Latest / Pod Save America / That's the Ticket Episode 3: The Decision

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That's the Ticket Episode 3: The Decision · Pod Save America

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Is that your cat?
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, I shouldn't have woken him up.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Sorry, that's kind of.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm just joking. He would have done
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: it anyway. I just threw him some toys.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the third.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And sadly, final episode of That's a Ticket. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco. On today's episode, we're going to
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: talk about what factors candidates consider once they have vetted
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: potential options, how they announce their decision, and who we
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: think Biden might pick. Along the way, we're going to
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: talk about Dan Quayle's gaffes, so much material there, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: some of the most memorable moments in vice presidential debate history,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: as well as some more of my campaign trail antics.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, I'm going to talk to senior
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: writer at FiveThirtyEight, Perry Bacon Jr., about what the polling
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: tells us and doesn't tell us about the politics of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Biden's choice. Alyssa, how are you doing?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, buddy, first, can we talk about last episode?
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And how last week, you know, we talked about Sarah
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Palin and we talked about Geraldine Ferraro and we really
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: talked about, like, Ferraro being picked as the first, you know,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Democratic woman on a Democratic ticket. And, buddy, her daughter...
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Geraldine Ferraro's daughter, Donna Zaccaro, tweeted at us and sent
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: us messages about how we did right by her mom
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: and telling the story. And I just don't know if
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: we should just fold it up and call it a
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: day now because I'm not sure we can do better
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: than that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Well, we have a lot of people who have joined
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: us in this Zoom room to help us facilitate this episode.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So I think out of respect for them, we should
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: probably do it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I guess so. But I can just tell you, baby
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: feminist Alyssa was really cavelling.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Every process is different. But I think every modern nominee
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: considers the same set of factors in the running mate choice. Now,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: they may weigh each of those factors differently based on
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the state of their campaign, their own experiences, the backdrop
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: in which the campaign is happening. But they still look
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: at those factors. And first and foremost, I think, among
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: all those factors is a threshold question of readiness for
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the job. And Joe Biden has already indicated that this
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: is driving his decision. He's been saying some version of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this for the past couple of months. Let's take a listen.
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: But all kidding aside, I have to pick somebody who
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: in fact reassures people that if tomorrow lightning strikes and
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: I die, I get, and I've released all my medical
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: records and I'm in, well, I don't want to jinx myself.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: As my mother said, knock on wood, I'm in great shape.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: But my point is I've got to pick somebody who
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: everybody looks at and meets two criteria. One, that they
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: are younger than I am. No, I'm not being facetious.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: And number two, that they are ready on day one
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: to be president of the United States of America.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, given Joe Biden's age and the fact this campaign
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: is happening in the middle of a pandemic, do you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: think the readiness factor is even more important this time?
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: When sworn in, knock wood, as Joe Biden would say,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: he'll be 78, which is not young. And he follows
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: what's probably one of the most, no, I feel confident
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: saying the most unfit president of all time. So I
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: think that this has to be.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Do you mean mentally or physically?
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: Both.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not sure which on a scale of
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: one to 10, which he might be a 10 on
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: both scales. I don't even know. He does not seem
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: fit to me.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: In any way.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So I think that for Biden, readiness has to be
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: numero uno. I don't think he has the luxury of
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: making a real outside the box pick here. I think
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: he needs someone who, when he announces this woman, I
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: don't need to say person, I can say woman. When
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: he announces this woman, everyone's like, I fucking get it.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Good for you.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Readiness is an interesting question in a world in which
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: we are coming on the heels of two presidents with
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: very non-traditional resumes. Barack Obama, very successful. Donald Trump, less so,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I'd say. There's a question of readiness in terms of
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: their resume and readiness in terms of their ability to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: convince the American people who are going to be choosing
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: this ticket of their readiness, right? The most obvious example
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of a VP candidate who failed the readiness test was
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Sarah Palin. We've talked a lot about her on the pod,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and you probably remember Tina Fey's impression of her. But
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just liberals and the writers at SNL who
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: thought she was unprepared. In an October 2008 poll shortly
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: before the vice presidential debate, a Washington Post-ABC news poll
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: found that 60% of voters thought that Palin did not
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: have the experience needed to be president, including 30% of Republicans. Now,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: what I think is really notable about that is her
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: resume was not significantly on paper worse than Obama's. The
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: public here is reflecting what they saw of her between
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: when she was announced in August and when this poll
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: was taken in October. Now, someone who our younger listeners
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: may not remember as well is Dan Quayle, who was
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: viewed as spectacularly dumb and unprepared for the job of
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: president when he ran with George H.W. Bush in 1988
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and 1992. His most famous gaffe today is probably misspelling
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: potato on camera in a classroom full of elementary school
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: students in 1992. But this was just one of his
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: many fuck-ups. Here's Dan Quayle talking about World War II.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: Millions of innocent people lost their lives because of the
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: bigotry and Hitlerism that permeated Germany and other parts of
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: the world. It was an obscene period in our nation's history. No,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean,
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: we all lived.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: In this century.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: We did not have, matter of fact, we fought Hitlerism,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: which was a totalitarian form of government.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, I consider you a student of history. Do you
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: remember Hitlerism?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So, buddy, I was just going to say that from
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: now on, whenever I'm feeling like I can't find my
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: words on a podcast, I'm just going to listen to
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: that and get my self-esteem back because he was ready
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: to be vice president. I don't remember Hitlerism. Hitlerism, neither
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: does my Oma who lived in Germany and fled people
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: called Nazis.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, Boyle is really interesting and it speaks to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: how your performance on the campaign trail dictates perceptions of readiness, right?
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: He had served about four times as long in the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: United States Senate as Barack Obama did when Barack Obama ran.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But because under the clique lights of a presidential campaign,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: he misspelled the word potato in front of a group
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of elementary school children. he had this perception that he
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: was not ready. Now, Bush and Quill ultimately won the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: 88 election, right? So does that raise the question about whether,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: at least in terms of the context of the politics
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of the campaign, we worry too much about the readiness question?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I don't think we worry too much about it. I mean,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: one thing that I just can't forget, one thing that
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I did not know until getting ready for today is
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: I knew about the potato comment and that he couldn't
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: spell it. I didn't know that it happened at a
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: spelling bee, which I just thought was very incredibly just
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: dramatic and makes it so much worse. But no, I
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: think that readiness, when you look at quail and when
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: you look at palin, there's something about on paper, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I think this is what goes to the point that
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: we've been talking about, about how important the vetting process is.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: is that on paper, people can look much more prepared
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: for higher office than they are. But what the two
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: of them lacked profoundly was any sort of worldview, right?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Or like fundamental curiosity in how things worked or people
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: lived or I don't know. But I think that people
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: don't necessarily vote for the vice president, but I think
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a vice presidential pick can scare the shit.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Out of them.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's exactly right, which is Barack Obama
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: always refers to his selection of Joe Biden as the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: most important decision he made before becoming president because it
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: says so much about their judgment, their vision of how
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: they're going to run their government, what they value. And
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: when it looks like you're taking a shortcut, voters notice, right?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: So Palin's a great example, which is there was an
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: interview where Mark Salter, who was McCain's super longtime advisor,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: chief of staff in the Senate for many years, helped
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: explain the Palin decision. And he said, and I'm paraphrasing
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Mark here, but that Obama personified change and McCain did not.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So they needed to add something to the ticket that
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: demonstrated change. And Sarah Palin certainly would do that. Now,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: change for change's sake is not good necessarily, right? And
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: maybe they should have thought that through. But it said
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: so much about McCain's judgment, which was already under question
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: because of his incredible– unyielding, despite years of evidence for
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the Iraq war, that he would choose someone who would
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: potentially help him on the campaign now at the expense
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: of what kind of government he would have if he won.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And voters noticed that. And it fit within a narrative
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of McCain, which was that he had bad judgment and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: erratic decision-making process. When you say it's a vetting issue, right?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I think what you're really saying, correct me if I'm wrong,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: is you're talking about the judgment that Biden will eventually
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: make and Biden's advisors will make about how they will
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: perform once they are on Broadway on the ticket, right?
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Like anyone can look at the resume. And I think
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: on every person who, you know, if you look at
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the people on Biden's shortlist, you have, you know, incredibly
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: successful senators, senators who have served in statewide office. You
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: have people who have run cities. You have people who
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: have been you know, national security advisors to investors, the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: UN president, like people with a wide range of different experiences,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: all of which have more experience than Donald Trump. But
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the question isn't really, will people look at the resume?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: It's will they look at the candidate when they are
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: on stage and say, this person is ready. The choice
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: of this person by Joe Biden tells me that Joe
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Biden is someone whose judgment I will trust in a crisis.
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: Is that right? Yeah.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And also like when you think about it, A very
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: low bar hurdle could be, how would this person do
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: in an interview with Katie Couric? Because neither Dan Quayle
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: or Sarah Palin were ready for primetime. You know, like
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: George Bush was so, I mean, his credentials were extraordinary.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: And when he picked Quayle, it was almost seen by
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: some people in the Republican Party and certainly commentators and
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: especially people in the United Kingdom. They had a lot
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: to say about this. that it was such a cavalier
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: choice that he viewed himself in such a way that
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: he picked this person who would just seem like young
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: and virile.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: It is important, I think, in the quail and pale,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: like these are two very different elections happening at two
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: very different times. McCain was a Republican senator following a
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Republican president with an approval rating under 30%. You know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I always joke that George W. Bush was so unpopular
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in the 2008 election that his speech at the Republican
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: convention was canceled completely. because of a hurricane in Florida,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: even though the convention was in Minnesota, and then they
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: never rescheduled it. So it's like, that's how bad it was.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And Bush was following Reagan, who was still quite popular
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: after two terms. But there's also the factor that men
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: with thin resumes get the benefit of the doubt in
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: a way that women do not, right? Correct. And so
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: that level of misogyny is going to obviously underlie the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: reception to Biden's pick, which obviously will be a woman.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: There are two other elements of the quail example that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I think are relevant to this election, which is, as
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: you point out, George H.W. Bush was one of the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: most experienced people to ever run for president. He had
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: been vice president for two terms. He had been a senator.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: He had been the CIA director. He'd served in a
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: number of positions all throughout government. He had a very
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: expansive resume. So there were no questions about his readiness.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: And he was obviously, while not a spring chicken, he
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: was significantly younger than Biden. But There were two points
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: during that campaign where Bush fell ill, not seriously ill,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: but ill enough to be off the campaign trail, which
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: raised the specter of a quail presidency. Like George H.W. Bush,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Biden has an impeccable set of, quote unquote, traditional experiences
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: preparing for the job. I mean, he worked in that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: building for eight years, not very long ago, even though
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it feels like a thousand years ago. But also, this
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: is happening in the middle of a pandemic. And so
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the specter of illness– you know, will hang over this choice.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Now I think of readiness as a gating issue, right?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: The campaign just says, does this person meet a threshold
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: on paper? And is it in our gut that they
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: have what it takes to demonstrate that readiness to the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: American people on the campaign trail, in interviews, on a
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: debate stage? Can they answer a question about newspapers? All,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: you know, the basic things. And, uh, I think the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: second factor people think about is governing, right? When I
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: think of governing, this is sort of what is the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: governing relationship going to look like? This is projecting forward
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to if and when I win, how is this relationship
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: going to work? There are two different elements of that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: One is what is their vision for the role the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: vice president plays? And then which of your, on your
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: shortlist fits within that role? And the second one is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: personal relationship, right? Like, do you feel like you can
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: trust this person? There's been a lot of speculation that
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Biden wants to replicate the partnership in relationship that he
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: had with Barack Obama. What was your recollection of that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: model and how do you think it applies here?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So theirs was a real partnership, but a hierarchical partnership
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: because the president is the president. And once the president
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: makes a decision, you need someone who is going to
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: help inform that decision and be a partner in the decision.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: But once he makes the decision, that's that. And so
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: from all of Biden's years in the Senate, I think
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: he fundamentally understood hierarchical relationships. And POTUS really wanted someone
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: who was going to be a partner. So if you
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: are someone who's on Biden's shortlist and you're trying to
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: think about the kind of relationship he might want, I
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: think it would be just like a real partnership.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about the role that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: lunch plays and how that relationship works?
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: So Joe Biden very much thought it would be good
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: for the president and Biden to have lunch once a
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: week together. And when you think about it, no matter
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: who you are, if you don't pick your best friend,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously if I ran for president, you would
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: be my vice president. And, you know, but we have
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: known each other for so many years. I fundamentally understand
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: our relationship and your decision-making style. And so the idea
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: between the two of them having lunch was one, building
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: that relationship, coming to understand each other, and also being
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: able to, I think, especially for Biden, give his sort
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: of unvarnished feedback Not in front of a room full
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: of cabinet secretaries.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Here's my very important question about this lunch, and I
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: don't know if you know the answer, which is Barack Obama,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Barack Seven Almonds Obama, is a very, very healthy, boring eater.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Like he eats salmon for lunch like six days a week.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Do you think he made Biden eat salmon for lunch
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: six days a week or did Biden get to order
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: off the menu?
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: So I think Biden got to order off the menu
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: because– unless it was like a big or group lunch usually,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: because I do think POTUS was somewhat aware of his
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: eating intricacies, that I believe I'm going to say that
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Biden ordered off the menu. Though, because he was such
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: a good partner, he may have always just said, I'll
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: have what the president's having.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Biden has been described as, I think accurately, as the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: most influential and consequential vice president in American history. And
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that is unusual, right? The vice presidency traditionally has been
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a ceremonial position in some cases. John Nance Gardner, who
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: was one of FDR's vice presidents, once described the vice
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: presidency as worth a warm bucket of piss, which I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: always thought that that quote was warm bucket of spit.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It was. It was. But I've learned through the very
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: excellent research skills of our producer, Jordan Waller, That the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: press– he actually– Garner actually said piss, but the press
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: cleaned it up to spit to make life easier for
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Garner because I don't think he probably couldn't get piss
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in the newspaper back then. A literal example of fake news.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: One thing that was interesting about the Biden-Obama negotiations we've
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: since learned is that Biden wanted to be in charge
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: of some things.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Obviously, he did a lot of the ceremonial stuff that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: vice presidents do. They're sort of famous for being sent
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to funerals for second and third tier world leaders. They
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: often are, you know, if the president can't do something,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: he'll send the vice president. And so he did all
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: those things, obviously, and did it gladly. And he spent
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of time campaigning and doing other things when
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: he wasn't in office. But he was tasked with very
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: specific projects that he oversaw, right? He came in and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: because of his experience in the Senate, he really handled
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: passing a lot of our legislative agenda through the Senate
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and handled negotiations with Republicans. He was in charge of
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Iraq policy, right? He was spearheading that as we were
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: figuring out how we're going to wind down the effort
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: in Iraq. He was in charge of the Recovery Act, right?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: The stimulus bill to help get us out of that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: And my assumption is that Biden is looking for someone
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: who can do that, right? Who we can say, and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: he says in some of these quotes, the presidency is
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: too big for one person. So you need someone who
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: can take on real things and drive them. And so
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the question is, you think about, well, which of these
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: candidates will he pick depends on which they, you know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: which we don't have the answer to is which things
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: does he want to be able to hand off to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: someone else?
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Like much like Obama, hand the economic recovery off to Biden.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: If Biden wanted to do that, then like you see
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren as someone who's worked in economic policy. If it,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: If he wants to hand off foreign policy with Susan Rice,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: it could be any range of issues, including the economy
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris. You sort of go on down the line.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: But the third factor that is looked at is politics. Now,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I think based on that quote we heard from Biden earlier,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that is the thing I think he's going to consider least, right?
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And the more he goes up in the polls, I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: think politics as a factor may diminish more. But the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: political factor, this is a campaign and you can't do
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: any of these other things. You can't have lunch with
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: this person every week in the Oval Office. You can't
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: assign them projects until you win. So winning remains part
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: of the conversation. And there are a number of ways
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in which the politics of this are considered. Will a
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: VP nominee help them carry a state, the VP's home state?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Will the VP nominee help the ticket gain support from
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: specific constituencies? How will they handle the debate? So let's
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: start with the first one, right? In the traditional way
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: you think about this, and it's talked about, they say,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Biden should pick this person because they will help deliver
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: this state, which will get you closer to 270. Alyssa,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: is there any evidence that supporting the idea that a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: VP selection helps with winning their home state? And this
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: was part of the calculus for John Kerry when he
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: picked John Edwards and you were working on that process.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: It was.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And when I was thinking about this, I always like
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to think, like, what's my first reaction to a question
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: when I ask myself the question? And my response to
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: myself was, meh, when I asked if States matter. John Kerry,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: like most of his finalists in 2004 were from battleground
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: or soon to be battleground states. There was a lot
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: of talk about whether John Kerry back in 2004, the
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: idea of writing off the South, I'm putting that in quotes,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: was still a thing. And so the appeal of John
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Edwards was one that by picking a Southerner you know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: from North Carolina who had working class appeal. It wouldn't
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: seem as though he was going to write off the South.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And also there was this allure that perhaps, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: John Edwards could help Kerry win North Carolina. John Kerry
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: lost North Carolina by 15 points. So I don't think
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: that there's real, if you go through history, I don't
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: think there's any example of there really being Someone who
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: was picked and put the candidate over the top in
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: a state where they already weren't within a couple points
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: or any points at all.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is such a hard thing to judge
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: because it's such a small sample size, right? We've had
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: so few presidential elections and only some subset of those
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: presidential elections involve a vice presidential candidate. from a swing
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: state that could possibly move? And then how do you
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: decouple that from the other larger factors? Like, for example,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: in 2008, Barack Obama won Wisconsin by around 15 points.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: In 2012, Romney put your friend and mine, Wisconsinite Paul Ryan,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: on the ticket. And although he still lost Wisconsin, he
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: lost it by about half the margin that Obama won
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the state by in 2008. You might look at that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and say, well, Paul Ryan must be super popular in
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin and therefore he helped move the state. But then
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: in 2016, Donald Trump won the state and Paul Ryan
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: was nowhere to be seen. And so Paul Ryan probably
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: had almost no effect on that. And what was going
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: on there was more about the partisan shift of that
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: state over time. Now, putting aside states, because if you
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: look at the people Biden is considering, you have Tammy Baldwin,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: who was from a swing state, right? You have Stacey
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Abrams and Keisha Lance Bottoms, who are from Georgia, which
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: is a potential swing state. Stacey Abrams, obviously, even though
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: she did not become governor, you know, has got more
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: votes in Georgia than any Democrat in history, including Barack
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Obama in her 2018 gubernatorial race, which was stolen from
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: her by Brian Kemp.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: Fuck that guy.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: But everyone, you know, Elizabeth Warren is not Biden's going
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to be fine in Massachusetts, you know, Val Demings, you know,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: maybe that's impactful in Florida, you know, but not super
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: well known with, you know, statewide, let alone nationally. But,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you know, there is a question about whether this person
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: could help performance with a certain group. Do you think
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: that's something Biden will consider and particularly against the backdrop
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of the conversation we're having in this country over the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: last couple of months about structural racism?
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I think it definitely plays into the conversations that they're
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: having within the Biden team and then with candidates as
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: they talk to them. But even still, if you look
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: back to the beginning, I mean, and by the beginning,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I mean the 1980s, Geraldine Ferraro, first woman on the
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Democratic ticket. We lost women by a lot. Hillary Clinton lost.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: put Spanish speaking Tim Kaine on the ticket. She did
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: less well with Latinos than Barack Obama did. So I
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: think that you have to put everything in its place.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: I do think that all of the things that are
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: happening in the world right now are very relevant to
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: the conversations they're having. But at the end of the day,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the world has to believe the ticket, right? When they
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: come out on stage or wherever the fuck they are,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: people have to be like, I get it. because their
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: chemistry like makes sense and you can see it. And
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I think that that gives people confidence that they're going
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: to be a team. And so it's like, if you
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: go back, you know, all of Romney's advisors told him
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: to pick Portman because there was actually a chance of
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: gaining the two or three points in Ohio with Portman
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to have, you know, won him the state. And he
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: was like, you know what though? If I have lunch
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: with someone, I want it to be Paul Ryan. And
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: I do think though that he didn't beat us, but
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: it was more, it was believable.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That is right there. Disqualifying.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: What?
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: If you, if you believe that you want to have
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: lunch with Paul Ryan.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Oh my God. I thought you meant I was disqualified.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: No.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Oh no. I got so upset.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But if Rick Romney scanned the waterfront and he picked
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: his weekly lunch partner to be Paul Ryan, then I
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: am sorry. You are not, you are, Less fit for
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the office of president than Donald J.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Trump.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you another thing.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: That is my view.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: If you pick a running mate with ill-fitting suits, you
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: reap what you sow.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Or you pick a running mate, if you are already
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: losing because you were seen as someone who is not
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: sufficiently empathetic to middle and working class Americans, and you
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: pick a person who is most famous for naming a
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: plan to privatize Medicare after themselves, then you reap what
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you sow. I am sorry. I don't mean to turn
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: this into a Paul Ryan rant pod.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: All true. All true.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And I think you get to what is a very
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: important part of the politics of this, which is you
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: can be overly tactical about it by saying, you know,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: this person can help us with this state and that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't manifest itself. This person can help us with this
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: group of voters. And it doesn't, as it did not
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: for Mondale and Ferraro or McCain and Palin. You know,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: it has mattered some. I think there's some evidence that
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Trump's selection of Mike Pence.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Might have helped serve as a validation for evangelical voters
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: who might have been confused at the imperative to support
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a thrice married.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Pussy grabber?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Uncouth person.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I said it, you didn't.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I can't wait till we debate whether that can be
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the title or not. But there is narrative, right? And
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: this is part of where the politics is. Does it
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: help with the narrative? And what's the narrative you want
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to communicate? So let's look at a couple of previous examples, right?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: In the case of Barack Obama, obviously, he was someone
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: with less traditional experience. He was going to be taking
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: over at a time in which America was in two
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: wars and was barreling towards a financial crisis. Joe Biden-
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: certainly compared to the other two people on the shortlist,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine, represented the most standard governmental experience,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: particularly in the area of foreign policy. In the case
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of Al Gore, the Al Gore one is really interesting
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: because he picked Joe Lieberman, which seems insane now that
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Joe Lieberman has become who he is. But at the time,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in that campaign– Al Gore was someone whose reputation had
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: been sullied by association with a number of Clinton scandals,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: some fake and generated, and some certainly real, including the
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: one that led to Clinton's impeachment. And he went and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: picked Joe Lieberman, who was the Democrat who had been
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: most vocally critical of Bill Clinton, was seen by many
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: as the moral voice in the Senate. And it was
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: a pick that was designed to communicate to voters that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Al Gore was breaking with some of the aspects of
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the Clinton presidency that they did not like. Are there
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: any narratives you can think of that Biden would be
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: trying to establish here?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: If there was one issue a 77-year-old white man might have,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: it might be with women. And so he's already sort
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: of approached and tried to tackle that problem by saying, ladies,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I hear you and I see you, but there's a
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: lot more. And so I think that while Biden himself, look,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: like everyone understands this election is about an existential threat
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: to like the country and the world. But Biden still
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: has to motivate people to get out and vote because
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: that's important. And so I think that while Biden knows
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: that he himself does not come across as any sort
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: of change agent and he is not the future facing
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: face of the party, I do think that if there's
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: one thing that he's thinking about is like, who do
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I pick that can understand and speak to the change
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: that needs to happen in this country? And who is
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: someone that can help lead the party forward?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of directions that Biden can go here, right?
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Tell me.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Any good campaign narrative is a implicit counter-narrative for the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: person you're taking on. So Like you can see a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: world where Biden decides that he's going to double down
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: on government competence, right? We've had this Yahoo reality TV
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: star who can't even be bothered to do the job
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: in there for the last four years. And look where
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: that's gotten us, an economic depression and a pandemic that
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: has made America the embarrassment of the world. So you're
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: going to pick someone with tremendous ability. of government experience.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: You could go with sort of what you said, which
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: is bridge to the future, where he's going to say
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that I recognize that I am older, I am a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: transitional figure, and I want my vice president to be
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the future, right? A whole bunch of people on that
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: list would fit that criteria. You could say, I want
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to double down on Obama nostalgia, right? Where it's like
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you're going to– it's sort of make America great again
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: circa 2008 to 2016 and do something else. So there's
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different ways he can do it
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: if he wants to focus on that. Now, the last
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: part I think of the political calculus and I think
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: probably the least consequential, although you should certainly feel free
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: as you often do to disagree with me on this,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: but A good vice presidential candidate needs to be able
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to win a debate. One of the most notably bad
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: VP debate performances came from John Edwards in 2004 when
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: he was up against Dick Cheney. Alyssa, some people have
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: said I have been overly mean to you about the
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: selection of John Edwards by John Kerry, who you worked for.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I would like to just state for everyone who's tweeting
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: us that I am A, not holding Alyssa responsible for it. B,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: thought it was probably the wise decision at the time.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: John Edwards did not reveal himself to be an absolutely
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: horrible human being until after that. And I'm just teasing you.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I wanted Tom Vilsack. I've said it before. I liked
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: him very much. He was my favorite person. Also, people
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: don't need to stick up for me when it comes
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: to you. I obviously hold my own.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. What happened at that debate?
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Or what do you remember about the Cheney-Edwards debate?
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: So I remember everybody thinking that John Edwards with his
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: like beautiful side swept hair was going to knock it
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: out of the park. And he just did like some
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: really ham handed sort of hackneyed things when he got
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to the debate. It's like, this is always my thing
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: that when you look and there's, we'll talk about this later,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: but when someone lands a punch and it seems like
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: they just came up with it, that they can pivot
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: and think on their feet, you're like, damn, that was great.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: But the thing I remember was that he got on
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: stage and tried to talk to Dick Cheney about gay marriage.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Dick Cheney has a gay daughter. He was against gay marriage.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: John Edwards really thought he was going to hit one
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: home with this. One, Dick Cheney was like, get off
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: my stoop, you fly. I'm not even going to talk
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: to you. And John Edwards was also against gay marriage.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: I just, it's like, How is that the move in
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the debate? It just, it didn't, it didn't make any sense.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: He was supposed to come off as like this young, virile,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: you know, I always think of like Matthew McConaughey in
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: A Time to Kill, that that's what he was supposed
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: to be. And he was not, he was not Jake Berganz.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: He was, he was no one.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You're exactly right. There was obviously an expectations problem. John
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Edwards was a very successful trial lawyer and was sort
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of famous for his closing arguments in court before he
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: entered politics. And Dick Cheney was never a politician of
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: great talent. He had mostly worked his way up through government,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: although he did serve in Congress for years. He was
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: secretary of defense. He was Gerald Ford's chief of staff.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: And he was sort of known for being the master
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: of the inside game, which is something we have not
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: talked about in this pod. And, uh, we probably should have,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: was that Dick Cheney ran George W. Bush's vice presidential
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: selection process.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: And picked himself.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And then ended the process by picking himself, which is,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: so maybe he's a master inside politician, but not someone
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: who's particularly charismatic in front of the camera, but he
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: was quite well prepared. And he landed a relatively brutal
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: hit on John Edwards' inexperience and turned Edwards into a
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: version of Dan Quayle there. Let's take a listen.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: You've got one of the worst attendance records in the
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: United States Senate. Now, in my capacity as vice president,
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: I am the president of the Senate, the presiding officer.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: The first time I ever met you was when you
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: walked on the stage tonight.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Dan Quayle, he was also involved in one
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: of the most notorious vice presidential debate moments when he
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: was absolutely owned by Senator Lloyd Benson after Quayle was
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: asked about his experience. Let's take a listen.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: It is not just age, it's accomplishments, it's experience. I
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: have far more experience than many others that sought the
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: office of vice president of this country. I have as
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: with the people in the Bush administration if that unfortunate
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: event would ever occur.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Senator Benson?
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Senator?
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I served with Jack Kennedy.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I knew Jack Kennedy.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Just absolutely brutal.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: So here's the thing about that. Again, I remembered that.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I've used it as a YouTube link on Twitter many
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: times in responding to people. But the thing that made
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: that whole exchange so great is that until last night.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: I thought that that was Lloyd Benson being spontaneous, came
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: up with it on the fly, and just like owned him.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't. His advisors, including Bob Shrum, who my
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: beloved cat was named after, were trying to get him
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: to say this in debate prep for weeks because he
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: was not seen, Benson was not seen as a great debater.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: He was not terribly telegenic in his own view. I'm
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: not judging him. And they were like, this is the winner.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: And so the thing is, he landed it on the
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: one hand. I was a little bummed to know that
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: he didn't come up with it on the fly, but
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: also stoked because he landed it like a champ.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Do you think the vice presidential debate matters at all?
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've just given some examples. I don't think
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you think that Kerry lost in part because John Embers
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: did a terrible job against Cheney and Benson delivered that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: hammer blow, but then the Dukakis-Benson ticket got clobbered. But
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: how impactful do you think it is if it's impactful
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: at all?
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I think if your candidate is strong, if your presidential
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: candidate is strong, the VP debate isn't that impactful. I
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: think if they're not doing great, that how your VP does,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: does maybe sway people more. I mean, like, I think
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: that if Mike Pence, and I mean, he did pretty badly.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I was going to make the argument for having picked
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Pence and that's why they won, but like, it's not,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: people were just really not smart this time around. So no,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think that, I think that it's, it's interesting
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: for us to watch. I think that if George Bush
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: had not been as strong and credentialed as he was, Dan, Dan,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: quail becoming the wide-eyed emoji, like deer in headlights, would
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: have mattered more. But like ultimately, like his wife, Babs,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: said when talking about how really terrified she was of
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Geraldine Ferraro, because Ferraro was so great on the campaign trail,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: but that ultimately people do not vote for the vice president.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: So I think that if Bush had been weaker, had
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: not been as popular, the quail performance might have mattered more.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: But I think it's interesting for people to watch. I
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: don't know that it moves the needle that much. What
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: do you think?
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think it does
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: not matter as much– the debate itself. And I think
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the vice presidential selection overall does not matter as much
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: politically as people who talk about and write about politics
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: for a living tend to suggest. But it can matter
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: in the margins. And I think it's less about how
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: it influences people's choice and it is about momentum because
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the sequence of debates– has been, at least in recent years,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: first debate between the presidential candidates, vice presidential debate, second
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: presidential debate, third presidential debate. And in both the Kerry
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: race and the Obama reelection race, that vice presidential debate
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: mattered some because Kerry had performed very well in the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: first debate against Bush and was seen as having won.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: So if Edwards had performed well, it would have continued
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: their momentum for at least another week or so. But
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: because Edwards got clobbered, it allowed Bush to resuscitate some
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: momentum 2012, Obama did not perform well in the first
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: debate against Romney. He lost that debate.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Hashtag Denver, never forget.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. And our campaign was reeling. And that was
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the first time Romney had had momentum in months and
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: was rising in the polls, was raising more money. Republicans
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: were getting more enthusiastic. And then that Biden-Ryan debate happened.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: And if Biden had done poorly in that debate, it
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: would have given Romney— more momentum heading into the next
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: debate and maybe a better chance at upsetting Obama. It's
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: hard to know exactly how that would work, but it
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: happens at a relatively important juncture and the performance does matter.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: So I think it at least will be something that
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign considers. Now, we take all of this
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and we've been through the readiness question, we've been through
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the governing partnership question, we've been through the politics. And
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to Perry Bacon about what the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: data says, but Alyssa, what does your gut say about
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: how much this decision will actually matter in whether Joe
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Biden becomes president or not. Not what kind of president
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: he'll be, but whether he actually wins the election.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Huh. Here's what I'm going to say. And I say
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: this knocking all the wood in my house. I say
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: it as the person who bought a raincoat before our
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: outdoor election night event in Chicago because I thought by
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: buying a raincoat, I would not jinx us for having
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: this outdoor event. I think that Biden's selection isn't about
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: him winning. It's about by how much he wins. That's
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: what I think.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, that amount of messing with karma.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: I told you, I knocked on everything. I just knocked
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: on my head. Okay. I just, but like, did you
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: want me to lie? That's what I think.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Don't lie to yourself, but make sure you keep karma
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: in the loop of all the plans.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Karma and I are friends.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: The most important parts are about what kind of vice
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: president this person would be. And the politics are actually
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: directly related to that because if you screw up the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: first two questions, it impacts the third question of politics.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: But it does matter on the margins. And close races
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: are won on the margins. And there is lots of
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: reason to believe, despite what the polls say today, that
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: this could end up being a very close race. And
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: so I want to make sure we don't undermine the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: entire purpose of the three episodes we just did by
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: saying it doesn't matter because it does matter. It matters
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course it matters.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Yes. Thank you for listening. This was inconsequential. Once a
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: decision has been made, the final step in the process
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: is telling the world what the decision is. You helped
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: plan both Barack Obama and John Kerry's announcement of their
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: vice presidential picks. What's your recollection of how they did
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: it and whether you thought they were successful?
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: So John Kerry picks John Edwards. He makes the decision
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: over Fourth of July weekend, specifically because he thinks the
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: press isn't going to be paying attention. Again, not a
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: lot of social media back in 2004, so people actually
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: did sort of like quiet it down during the holidays.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: So.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: It's John Edwards. John Kerry makes the announcement on the
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: 6th of July. The event with the Edwards is going
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: to be on the 7th. But we had on the 6th,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: you know, again, like we've talked about, so much of
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: this revolves around private planes and trying to get people
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: around where they need to be. So we had to
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: have a private plane on standby. Couldn't tell the charter
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: company where the plane would be going, which by the
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: way is a very nice charter company, because that's a
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: very difficult thing to do. They had to sign NDAs
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: once we were going to tell them what city they
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: were going to be going to to pick up the
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: person and take them wherever they were going. This was
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: the same in 2008. So John Kerry makes his announcement.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: On the 6th, the press all head over to Georgetown,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: where John Edwards and his very telegenic family are leaving
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: to go to Pittsburgh, where John Kerry and his family
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: are It was really scripted. Edwards was not to talk
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: to the press. No one in the family was to
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: talk to the press. They were just supposed to like
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: look great and wave and get in the car and go.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: So then the next day was like the big, like
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: you made fun of me last time when I said,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: like the big Time Magazine cover kind of day.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Everyone's wearing neutral tones and they look really good and
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: like a beautiful ticket and family that's going to lead
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: the country. We did our big rally with Edwards. And
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: then that was that. And like I said, around that announcement,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: so much of what we were doing was meant to
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: be secret and be a surprise. The people who printed
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: the placards that we have also discussed revealed three different
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: potential choices. The Carrie Gephardt, Carrie Vilsack, Carrie Graham, and
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Kerry Edwards. Even the people who printed those four versions
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: of placards had to sign NDAs because we didn't want
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: them to tell anybody who the final four might be,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: even though the New York Times more than had that covered.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: And then with Barack Obama, we meant a much more
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: sort of trimmed down version because as you know, Barack
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Obama does not like anything that is over the top.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: And the truth is the more over the top, the
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: harder it is to execute well. I know that we
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: told people by text because I read about it, but
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I don't remember it and I don't think I'd signed
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: up for the text, so I didn't get it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: You sent your first text in 2013, if I remember correctly.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Right after you set up my Twitter account.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Now look at me, so prolific. And then Barack Obama,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: we all agreed, obviously all of us had conversations, that
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: without it even knowing if it was going to be
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, I think that we all agreed that the
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: symbolism of bringing it full circle to Springfield, you know,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: where we had launched the campaign, made good sense. And again,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: chartered plane, didn't pick them up in Wilmington, picked them
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: up at some small airport outside of Philadelphia. And Pfeiffer.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: I think there were a lot of Bidens that came
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: with us that day. I think we had a plane
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: full of Bidens, which was a little complicating when you're
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: trying to be like small footprint. But at that point, like,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: you know, people already knew that it was them because
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: we had texted the world about it. And again, like
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: our event, if you look back, it was, ours was
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: much more pared down, much more simple, but still the
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: enthusiasm and excitement that it was meant to garner.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: It did.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: And probably some good fundraising as I recall.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: So the text thing is interesting. So every campaign in
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: recent years has tried to leverage the pending announcement to
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: get people to sign up for whatever their communications method
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: of choice is. So Kerry told everyone he was going
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to announce it by email to get people to sign
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: up for his email list. Oh, I forgot that. By 2008,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: we wanted people to sign up for text because we
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to develop texting relations with as many people as
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: possible to also– You want to get their cell phone
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: number so you can add it to your database. And
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: so you can reach out to them about volunteering, about
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: registering to vote, turning out to vote, all of the above.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: And so we said we're going to do it by text.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: We were going to send the text first thing Saturday morning.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And the event with Biden would be Saturday. But what
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: happened was CNN late, late into the night on Friday
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: night reported that it was Biden. Now, they had sort
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of reported it based– no one in Biden world, I believe,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: had told CNN this. But I think the two other
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: people on the list had been told that they were
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: not going to be it. So sort of by process
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: of elimination. And their desire to keep that secret goes
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: down greatly when they know they're not going to be
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the VP. And so CNN reported it. And we had
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: this– it was a huge debate that was happening among
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the digital team– myself and Plouffe about what we do. Like,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: when do you send the text? Like the thing we
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: cared so much about is we said we were going
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: to be the ones to tell our supporters first, right?
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: We were going to tell them before we told reporters.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: And so under orders of potential firing, basically Plouffe said
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: to all of us on the communications team, you cannot
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: confirm this to any reporter until the text goes out.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: And so I did not go to bed that entire night.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: We eventually made the decision to send the.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Text at 3 a.m.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Because it had become untenable. Now, Romney tried a similar
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: tactic that he was going to announce it through his
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: campaign app, which seemed clever on its face, but really
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: made almost no sense. And then Donald Trump, in a
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: very on-brand way, did something that had no organizational value,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: which is he just tweeted his answer out. So having
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Twitter followers, does that help you win an election? Certainly
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't help you get volunteers and voters. That whole conversation,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: perhaps too long and too boring, about an email chain
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I was on about texts 12 years ago speaks to
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: what campaigns are trying to get out of this. The
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: first and most important thing is they want to grab
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the nation's attention and hold it for as long as possible,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: which is why you preview the announcement, you do the announcement,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: then you kick it off with some sort of bus
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: tour or boat tour or some sort of planes, trains,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: or automobiles tour across America with the two of them
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: because that'll get coverage. The other thing is you want
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: to leverage it for organization, which is why you do
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: things like get people to sign up for texts and emails.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: But Alyssa, I have to ask you, as the person
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I described as the foremost living expert on the vice
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: presidential selection process, you have planned two of these announcements.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: What advice would you give to the Biden team about
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: how they were to make this announcement when this decision
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: has been made?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So I obviously have thoughts. I leave the social media
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: stuff to you, like how you would maybe like tee
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: it up and actually communicate the choice. So if I
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: were to do the event for Joe Biden and I
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: were going to tell him what to do, one, we
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: are in July. August 2020 is the 100th anniversary of
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: the ratification of the 19th amendment, giving women the right
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: to vote. He is picking a woman. This is some
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: low-hanging fruit. I would include it in my announcement in
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: some way, at least if it only means waiting until
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: August 1st to say this month is so important and
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I'm acknowledging it and this woman is going to be
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the first woman to be vice president. I think that
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: would be important. The thing that you want to communicate,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: which will be hard and will take some finessing, is
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: like momentum and excitement and enthusiasm. And I think that
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: that will be very hard if they can't have a crowd,
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: which they more than likely cannot have a crowd when
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: they do the announcement, do some like big energetic speech.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: So if I were the Biden campaign, and if they
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: want to hear more, they can just tweet at me.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I would go for something really beautiful and symbolic and
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: something that's just going to like take people's breath away.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know. This might sound trite, but honestly, it's
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: when I was thinking about it, this was the first
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: thing that came to mind. If you have Joe Biden,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: I in downtown Manhattan or New Jersey, and you have
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: the Statue of Liberty in the background, and they do
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: like a very serious speech about the future of America
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: and why this is such an important pick, such an
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: important election, I think it could be really powerful and
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: beautiful and symbolic. The Statue of Liberty is a statue.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: And so Donald Trump obviously will have feelings about that.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: But I think that that's what I would do. I
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: think that if I'm Biden, you're all the things in
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: your announcement that Trump is not. You are dignified. You
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: are a statesman. You are doing an event that is
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: about you, but more about the country and sort of
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: like a path forward. I think that's probably what.
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: I would do.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, per usual, that's super interesting and super smart.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: It is both totally and logistically impossible to have the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: sort of traditional enthusiasm images that are around these picks, right?
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Like huge crowds for Obama and Biden, huge crowds for
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Kerry and Edwards and Pittsburgh. Like that's traditionally what you do.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: And then you get off on a bus tour and
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you go places like that's not available to you. So
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I think you're right to swerve in the exact opposite direction,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: which is be serious, right? But I think like, you know,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: maybe this is a situation where you either you find
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the sort of beautiful backdrop that you talk about without
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: a crowd, you know, or even a COVID version of
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: a crowd, or you do it in front of flags, right?
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I think that Biden has done a lot of things
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: with that traditional flag backdrop, which is supposed to signify
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: to the viewer and to the press, like this is
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: a serious speech, right? On a campaign, you put the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: flags up and you're doing a serious speech. And these
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: are serious times. So doing it that way is good.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: The other two thoughts I had is one, you would
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: probably do a gazillion joint media interviews right off the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: bat because the only way you're going to be to
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: reach people is by being seen everywhere and often. And
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: oftentimes like the sequence of this is you wait a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: week and do a joint 60 minutes interview is sort
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: of it. But now like you just got to jump
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: in and do all of it because you can't tour
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the country like you normally would in a lot of
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: local press. And the other thing is Because of the
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: sort of email, Twitter, campaign app, text sort of tempo
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: we've been on with campaigns, there's going to be a
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: lot of really terrible digital ideas. Like they should announce
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: it on TikTok.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, no, no.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Do it over IG Live. And I think that is
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: totally off, right? If there is a clever way, like
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: certainly have people sign up for text because you want
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to continue to build that database and other things like that.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: But I don't think there is some super snazzy thing
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: to do. Like these are serious times as a serious election.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Well, and also I just think it's like not a
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: medium that Biden would be comfortable in, right? Like that's why,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: whether it's the flags or my statue of liberty idea,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: I have some others I'll share with you later that like,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: you need something where he feels like completely great in
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: his skin. And like, but it's like, there is the
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: fear that, you know, there's going to be some wacky
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: digital ideas that, I mean, we should just put in
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: the in the trunk until after the good announcement's over.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're all craving the normalcy of campaigns and
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: those aren't coming and we should give that up because
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't fit with what we're doing right now.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: When we come back, I'm going to talk to FiveThirtyEight's
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Perry Bacon. I'm now joined by Perry Bacon Jr., a
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: senior writer at FiveThirtyEight. Perry, thanks for coming on. That's
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the ticket.
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me, Dan.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on. We've known each other
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: for a long time, but you wrote a great piece
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: titled The Debate Over Biden's VP Pick is Full of
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Half-Truths and Misleading Arguments, which I guess we could say
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: that is true of most debates in politics now. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: in that article, you divide sort of the three main
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: schools of thought.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: And I want to sort of go through those with
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: you and talk about the data underlying them and what
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: is really at stake here. So let's do these one
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: at a time. So I want to one of the
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: schools of thought you talk about is something called basically
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the Warren school of thought, right? People who want Elizabeth Warren.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: How do they make their argument and what data is
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: there to back it up?
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: So the piece was kind of trying to argue that
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: everybody's making an electoral claim about why their preferred candidate
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: is best. But in reality, the electoral claim was often
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: more contested versus there's a clear sort of ideological other claim.
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: So the Warren claim, it was in other words that
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: basically she is the most popular candidate with Democrats overall,
• 53:55
  Speaker 7: and that she is particularly the most candidate with younger people,
• 53:57
  Speaker 7: and that she is more popular than Kamala Harris with
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: younger black people. And I think there is some evidence
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: for those things. If you poll Democrats generally and ask
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: them who is the most popular VP candidate, Warren is
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: generally ahead of that. I mean, it's not fair to
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: Keisha Bottoms, because Keisha Bottoms didn't run for president. So
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: Her name ID is obviously much lower. But it does
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: suggest Warren and Kamala did run for president, and Warren
• 54:23
  Speaker 7: tends to be a little more popular than her. And
• 54:25
  Speaker 7: when you break that down in terms of black voters,
• 54:27
  Speaker 7: because we're having this sort of proxy debate on whether
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: you need a black VP or not, and the numbers
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: tend to show that Warren and Kamala are basically even
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: among black voters, and you ask them, who do you
• 54:37
  Speaker 7: want to see as the VP? And when you break down,
• 54:40
  Speaker 7: there's a few polls that have showed younger black voters.
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: And for those polls often are younger people of color.
• 54:47
  Speaker 7: And it tends to be that Warren is more popular
• 54:49
  Speaker 7: than Harris among that group. And that's a relevant group
• 54:53
  Speaker 7: because all the data we've seen that has really broken
• 54:56
  Speaker 7: down black voters suggest that Biden is really strong with
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: the over 45 crowd. and sort of weak with younger
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: black voters, really those under 30. So if the biggest
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: electoral weakness for Biden potentially is younger people and maybe
• 55:12
  Speaker 7: younger people of color, the case might be for Warren
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: more than Harris particularly. Abrams tends to do well in
• 55:20
  Speaker 7: these younger people of color polls too. I don't want
• 55:23
  Speaker 7: to make too much of these surveys because, again, Susan Rice,
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: Keisha Bottoms, and Val Demings did not run for president
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: and do not have high name ID in that way.
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: So I think it's a little unfair to them. But
• 55:33
  Speaker 7: in terms of the Warren-Kamala debate, I think the broader
• 55:36
  Speaker 7: point here might be that we should not assume that
• 55:39
  Speaker 7: black voters necessarily favor or are deeply inclined toward a
• 55:44
  Speaker 7: black VP any more than other Democrats are.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: So that gets me to your second group, which is
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the case for a black woman on the candidate. As
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: we've talked about on previous episodes of That's the Ticket,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Biden has pledged to pick a woman. And the question is,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: is it going to be a woman of color, specifically
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: a black woman? And you wrote in the piece that
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: there's some evidence that black turnout goes up when there's
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: a black candidate on the ticket. But some of that
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: data is contested. Can you explain what you mean there
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and what the data shows?
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: So a lot of.
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: Political scientists have looked at like city council, state legislator, mayor,
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: and house. Because there's just not a lot of black
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: people that have run for senator or governor or president, obviously.
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: So in those races, in general, like mayor, city council, house,
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: the races where we had lots of black candidates. In general,
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: black turnout goes up slightly if there's a black candidate
• 56:36
  Speaker 7: running compared to a white candidate. There are some scholars
• 56:41
  Speaker 7: who say that evidence has been overstated a little bit,
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: and they say that that's a little bit more, that's
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: not as confident as we think it is, and it's
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: a little bit more, and it may relate more to
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: the first round of black candidates who ran for things
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: in the 70s and 80s, and may be less clear
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: now that we've had more rounds of black candidates. In
• 56:59
  Speaker 7: other words, like the first time people got to vote
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: for a black person, they were very excited by that,
• 57:04
  Speaker 7: and that may explain some of those studies. But those
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: studies are of a black candidate running for office and
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: the black candidate themselves. Another thing worth noting, of course,
• 57:13
  Speaker 7: is that we had a black presidential candidate run in 2008, 2012.
• 57:17
  Speaker 7: And black turnout in the U.S. was about 65 percent
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: in 08 and 2012. It was around 60 percent in
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: 2004 and 2016. So at the presidential level, a black
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: candidate who's, you know, this one man at least was
• 57:31
  Speaker 7: inspiring to black voters in a unique way. The challenge
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: here is that we don't necessarily have much evidence for
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: what does a black running mate do for a white candidate,
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: because we really had never had that studied any real
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: way before. The other challenge is that we have five people,
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: and it's not clear that we can, even if you
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: say you want to have a black woman to increase
• 57:57
  Speaker 7: black turnout, we have five different black women we're talking
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: about here. Val Demings, Kamala Harris, Keisha Bottoms, Stacey Abrams,
• 58:06
  Speaker 7: Susan Rice. I like Susan Rice. I respect Susan Rice.
• 58:09
  Speaker 7: I'm not sure Susan Rice would show up here and
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: tell you she's going to increase black turnout. She's never
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: run for office before. I'm not sure she would be
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: confident to say that. Versus Stacey Abrams has run for
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: governor in a state full of black people. And Kamala's
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: from California. Keisha Bottoms has never run statewide. So even
• 58:26
  Speaker 7: if you said there's some kind of black female or
• 58:30
  Speaker 7: black turnout effect, I think it'd be hard to argue
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: it's the same for all five women in a similar way.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, one of the challenges here is, I mean,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: certainly on the national level is it's a sample size
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: of one, right? And a sample size of zero when
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: it comes to the running mate. This might be an
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: unfair question because it wasn't fully addressed in your piece,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: but is there any sense of how running mates have
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: affected turnout in the past, whether it's among certain groups? Obviously,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: we have two examples of women being on the national ticket.
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: So for women, it did not.
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: You know, there was not a effect in terms of
• 59:09
  Speaker 7: turnout or in terms of vote percentage with Geraldine Ferraro
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: or with Sarah Palin. Now, those are not great examples either, though,
• 59:16
  Speaker 7: because those are sort of Hail Mary picks where the
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: person was sort of losing and trying to get some
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: kind of big buzz. There is some evidence that Palin
• 59:26
  Speaker 7: helps slightly with evangelicals in 08, sort of boosting McCain
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: with evangelicals. So the other evidence we have on vice
• 59:35
  Speaker 7: presidents is, and this is a little contested as well,
• 59:38
  Speaker 7: but the general evidence is that you get two to
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: three points in your home state. by picking a person
• 59:45
  Speaker 7: for vice presidents, meaning Amy Klobuchar might get Biden two
• 59:49
  Speaker 7: more points in Minnesota. So in general, VP effects are
• 59:52
  Speaker 7: very contested. But there is some small evidence. But again,
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: I don't think there's a strong evidence we can say
• 59:59
  Speaker 7: much about black or Latino VPs for those groups, because
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 7: we've had no black or Latino VP nominees.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Then the third group you talk about is the not
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Warren group, right, which essentially argues that Elizabeth Warren would
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: be either because she's too progressive or too polarizing or
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: whatever the case these people are making, saying that she
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: would be a net negative on the ticket because of
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: some set of voters that Biden might be targeting. Can
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you explain that?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: So this part of the piece was a little bit
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: less electoral, but I basically made the case and, you know,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: I respect Amy Klobuchar. I was maybe a little mean
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: to her, but I made the case that when she
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: went on that night and said, we must pick a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 7: woman of color because of what's happening in the world.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: We need to heal the country right now. I think
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: there are a fair amount of like more centrist Democrats
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 7: who are sort of uncomfortable with Warren because they disagree
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 7: with her own policy. And so they prefer a more
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: moderate person. Kamala is more moderate. Susan Rice is more
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 7: moderate in their view. And I guess what I was
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: hinting at is that maybe that they are sort of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: using the woman of color case to sort of knock
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: down somebody they disagree with. In terms of would Warren
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 7: hurt the ticket, we've seen a lot of polls that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 7: have sort of compared Biden, Warren, Biden, Harris, Biden, Klobuchar.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: And those polls have all showed pretty similar results. And
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 7: most of the ones I've seen have showed Warren, Biden
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 7: doing the best. But I think that might be, again,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: because Warren has higher name ID. But there's just very
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: little evidence in the data right now that Warren would
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: kind of drag down the ticket. I know it seems
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: conceptually obvious that Warren is more left. So you might
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: lose kind of more centrist people who like Biden will
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 7: be turned off by her. We just don't see that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 7: in the numbers yet. And I think that might be
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 7: because people sort of know the vice president is not
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: driving policy. And so they might be fine with someone
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: for vice president who they might have been nervous about
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 7: for president.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, just this may seem patently obvious to someone
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: like you who is steeped in the data, but can
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: you explain the relationship between name ID and how one
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: of these candidates might be doing in these hypothetical vice
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: presidential polls?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: In general, in polls, like, you know, if you listen
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 7: to Pod Save America, particularly if you read 538, you
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 7: probably know who Keisha Bottoms is. You might know who
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: Val Demings is. You definitely know Elizabeth Warren is. But
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 7: a lot of voters, a lot of people when we poll,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: even Democrats, do not know who these people are. So automatically,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: if you ask Democrats for who should be the VP
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: and you include Keisha Bottoms and Val Demings and you
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 7: include Warren and Harris, it's a little bit unfair because
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 7: most of the polls show Warren Harris ran for president,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: and Warren was very famous before that. So they have
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 7: about 90% of Democrats in most of these polls know
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: who Warren and Harris are. When we're talking about Keisha Bottoms,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: you're talking about, I think one of the surveys I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: saw showed like 30% of Democrats had heard of her.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: And that may be changing as she gets more coverage.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 7: But when you have that amount of disparity in terms
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 7: of name ID, Of course Warren is going to be
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: the favorite. Even among black Democrats, most black people who
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: do not know who Keisha Bottoms is. So in that sense,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 7: these polls are showing of the people who have heard
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 7: of Keisha Bottoms, she's doing pretty well. But if you're
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 7: asking people at random on a phone call, do you
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: support Warren for VP or this person you've never heard of,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: they will say Warren.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: This sort of gets to the larger point of your piece,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: which is that the data is quite hypothetical at best, right?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Anyone can find any piece of data to make their argument.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Anyone who is picked as the vice presidential nominee, whether
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: it is Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, or Keisha
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Lance Bottoms, or Val Demings, or Susan Rice, that person
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: is going to have 100% name ID seven days after
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: they are picked. And it will dramatically change how it
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: is viewed, right? Right. But the other element of this is,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: We've only had a pretty small number of presidential elections
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: over a long period of time in American history, and
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: politics has changed pretty fast. So this is quite theoretical
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: at best. Would you say that?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: So the piece was trying to say, and look, 538
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: is a part of this more than anybody else, probably.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 7: The piece was trying to say, everybody is arguing about
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: the VP process through sort of electoralism with these sort
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: of claims about our guy's going to be better for
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 7: this kind of voter, our guy's going to do this.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: And I was sort of saying, we don't really know.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: We have a tiny amount of evidence for these VP claims.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 7: Why don't we calm them down slightly? And my argument was,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: A lot of the black people who are saying black,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: like Jim Clyburn is saying we need a black person
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 7: and he's hinting at black turnout. But I think Jim
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: Clyburn really wants to see a black woman on the ticket.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: He thinks, and a lot of black women think, forget
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: about electoral politics. We do everything possible for this party
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: every four years, every two years. Why don't you guys
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 7: give us something? And Kamala Harris, particularly Kamala Harris is
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 7: very extremely qualified. We have a Black female senator who
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: ran for president and ran a credible campaign. If the
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: Democratic Party wants to show it values black women, here's
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 7: a way you can do that. So that's the case
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 7: they're really making. When you get to the centrist, what
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 7: they're really saying is, look, this is a country that
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 7: is centrist. We want to have a centrist person kind
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: of on deck for president after Joe Biden. We don't
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: want Elizabeth Warren as our person next. And then the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 7: left part of the party is saying, look, you guys
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: pick Biden. We've eaten Biden already. Can you at least
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: give us something for VP that'll get us excited? That's
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: what's really going on. We're having sort of a shadow boxing.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 7: And Dan, you would say this, every debate in Washington,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: the whole time we were there, people were masking their
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: own views through electoralism. So this is nothing new. And
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 7: it's sort of annoying at times. But I was just
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: trying to make sure for people who are not plugged
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 7: into this, here's like what's really going on is what
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: we always do to 530.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 6: And that's what I was trying to get at.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that's hard, like there
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: is an incredibly strong case for representation, right? Not just
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: for payback for previous support, but because it is a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: very important way at which we can move the country forward, right? And,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we, Alyssa and I had a long conversation
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: about Geraldine Ferraro's vice presidential candidacy and what that meant
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: for a whole generation of women. You can imagine how
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: a black woman being on the national ticket would obviously
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: change perceptions very quickly for a large number of people
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: about what was possible in this country. You know, like
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: obviously we can't know what will happen with turnout.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: But then there's this other question that I think has
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: been changed by what's happened in America in the last
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: few months, which is what if Biden doesn't pick a
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: black woman?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Like, what is that conversation look like? And do you
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: think everything that has happened over the last few months
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: with our sort of national reckoning with structural racism changes
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: the backdrop for that decision for Biden?
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 7: This is the hardest question I've been thinking about because
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: if you look at the polls, even post-George Floyd protests,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: black people are not demanding a black VP. If you
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 7: look at the polls, do you care about having a
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: black VP? a black person of color or a black
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: running mate, black voters are sort of like 30% say
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: very important, the rest say somewhat important. It's not like
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 7: black people are opposed to it, but it's not as
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: if they're sort of driving. So it's a weird norm
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 7: to say we have to have a black VP because
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: the question almost assumes the black VP is for black people, right?
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 7: And maybe I'm wrong, but I think it sort of
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: assumes that, and I don't think that's exactly right. And
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 7: if you went to one of these protests, and I
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 7: respect Kamala, but if you go to these protests, you're
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 7: not hearing people say, let's send the prosecutor to the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 7: White House.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: That's not exactly the message they're giving.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: So even if you say black, you know, even if
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: we really have to sort of, to me, we have
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 7: to zone in on, even if we say it might
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 7: be a moment for a black woman, we have to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 7: pick one of these people still. And I don't know,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: and I think the moment is going to be complicated
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: for Val Demings or Kamala because of what the protesters
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 7: are really protesting in some ways is how law enforcement
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 7: treats black people, and they have some concern, some of
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: them have real concerns about what Kamala has done in particular,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: and they probably would not be excited about Val Demings,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 7: who was a sheriff as well.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 6: So I think that complication is there.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: At the same time, it is the Democratic Party, the
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 7: party where, like when Biden promised there would be a woman,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 7: that was a nod to the Democratic Party as a
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 7: party that is majority female. In the same way, the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: Democratic Party is about 40% non-white.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: And so even.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 7: Before George Floyd, I would argue it was going to
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 7: be awkward for the party that literally talks about its
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 7: diversity all the time to have two white people. And
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 7: I do think, and it might be one of the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 7: things where I would actually say that a lot of
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 7: white Democrats I talk to really don't want to see
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 7: an all-white ticket. It may be that I think in
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 7: some ways, I try to think more about diversity in
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 7: this way, which if you see these polls, we now
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 7: have the Democratic Party is not just black people demanding
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 7: diversity and white people sort of, standing there. You increasingly have,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 7: I think, a lot of white Democrats to be as
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: uncomfortable as black Democrats to be more uncomfortable with an
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 7: all-white ticket than black people are.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I remember seeing polling in the primary
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: that showed white liberals the most uncomfortable with a mostly
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: white Democratic field at the end. And then black voters
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: overwhelmingly supporting Joe Biden, who is most definitely white. And so, like,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: it is definitely more complex than that. I do think.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: One more thing on this, just briefly, is that black
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: voters are somewhat nervous about electability, and they're focused on that.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 7: And if I went down to South Carolina, my guess
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: is I would find that black voters are nervous that Kamala...
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 7: or a black woman on the ticket will help Trump.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: Black voters have a deep cynicism about their fellow Americans,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 7: racial views, and are nervous that their fellow Americans may
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 7: not be excited about having a black woman on the ticket.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 7: Like they, that is part of what's going on here
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 7: is black voters see Warren as white and the other
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: people is not. And they think that, and I've heard
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: this discussed that Warren is safer and I don't agree
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 7: with this. And I think the, I don't think the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 7: data supports that, and you guys won twice. I think
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 7: that fellow black people are overly pessimistic about the racism
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 7: in the country, but I'm not going to convince them
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 7: of that. And I think that is underlining this as
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 7: like a black person is a risk. Look how they
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 7: treated Barack.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Perry Bacon, thank you so much for joining us on
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: That's a Ticket. I hope everyone reads your article. It
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: was super fascinating and really helps us explain what we
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: know and what we do not know about what this
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: decision means politically.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 7: And just to finish, I wanted to say this at
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 7: the start, but I covered politics all this time. I've
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 7: covered politics 20 years. I met a lot of people
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: who are very smart. I met a lot of people
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 7: who– I met a lot of people who weren't that smart,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: who just were famous because their daughter went to Yale
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 7: Law School to have you I would say this, like
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 7: I've been excited about Dan doing this because I covered
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: the Obama campaign. I covered the Obama White House. Dan
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 7: did not always love my coverage. And Dan at times
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: was quite honest about that.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 6: But usually he was right.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 7: And often he and whenever we talked, I learned a
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: lot about politics from Dan because Dan is one of
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 7: the smartest people. people I know. I'm not saying this
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: on the podcast. Dan is one of the sharpest people
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 7: I know about politics. I'm excited to be on. I'm
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 7: excited he's doing this. I think people have learned a
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: lot from his thoughts these last four years. So thanks
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: for having me, Dan. I appreciate it.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Well, Harry, that was very, very nice of you. And
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: I apologize for how direct my honesty was at times,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: even when it was sometimes both the product of not
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: being caffeinated enough in the morning when I sent the
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: email and being overly crabby. So thank you so much.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: All right, Alyssa, I'm going to give you a choice.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: You ready for this?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: You can do one of two things here for our
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: listeners on this, the series finale of That's the Ticket.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: You can either give us your guess for who you
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: think Joe Biden will pick, not who you think he
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: should pick, but who you think he will pick, or
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: you can right here and now reveal the name of
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: the flatulent contender to be John Kerry's vice president.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: Buddy, you know that I could never do that because
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: that would be uncool. And the whole reason that anyone's
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: ever given me any good shit to do in my
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: life is because I'm discreet. Not anymore, but I was
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: back then. So I have to maintain my oath to
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: John Kerry of being discreet. So I will tell you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: that I think Joe Biden is going to pick Susan Rice.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Whoa, what a pick.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: We'll see if you're right. Thanks for listening. What do
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: you mean? What about you?
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: Don't you hang me out to dry, you motherfucker. Oh,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: it's all fun and games. Let's just have Alyssa walk
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: the plank.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the plan.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: No, it's not the plan. People want to know what
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: you think.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: I have to be honest. I feel very hesitant to
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: do this for two reasons. One, I gave up predictions,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: like very explicitly, like it's actually the entire theme of
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is that we're out of the prediction game.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: So I have some discomfort with that. But since I
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: walked you down this plank, I feel like I should
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: also jump in the deep end. If I had to
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: guess based on no insider knowledge with no opinion on
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: whether this is the right pick or the wrong pick
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: and the context that I think that there is no
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: one on the list, on Joe Biden's list, as we
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: understand it, that would be a bad selection. If I
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: had to guess what Joe Biden would do, I would
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: guess that he would pick Kamala Harris.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll see if one of us is right. Also,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: all the caveats you said applied to what I said,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: but I just didn't use that much air to buffer
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: myself around a potential karmatic bad pick.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Per usual, you accomplish a lot more than me in
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: less time.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: L-O-L-O-L. All right, everyone.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to That's the Ticket.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: It has been a blast talking to you all about
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: the vice presidential selection process. And Alyssa, we can't wait
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: to talk to you again on Pod Save America after
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: this choice is made.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: I cannot wait. Hopefully it is soon.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: Bye, everyone.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: videos every week.