

And to courting corporate donors.

August 1, 2020

(1) After the 2016 Democratic Party Presidential defeat, Sen. Sanders was asked to head up the DNC’s recruitment efforts.