Identity Politics vs. Political Analysis.

Would Tammy Duckworth, junior senator from Illinois, be a credible candidate as Vice President, able to serve as President on a moment's notice should Joe Biden drop dead in office or otherwise become physically incapacitated and unable to serve?

Pundits don't answer those questions when they are playing identity politics.  But these are the honest questions to ask (and answer) before hiring somebody for the job.  From the Chicago Tribune:

For a presidential candidate, the choice of a running mate is the first true example of presidential decision-making, a statement on the candidate’s values and agenda. For Biden, who is 77 years old and may serve only one term, the pick largely will be viewed as a potential successor.

“You really have to start by saying, ‘Would reachable voters perceive this person as being a plausible president?’” said Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and the author of two books on the vice presidency.  ...

Duckworth’s powerful personal story, quick rise through Democratic politics and deep understanding of military and veterans issues are countered by some political drawbacks.

She doesn’t have a long legislative track record of accomplishments. She’s run only one statewide race and never a national campaign. She is not from a battleground state. And while as a Thai American she is a woman of color, many Democrats believe Biden should choose a Black woman as the nation confronts a history of systemic racism following the police killing of George Floyd.

Among many in the Washington beltway class, Duckworth isn’t top of mind in a group that includes former presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. The same holds true nationally, with a recent New York Times/Siena poll finding Duckworth is unknown by 72% of voters.

Still, the senator from suburban Hoffman Estates remains among a select group of seven or eight candidates to have submitted records and sit for interviews with the campaign staff, according to various reports.

“I don’t know where she fits in,” Democratic strategist David Axelrod said of Duckworth’s place in the quadrennial veepstakes.   The Chicago political veteran, who was an architect of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, worked as the media strategist on Duckworth’s first 2006 campaign and backed her successful 2012 House bid.

I also think, given the exodus of residents from Illinois who simply cannot afford the HUGE property tax increases in places like Cook County, and the status of the state as almost bankrupt (were that even an option for states...), has soured many voters on Dem politicians from that state.

Mr. Axelrod sold us before on a junior senator from Illinois.  Wonderful campaign -- uplifting, full of hope and promise -- but in the end, the potential that we thought there simply could not deliver.  Barack Obama's work as a religious-grant-funded community organizer in the South Side neighborhoods was for naught.

His track record passing relevant legislation in the Illinois Senate, or during his one-term as Illinois' junior senator in the U.S. Senate, simply was not up to muster for both the black and white working-class communities.

I don't think we'll do that again.  We need to look at job performance to date, who has the skills, and who simply has a wonderful personality and connections.  Smart voters are rejecting the latter, and closely examining the former.  Often, independent research is needed, because so many journalists today are choosing to abdicate their primary jobs as fact providers ferreting out information with their reporting,  preferring to work instead inside the mainstream news business as political advocates helping Dem candidates that David Axelrod is pushing...

Fool me once, shame on me.
You won't fool me again and put an underqualifed candidate with a great background-uplift story in to do a job that their skill set and experience have not yet qualified them to do.  That's the case?  Just stick with Trump... he fights.

You certainly don't have to be a war veteran, a paraplegic or a combat warrior to understand that.  I mean, it's not like Duckworth ever got captured and held as a POW or anything, like John McCain, who rode that background history for years as a poorly performing politician from Arizona.  Time have changed, and John McCain also had that white privilege, and family connections, working for him...

SMART MONEY SAYS:
If the Dems really want to win, the VP pick will be Elizabeth Warren.  But she's not black.  And she's offputting to the very demographic she claims she wants to help:  Working-Class White Men (and Black Male Workers too).   That dig -- "if he can find one" won't go away.  But... her economic programs, sadly, are what such workers might need to survive in the cutthroat capitalistic country today, that encourages growing inequality between those Lucky Privileged and those not working, through no choice of their own...

Were I Joe Biden, I'd pick the best qualified candidate, within the constraints (must be a biological woman) that I have already locked myself into.  That person is not Tammy Duckworth.

Meanwhile, were I President Trump's people?  I'd listen to the economists who say, you need to WORK WITH CONGRESS to address the economic uncertainty that workers face come July 31.  Yesterday, Congress decided to extend for five weeks the small-business loan money, to try and get the remaining billions distributed to the country where there is growing need...

But what of the workers, told to stay home and with no plausible job opportunities on the horizon in these pandemic days?  Cut them off?  Evictions, mortgage defaults, car repossessions, failure to pay bills...

The money should flow to those who need it, not those on an extended summer vacations with money to burn, expecting the "essential workers" to provide for their needs on a pittance while they stay home and play all day...  Reality matters.  Workers do too.

There's a million identity-politics background stories out here, one for every displaced worker.  No need to hype Tammy Duckworth's victimhood to gain sympathy votes.  Have pity instead on the people wo are relying on these Congressional reps to do their jobs for the American people.  They simply cannot get any timely relief, that would let them sleep securely at night, and focus on stability -- their own, their communities, their families.

Some simply have too much in this country, and their privileges are not earned.  Pay the people who do the real work -- the necessary jobs -- and have the track record of positive performance to show for it? They've worked hard and actually earned it, and likely did not travel to China or Europe and bring back a virus that infected others, more risk-averse and less willing to expose the country as the globetrotters who believe they deserve the best of ALL worlds, because they are special, it seems...

ADDED:

Duckworth recounted how Vice President Biden called her after she won a second House term in 2014.  “It was this voice, ‘Tammy, it’s Joe. How ya doin?’ Joe? ‘Yeah, you know, the vice president.’ I told him, ‘Mr. Vice President, why are you calling me?' There were bigger and more critical races ... It wasn’t exactly a nail biter, and he says, ‘No, you did a great job, and I just wanted to say thank you,’” Duckworth recalled. “That’s just the way he is. He calls you and chats. I think I have a very warm relationship with him.”

He calls and chats, even when the phone call recipient directs him to bigger, more critical races.  The power of the paraplegic over the performers involved in the more competitive, "nail biters"?  That's just Joe.  You really want him driving when the roads aren't smooth up ahead, America? "He calls you and chats..."  Really, how is that helping the party, the country or its citizens to advance?

Joe Biden represents a return to the stagnant, status-quo, do-nothing-Ghost of Congress Past...  If you're benefitting under that systematic structure, by all means, try keeping what you have.  I understand.  It's hard to be competitive, and let go of those ingrained privileges and advantages.  "He calls you and chats..."