In March 2016, Hillary Clinton was still struggling in her primary against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Still, we know the contest was basically rigged for Clinton, with Democratic National Committee staffers openly hostile toward Sanders.
With the fix already in (and even if it wasn’t, it’s never too early to start considering possible vice presidential picks), Team Clinton needed to start looking for her running mate. In a March 17, 2016, email sent to Clinton staffers, her campaign chairman John Podesta sent out a list of potential VP picks, which he organized into “rough food groups.”
What, exactly, rough food groups means is anyone’s guess right now, but it’s clear from the lists that potential candidates were separated into groups by race and gender.
The first group of candidates included California Rep. Xavier Becerra (Podesta misspelled his name as “Javier”), Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Labor Secretary Tom Perez and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Notice anything about all the names in that group? They’re all Hispanic.
Podesta’s next group was made up of women senators. It included Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Claire McCaskill (Podesta misspelled her name as “McKaskill”) of Missouri, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
The third group consisted of all white men and included Clinton’s eventual VP pick, Tim Kaine. Also in the group was Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico (Podesta misspelled his name as “Heinreich”), Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Next came the African-American group. Here Podesta included Columbia, S.C., Mayor Stephen Benjamin, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (Podesta misspelled his name as “Corey”), Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
Podesta also had a small group of potential VP picks with military experience: retired Marine Corps four-star Gen. John Allen, retired Navy Adm. William McRaven (Podesta misspelled his name as “McCraven”) and retired Navy Adm. Mike Mullen.
Then there was a mixed group that seems to be made up of rich business people. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
Way down at the bottom of the list was a single name all by itself: Bernie Sanders.
I wonder what “food group” Podesta would label each category of potential veep picks. This is also not the first Podesta email oddly discussing food that was found in the illegally obtained trove of WikiLeaks emails.
Last week, we discovered Podesta had sent a staffer his secret to creamy risotto.
Imagine if Republicans had so blatantly grouped their veep picks together like this. Cries of “racism” and “sexism” would abound.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
