Some anxious political observers wonder why Joe Biden is allowing his running mate search to go on for longer than planned and whether the delay will harm his eventual pick’s profile. But the messy end-stage selection could be more of a feature, rather than a bug, of the selection process.
Biden is reportedly interviewing the top contenders in his shortlist of potential running mates this week. That puts him about a week behind the previously expected schedule. Months ago, Biden said that he would announce a running mate around Aug. 1. Last week, Biden said that his pick would be announced in the first week of August. Now, sources say that announcement will come in the second week of the month.
Meanwhile, the knives are out among Democratic insiders hoping to prop up their preferred choices, and the delay leaves more time for negative stories to come out about their favored picks.
California Rep. Karen Bass, a previously low-profile contender who has shot to the top of the list of likely candidates, spent the weekend responding to negative stories about her records. On Sunday, she distanced herself from positive comments that she made about Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Earlier in the weekend, she responded to footage unearthed by the Daily Caller in which she addressed the Church of Scientology.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California, on the other hand, is the subject of what some call a sexist “shadow campaign” against her. Some donors and Biden advisers worry that the former Biden competitor is so ambitious that she will focus more on her post-Biden presidential ambitions than on being his close confidant and adviser.
“It’s extremely disappointing, because many of these attacks … are being made by Democratic men who should know better,” former interim Democratic Party Chairwoman Donna Brazile told the Washington Post about the swipes between candidates.
But the flood of negative attention should not necessarily be a worrying sign, according to Cesar Conda, who was Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2014. Conda helped Rubio complete the vetting process when he was being considered to become 2012 Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney’s running mate. He also worked on the 1996 Dole-Kemp campaign and had insight into that selection process.
“At this point in the game, it’s all about managing expectations and ensuring that every constituency comes away thinking that their candidate was thoroughly considered and had a legitimate shot,” Conda said. “From what I can see from the outside looking in, Biden has run a good VP selection process so far.”
Conda said that based on his own experience on the Republican side in 2012, he expects that the formal “vetting” of candidates is over by now and the remaining steps are more political and personal.
“They have pored over all the information and data that they need. They have interviewed candidates multiple times,” Conda said. “Biden and his team have probably narrowed their list down to two to three choices [and] are floating names to test the political and media reaction.”
That means that, in a sense, the less-than-positive stories could be part of the last steps of the process by design rather than a side effect of a delay in the process.
The delay in choosing a running mate could be easily explained by the Biden campaign hoping to keep attention and excitement about the pick through the party’s national convention, which starts on Aug. 17.
According to a Bloomberg analysis, it is the norm rather than the exception that presidential nominees announce their running mates less than a week before the national convention.
President Trump announced Mike Pence as his running mate three days before the 2016 Republican National Convention, Hillary Clinton announced Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate three days before the Democratic National Convention.
“The presidential candidate wants to generate excitement right before the convention,” Conda said.
Observers’ anxiety about the delay in a running mate selection could be more of a result of the coronavirus throwing the presidential campaign into the background of politics and current events.
Even aside from the global pandemic, the time between Biden becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee fairly quickly in April, and the party’s national convention rescheduled to mid-August is longer than some observers are accustomed to. Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2016 and Clinton the Democratic nominee-in-waiting in June, and both parties held their conventions in July that year.
