So what does it mean when President Barack Obama calls Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s economic message a “strong one, and that there’s real resonance right now”? And also, what does it mean that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is telling people, on joint fundraising calls with Warren, that “I never had as many (donors) until she endorsed me”?
I’ve been reading the tea leaves for all prospective VP choices, and we have new clues pointing to Warren leading the pack.
A recap of past tea leaves:
- Obama has singled out Warren for praise on her coronavirus response plan, something he didn’t even do for Biden (or any other presidential contender)
- Warren and Biden teamed up to write an op-ed on the coronavirus, something I haven’t seen him do with any other top VP contender (though I could’ve missed something)
- Biden’s former chief of staff and former interim U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman is leading Biden’s transition efforts, and he pushed a potential Biden-Warren ticket in 2016, and is closely aligned with her ideologically.
- Top Biden ally Rep. Jim Clyburn, largely credited with helping deliver Biden’s decisive South Carolina primary victory, softened his initial demand that Biden pick a Black female running mate.
On top of all that, we now have reporting by Edward-Isaac Dovere in The Atlantic that claims that Obama is intrigued by her. Not only did he check in with her periodically throughout the primary, but (as that tweet I noted above suggested) he’s particularly impressed by both her coronavirus response plan, and, just as importantly it seems, how she’s selling it. And it goes beyond the pandemic response: “’He thinks that her economic message is a strong one, and that there’s real resonance right now,’ one of the people talking with Obama recently told me,” Dovere wrote.
Meanwhile, Biden and Warren teamed up over the weekend to make joint fundraising calls to small-dollar donors, apparently trying on her famous primary fundraising system (avoid big-dollar events, just call regular people) on for size. Now, the chance that Biden abandons big-dollar events is around zero percent. The ticket will raise all the money it can heading into November. But Biden won’t win with Wall Street money. He needs the kind of small-dollar mojo that exactly two candidates mastered this year—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and only one of those is a running mate possibility.
So, note what Biden says in one of those calls (skip to the second tweet, the embed tool automatically inserts a parent tweet, which is obnoxious...):
“I never had as many [donors] until she endorsed me,” is an amazing admission from Biden. Warren is a validator of the small-dollar left, and Biden needs a massive fundraising boost from that crowd. And there are two candidates who have a proven record raising from those donors: Warren and 2018 Georgia Democratic Nominee Stacey Abrams (who raised a record $28 million for that campaign).
For reasons unknown to me, and nonsensical on the surface, Abrams is no longer a top candidate for the gig. Some people complain that she “campaigned too hard for the job,” which I really hope isn’t a real reason by people actually in charge of making this decision.
The other two names that still pop up in this context are Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar, neither of which have any historical success with small dollar donors. Does that mean they’re out of the picture? Clearly not, since their names keep coming up. But it’s detrimental to their chances, as neither helps unite the party or deliver any constituencies that Biden can‘t already get on his own.
Every nominee will always say that his VP choice will be someone who is “ready to step into the presidential job on day one.” But really, that’s utter bullshit. That’s the most base requirement, that gets you in the door, and there are endless number of Democratic women who could do that job and do it well.
No, the number one job of the VP is to help the ticket win the election, period, the end. Hillary Clinton ignored that requirement in 2016 and it cost her. Every Democratic nominee from here on out should strive to make sure they don’t pick Tim Kaine 2.0. Amy Klobuchar is totally Tim Kaine 2.0.
To me, two top choices qualify: Warren and Abrams. But only one seems to be getting a full audition.
You want a bonus tea leaf?
Meet Ronald Klain. He was chief of staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, and he’s almost guaranteed to be Biden’s first chief of staff if elected president. He was also in charge of the United State’s successful response to the Ebola virus in 2015, and was involved with the Obama administration’s pandemic response plan that the Trump administration gleefully ignored while bungling the COVID-19 response.
So see the tweet above by Murshed Zaheed? He’s a former staffer for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and is now a political consultant (and friend since being law school classmates, Boston University, Class of ‘99).
Look who liked and retweeted his tweet on the joint Biden-Warren fundraising calls, and Biden’s claim that his fundraising took off after Warren endorsed him:
That’s a pretty hefty tea leaf, right?
None of this guarantees Warren will be picked. I have no inside information suggesting that Warren is a front-runner. As I’ve said, three names come up when I ask around, and I have no doubt that all three of Warren, Harris, and Klobuchar are being hotly debated inside the campaign. In fact, I’d guarantee that the campaign is polling and focus-group testing all three options, in all of the battleground states.
But I’ve seen more energy pointing to a Warren pick than anyone else. In fact, if it wasn’t for people (mostly political journalists covering the campaign) insisting that Harris and Klobuchar were still in the mix, I’d doubt they were even being considered.