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

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

On the third, and final, installment of That's the Ticket, Dan and Alyssa talk about what factors a candidate has to consider once they've vetted potential VPs, how the vice presidential announcement process has evolved over time, and finally who they think Biden will pick. Dan also talks to Perry Bacon Jr., a senior writer from FiveThirtyEight, about what polling does and doesn't tell us about the impact of a VP pick.

Is that your cat? Yes, I shouldn't have woken him up. Sorry, that's kind of... No, no, no, I'm just joking. He would have done it anyway. I just threw Pfeiffer. And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco. On today's episode, we're going to talk about what factors candidates consider once they have vetted potential options, how they announce their decision, and who we think Biden might

pick. Along the way, we're going to talk about Dan Quayle's gaffes, so much material there, and some of the most memorable moments in vice presidential debate history, as well as some more of my campaign trail antics. Later in the pod, I'm going to talk to senior writer at FiveThirtyEight, Perry Bacon Jr., about what the polling tells us and doesn't tell us about the politics of Biden's choice. Alyssa, how you doing? I mean, buddy, first, can we talk about last episode? Sure.

And how last week, you know, we talked about Sarah Palin and we talked about Geraldine Ferraro, and we really talked about like Ferraro being picked as the first, you know, Democratic woman on a Democratic ticket. And Buddy, her daughter, Geraldine Ferraro's daughter, Donna Zaccaro, tweeted at us and sent us messages about how we did right by her mom and telling the story. And I just don't know if we should just fold it up and call it a day now because I'm not sure we can do better than that. Well, we have a lot of people who have joined us in this Zoom room to help us facilitate this episode. So I think out of respect for them,

we should probably do it. I guess so. But I can just tell you, baby feminist Alyssa was really cavelling. Every process is different. But I think every modern nominee considers the same set of factors in the running mate choice. Now, they may weigh each of those factors differently based on the state of their

campaign, their own experiences, the backdrop in which the campaign is happening, but they still look at those factors. And first and foremost, I think among all those factors is a threshold question of readiness for the job. And Joe Biden has already indicated that this is driving his decision. He's been saying some version of this for the past couple of months. Let's take a listen. But all kidding aside, I have to pick somebody who in fact reassures people that if tomorrow lightning strikes and I die, I get get and I've released all my medical records and I'm in, well, I don't want to jinx myself as my mother said, knock on wood, I'm in great shape.

But my point is I've got to pick somebody who everybody looks at and meets two criteria. One, that they are younger than I am. No, I'm not being facetious. And number two, that they are ready on day one to be president of the United States of America. Alyssa, given Joe Biden's age and the fact this campaign is happening in the middle of a pandemic, do you think the readiness factor is even more important this time? When sworn in, knock wood, as Joe Biden would say, he'll be 78, knock wood as Joe Biden would say he'll be 78 which is not young and he follows probably one of the most no I feel confident saying the most unfit president of all time so I think that this has to be do you mean mentally or mentally or physically both I mean I'm not sure which on a scale of one to ten which he might be a 10 on both scales. I don't even know. He does not seem fit to me in any way. So I think that for Biden, readiness has to be numero uno. Like,

I don't think he has the luxury of making a real outside the box pick here. I think he needs someone who when he announces this woman, I don't even have to say person, I can say woman. When he announces this woman, everyone's like, I fucking get it. Good for you. And when he announces this woman, everyone's like, I fucking get it. Good for you. Readiness is an interesting question in a world in which we are coming on the heels of two presidents with very non-traditional resumes. Barack Obama, very successful. Donald Trump, less so, I'd say.

There's a question of readiness in terms of their resume and readiness in terms of their ability to convince the American people who are going to be choosing this ticket of their readiness, right? The most obvious example of a VP candidate who failed the readiness test was Sarah Palin. We've talked a lot about her on the pod, and you probably remember Tina Fey's impression of her. But it wasn't just liberals and the writers at SNL who thought she was unprepared. In an October 2008 poll shortly before the vice presidential debate, a Washington Post-ABC news poll found that 60% of voters thought that Palin did not have the experience needed to be president, including 30% of Republicans. Now, what I think is really notable about that is her resume was not significantly on paper worse than Obama's. The public here is reflecting

what they saw of her between when she was announced in August and when this poll was in October. Now, someone who our younger listeners may not remember as well is Dan Quayle, who was viewed as spectacularly dumb and unprepared for the job of president when he ran with George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 1992. His most famous gaffe today is probably misspelling potato on camera in a classroom full of elementary school students in 1992. But this was just one of his many fuck-ups. Here's Dan Quayle talking about World War II. Millions of innocent people lost their lives because of the bigotry and Hitlerism that permeated Germany and other parts of the world. It was an obscene period in our nation's history.

No, not our nation's, but in World War II. We all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history, we did not have, matter of fact, we fought Hitlerism, which was a totalitarian form of government. Alyssa, I consider you a student of history. Do you remember Hitlerism? So, buddy, I was just going to say that from now on, whenever I'm feeling like I can't find my words on a podcast, I'm just going to listen to that and get my self-esteem back because he was ready to be vice president. I don't remember Hitlerism, neither does my Oma, who lived in Germany and fled people called Nazis. I mean, Boyle is really interesting, and it speaks to how your performance on the campaign trail dictates perceptions of readiness, right? He had served about four times as long in the United States Senate as Barack Obama did when Barack Obama ran. But because under the clique lights of a presidential campaign, he misspelled the word potato in front of a group of elementary school children, he had this perception that he was not ready. Now, Bush and Quill ultimately won the 88 election,

right? So does that raise the question about whether, at least in terms of the context of the politics of the campaign, we worry too much about the readiness question? I don't think we worry too much about it. I mean, one thing that I just can't forget, one thing that I did not know until getting ready for today, I knew about the potato comment and that he couldn't spell it. I didn't know that it happened at a spelling bee, which I just thought was very incredibly just dramatic and makes it so much worse.

But no, I think that readiness, when you look at Quail and when you look at Palin, there's something about on paper, and I think this is what goes to the point that we've been talking about, about how important the vetting process is, is that on paper, people can look much more prepared for higher office than they are. But what the two of them lacked profoundly was any sort of worldview, right? Or like fundamental curiosity and how things worked or people lived or I don't know. But I think that people don't necessarily vote for the vice president, but I think a vice presidential pick can scare the shit out of them.

Yes, I think that's exactly right, which is Barack Obama always refers to his selection of Joe Biden as the most important decision he made before becoming president. And because it says so much about their judgment, their vision of how they're going to run their government, what they value. And when it looks like you're taking a shortcut, voters notice, right? So Palin's a great example, which is there was an interview where Mark Salter, who was McCain's super longtime advisor, chief of staff in the Senate for many years, helped explain the Palin decision. And he said, and I'm paraphrasing Mark here, but that Obama personified change and McCain did not. So they needed to add something to the ticket that demonstrated change. And Sarah Palin certainly would do that. Now, change for change's sake is not good necessarily, right? And maybe they should have thought that through. which was already under question because of his incredible unyielding, despite years of evidence

for the Iraq war, that he would choose someone who would potentially help him on the campaign now at the expense of what kind of government he would have if he won. And voters noticed that, and it fit within a narrative of McCain, which was that he had bad judgment and erratic decision making process. When you say it's a vetting issue, right, I think what you're really saying, correct me if I'm wrong, is you're talking about the judgment that Biden will eventually make and Biden's advisors will make about how they will perform once they are on Broadway on the ticket, right?

Right. Anyone can look at the resume. And I think on every person who, you know, if you look at the people on Biden's shortlist, you have, you know, incredibly successful senators, senators who have served in statewide office. You have people who have run cities. You have people who have been, you know,

national security advisors to investors, the UN to president, like people with a wide range of different experiences, all of which have more experience than Donald Trump. But the question isn't really, will people look at the resume? It's will they look at the candidate when they are on stage and say, this person is ready. The choice of this person by Joe Biden tells me that Joe Biden is someone whose judgment I will trust in a crisis. Is that right? Yeah. And also like when you think about it, a very low bar hurdle could be how would this person do in an interview with Katie Couric? Because neither Dan Quayle or Sarah

Palin were ready for primetime. You know, like George Bush was so, I mean, his credentials were extraordinary. And when he picked Quayle, it was almost seen by some people in the Republican Party and certainly commentators and especially people in the United Kingdom, they had a lot to say about this, that it was such a cavalier choice that he viewed himself in such a way that he picked this person who would just seem like young and virile. It is important, I think, in the quail and pale. These are two very different elections happening at two very different times. McCain was a Republican senator following a Republican president with an approval rating under 30%. I always joke that George W. Bush

was so unpopular in the 2008 election that his speech at the Republican convention was canceled because of a hurricane in Florida, even though the convention was in Minnesota. And then they never rescheduled it. So it's like, that's how Bob was. And Bush was following Reagan, who was still quite popular after two terms. But there's also the factor that men with thin resumes get the benefit of the doubt in a way that women do not, right? Correct. So that level of misogyny is going to obviously underlie the reception to Biden's pick, right? Which obviously will be a woman. There are two other elements of the quail example that I think are relevant to this

election, which is, as you point out, George H.W. Bush was one of the most experienced people to ever run for president, right? He had been vice president for two terms. He had been a senator. He had been the CIA director. He'd served in a number of positions all throughout government. He had a very expansive resume. So there were no questions about his readiness. And he was obviously, while not a spring chicken, he was significantly younger than Biden. But there were two points during that campaign where Bush fell ill, not seriously ill, but ill enough to be off the campaign trail, which raised the specter of a quail presidency. Like George H.W. Bush, Biden has an impeccable set of, quote unquote, traditional experiences preparing for the job. I mean, he worked in that building for eight years, not very long ago, even though it feels like a thousand years ago.

But also, this is happening feels like a thousand years ago. But also, this is happening in the middle of a pandemic. And so the specter of illness will hang over this choice. Now, I think of readiness as a gating issue, right? The campaign just says, does this person meet a threshold on paper? And is it in our gut that they have what it takes to demonstrate that readiness to the American people on the campaign trail, in interviews, on a debate stage? Can they answer a question about newspapers, all the basic things? And I think the second factor people think about is governing, right? When I think of governing, this is sort of what is the governing relationship going to look like? This is projecting forward to if and when I win, how is this relationship going to work? There are two different elements of that.

One is, what is their vision for the role the vice president plays? And then which of your, on your shortlist fits within that role? And the second one is personal relationship, right? Like, do you feel like you can trust this person? But, you know, there's been a lot of speculation that Biden wants to replicate the partnership in relationship that he had with Barack Obama. You know, what was your recollection of that model and how do you think it applies here? So theirs was a real partnership, but a hierarchical partnership because the president is the president. And once the president makes a decision, you need someone who is going to help inform that decision and be a partner in the decision. But once he makes the decision,

that's that. And so from all of Biden's years in the Senate, like I think he fundamentally understood hierarchical relationships. And POTUS really wanted someone who was going to be a partner. So if you are someone who's on Biden's shortlist and you're trying to think about the kind of relationship he might want, I think it would be just like a real partnership. Can you talk a little bit about the role that lunch plays and how that relationship works? So Joe Biden very much thought it would be good for the president and Biden to have lunch once a week together. And when you think about it, no matter who you are, if you don't pick your best friend, I mean, obviously, if I ran for president, you would be my vice president. And, you know, but we have known each other for so many years.

I fundamentally understand our relationship and your decision making style. And so the idea between the two of them having lunch was one building that relationship, coming to understand each other and also being able to, I think, especially for Biden, give his sort of unvarnished feedback, not in front of a room full of cabinet secretaries. Here's my very important question about this lunch. And I don't know if you know the answer, which is Barack Obama, Barack Seven Almonds Obama, is a very, very healthy, boring eater. Like he eats salmon like for lunch lunch like six days a week. Do you think he made Biden eat salmon for lunch six days a week or did Biden get to order off the menu? So I think Biden got to order off the menu because unless it was like a big or group lunch usually, because I do think POTUS was somewhat aware of his eating intricacies, that I believe I'm going to say that Biden ordered off the menu,

though, because he was such a good partner, he may have always just said, I'll have what the president's having. Biden has been described as, I think, accurately as the most influential and consequential vice president in American history. And that is unusual, right? The vice presidency traditionally has been a ceremonial position in some cases. You know, John Nance Gardner, who was one of FDR's vice presidents, once described the vice presidency as worth a warm bucket of piss, which I always thought that that quote was warm bucket of piss, which I always thought that that quote was warm bucket of spit.

It was. It was. But I've learned through the very excellent research skills of our producer, Jordan Waller, that the press, he actually, Garner actually said piss, but the press cleaned it up to spit to make life easier for Garner. And because I don't think he probably couldn't get piss in the newspaper back then. A literal example of fake news. One thing that was interesting about the Biden-Obama negotiations we've since learned is that Biden wanted to be in charge of some things. Obviously,

he did a lot of the ceremonial stuff that vice presidents do. They're sort of famous for being sent to funerals for second and third tier world leaders. They often are, you know, if the president can't do something, he'll send the vice president. And so he did all those things, obviously, and did it gladly. And he spent a lot of time campaigning and doing other things when he wasn't in office. But he was tasked with very specific projects that he ever saw, right? He came in and because of his experience in the Senate, he really handled passing a lot of our legislative agenda through the Senate and handled negotiations with Republicans. He was in charge of Iraq policy, right? He was spearheading that as we were figuring out

how we're going to wind down the effort in Iraq. He was in charge of the Recovery Act, right? The stimulus bill to help get us out of that. And my assumption is, is that Biden is looking for someone who can do that, right? Who we can say, and he says in some of these quotes, the presidency is too big for one person. So you need someone who can take on real things and drive them. And so the question is, you think about, well, which of these candidates will he pick? Depends on which they, you know, which we don't have the answer to is which things does he want to be able to hand off to someone else, right? Like, much like Obama hand the economic recovery off to Biden, if Biden wanted to do that, then like you see

Elizabeth Warren as someone who's worked in economic policy. If he wants to hand off foreign policy with Susan Rice, you know, it could be any range of issues, including the economy with Kamala Harris. You sort of go on down the line. But the third factor that is looked at is politics. Now, I think based on that quote we heard from Biden earlier, that is the thing I think he's going to consider least, right? And the more he goes up in the polls, I think politics as a factor may diminish more. But the political factor, this is a campaign and you can't do any of these other things. You can't have lunch with this person every week in the Oval Office. You can't assign them projects until you win. So winning remains part of the conversation.

And there are a number of ways in which the politics of this are considered. Will a VP nominee help them carry a state, the VP's home state? Will the VP nominee help the ticket gain support from specific constituencies? You know, how will they handle the debate? So let's start with the first one, right? In the traditional way you think about this, and it's talked about, they say, Biden should pick this person because they will help deliver this state, which will get you closer to 70. Alyssa, is there any evidence that supporting the idea

that a VP selection helps with winning their home state? And this was part of the calculus for John Kerry when he picked John Edwards and you're working on that process. Is that correct? It was. And when I was thinking about this, I always like to think like, what's my first reaction to a question when I ask myself the question? And my response to myself was, meh, when I asked if states matter. John Kerry, like most of his finalists in 2004 were from battleground or soon to be battleground states. There was a lot of talk about whether John Kerry, back in 2004, the idea of writing off the South, I'm putting that in quotes, was still a thing. And so the appeal of John Edwards was one that by picking a Southerner from North Carolina who had working class appeal,

it wouldn't seem as though he was going to write off the South. And also there was this allure that perhaps, you know, John Edwards could help Kerry win North Carolina. John Kerry lost North Carolina by 15 points. So I don't think that there's real, if you go through history, I don't think there's any example of there really being someone who was picked and put the candidate over the top in a state where they already weren't within a couple points or any points at all. I mean, this is such a hard thing to judge because it's such a small sample size, right?

We've had so few presidential elections and only some subset of those presidential elections involve a vice presidential candidate from a swing state that could possibly move. And then how do you decouple that from the other larger factors? Like, for example, in 2008, Barack Obama won Wisconsin by around 15 points. In 2012, Romney put your friend and mine mine, Wisconsinite Paul Ryan on the ticket. And although he still lost Wisconsin, he lost it by about half the margin that Obama won the state by in 2008. You might look at that and say, well, Paul Ryan must be super popular in Wisconsin, and therefore he helped move the state.

But then in 2016, Donald Trump won the state and Paul Ryan was nowhere to be seen. And so Paul Ryan probably had almost no effect on that. And what was going on there was more about the partisan shift of that state over time. Now, putting aside states, because if you look at the people Biden is considering, you have Tammy Baldwin, who was from a swing state, right? You have Stacey Abrams and Keisha Lance Bottoms, who are from Georgia, which is a potential swing state. Stacey Abrams, obviously, even though she did not become governor, has got more votes in Georgia than any Democrat in history, including Barack Obama in her 2018 gubernatorial race,

which was stolen from her by Brian Kemp. Fuck that guy. Yeah. Yes. But everyone, you know, Elizabeth Warren is not, Biden's going to be fined in Massachusetts. You know, Val Demings, you know, maybe that's impactful in Florida, you know, not super well known with, you know, statewide, let alone nationally. But, you know, there is a question about whether this person could help performance with a certain group. Do you think that's something Biden will consider, and particularly against the backdrop of the conversation we're having in this country over the last couple months about structural

racism? I think it definitely plays into the conversations that they're having within the Biden team and then with candidates as they talk to them. that they're having within the Biden team and then with candidates as they talk to them. But even still, if you look back to the beginning, I mean, and by the beginning, I mean the 1980s, Geraldine Ferraro, first woman on the Democratic ticket. We lost women by a lot.

Hillary Clinton put Spanish-speaking Tim Kaine on the ticket. She did less well with Latinos than Barack Obama did. So I think that you have to put everything in its place. I do think that all of the things that are happening in the world right now are very relevant to the conversations they're having. But at the end of the day, the world has to believe the ticket, right? When they come out on stage or wherever the fuck they are, people have to be like, I get it because their chemistry like

makes sense and you can see it. And I think that that gives people confidence that they're going to be a team. And so it's like, if you go back, you know, all of Romney's advisors told him to pick Portman because there was actually a chance of gaining the two or three points in Ohio with Portman to have won him the state. And he was like, you know what, though? If I have lunch with someone, I want it to be Paul Ryan. And I do think, though, that he didn't beat us, but it was more, it was believable.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That is right there disqualifying. What? If you believe that you want to have lunch with Paul Ryan- Oh my God, I thought you meant I was disqualified. No. Oh no.

You can stay. I got so upset. But if Rick Romney scanned the waterfront and he picked his weekly lunch partner to be Paul Ryan, then I am sorry, you are not, you are less fit for the office of president. Let me tell you another thing. If you pick a running mate with ill-fitting suits, you reap what you sow. Or you pick a running mate if you are already losing because

you were seen as someone who was not sufficiently empathetic to middle and working class Americans, and you pick a person who is most famous for naming a plan to privatize Medicare after themselves, then you reap what you sow. I am sorry. I don't mean to turn this into a Paul Ryan rant pod. All true. All true. And I think you get to what is a very important part of the politics of this, which is you can be overly tactical about it by saying, you know, this person can help us with this state and that doesn't manifest itself. This person can help us with this group of voters. And it doesn't, as it did not for Mondale and Ferraro or McCain and Palin. You know, it has mattered some. I think there's some evidence that Trump's selection of

Mike Pence might have helped serve as a validation for evangelical voters who might have been confused at the imperative to support a thrice married pussy grabber, uncouth person. I said it, you didn't. Yes. Yes. I can't wait till we debate whether that can be the title or not. But there is narrative, right? And this is part of where the politics is, does it help with the narrative? And what's the narrative you want to communicate? So let's look at a couple of previous examples, right? In the case of Barack Obama, obviously, he was someone with less traditional experience. He was going to be taking over at a time in which America was in two wars and was barreling towards a financial crisis. Joe Biden, certainly compared to the

other two people on the shortlist, Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine, represented the most standard governmental experience, particularly in the area of foreign policy. In the case of Al Gore, the Al Gore one is really interesting because he picked Joe Lieberman, which seems insane now that Joe Lieberman has become who he is. But at the time, in that campaign, Al Gore was someone whose reputation had been sullied by association with a number of Clinton scandals, some fake and generated and some certainly real, including the one that led to Clinton's impeachment. And he went and picked Joe Lieberman, who was the Democrat who had been most vocally critical of

Bill Clinton, was seen by many as the moral voice in the Senate. And it was a pick that was designed to communicate to voters that Al Gore was breaking with some of the aspects of the Clinton presidency that they did not like. Are there any narratives you can think of that Biden would be trying to establish here? If there was one issue a 77-year-old white man might have, it might be with women. And so he's already sort of approached and tried to tackle that problem by saying, ladies, I hear you and I see you. But there's a lot more. ladies, I hear you and I see you, but there's a lot more. And so I think that while Biden himself,

look, like everyone understands this election is about an existential threat to like the country and the world, but Biden still has to motivate people to get out and vote because that's important. And so I think that while Biden knows that he himself does not come across as any sort of change agent, and he is not the future facing face of the party, I do think that if there's one thing that he's thinking about is like, who do I pick that can understand and speak to the change that needs to happen in this country? And who is someone that can help lead the party forward? There's a couple of directions that Biden can go here, right? Any good campaign narrative is a implicit counter narrative for the person you're taking on. So you can see a world where Biden decides that he's going to double down on government

competence, right? We've had this Yahoo reality TV star who can't even be bothered to do the job in there for the last four years. And look where that's gotten us, an economic depression and a pandemic that has made America the embarrassment of the world. So you're going to pick someone with tremendous amount of government experience. You could go with sort of what you said, which is bridge to the future, where he's going to say that, I recognize that I am older, I am a transitional figure, and I want my vice president to be the future, right? And a whole bunch of people on

that list would fit that criteria. You could say, I want to double down on Obama nostalgia, right? Where it's like, you're going know, it's sort of make America great again, circa 2008 to 2016. And, you know, do something else. There's a whole bunch of different ways he can do it if he wants to focus on that. Now, the last part, I think, of the political calculus, and I think probably the least consequential, although you should certainly feel free, as you often do, to disagree with me on this, but a good vice presidential candidate needs to be able to win a debate. One of the most notably bad VP debate performances came from John Edwards in 2004 when he was up against Dick Cheney. Alyssa, some people have said I have been overly mean to you about the selection of John Edwards by John Kerry, who you

worked for. I would like to just state for everyone who's tweeting us that I am A, not holding Alyssa responsible for it. B, thought it was probably the wise decision in the time. John Edwards did not reveal himself to be an absolutely horrible human being until after that. And I'm just teasing you. I wanted Tom Vilsack. I've said it before. I liked him very much. He was my favorite person. Also, people don't need to stick up for me when it comes to you. I obviously hold my own. There's no doubt about that. What happened at that debate? Or what do you remember about the Cheney Edwards debate? I remember everybody thinking that John Edwards with his like beautiful side swept hair was going to knock it out of the park. And he just did like some really ham handed sort of hackneyed things when he got to the debate.

It's like this is always my thing that when you look and there's we'll talk about this later. But when someone lands a punch and it seems like they just came up with it, that they can pivot and think on their feet, you're like, damn, that was great. But the thing I remember was that he got on stage and tried to talk to Dick Cheney about gay marriage. Dick Cheney has a gay daughter. He was against gay marriage. John Edwards really thought he was going to hit one home with this. One, Dick Cheney was like, get off my stoop, you fly. Like, I'm not even going to talk to you. And John Edwards was also against gay marriage. I just, it's like, how is that the move in the debate? It just,

it didn't, it didn't make any sense. He was supposed to come off as like this young, virile, you know, I always think of like Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill, that that's what he was supposed to be. And he was not. He was not Jake Berganz. He was no one. You're exactly right. There was obviously an expectations problem.

John Edwards was a very successful trial lawyer and was sort of famous for his closing arguments in court before he entered politics. And Dick Cheney was never a politician of great talent. He had mostly worked his way up through government, although he did serve in Congress for years. He was Secretary of Defense. He was Gerald Ford's Chief of Staff. And he was sort of known for being the master of the inside game, which is something we have not talked about in this pod, and we probably should have, was that Dick Cheney ran George W. Bush's vice presidential selection process and then ended the process by picking himself. So maybe he's a master inside politician, but not someone who's particularly charismatic in front of the camera. But he was

quite well prepared, and he landed a relatively brutal hit on John Edwards' inexperience and turned Edwards into a version of Dan Quayle there. Let's take a listen. You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate. Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of the Senate, the presiding officer.

I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight. Speaking of Dan Quayle, he was also involved in one of the most notorious vice presidential debate moments when he was absolutely owned by Senator Lloyd Benson after Quayle was asked about his experience. Let's take a listen. It is not just age, it's accomplishments, it's experience. I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Senator Benson? Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. Just absolutely brutal.

So here's the thing about that. Again, I remembered that. I've used it as a YouTube link on Twitter many times in responding to people. But the thing that made that whole exchange so great is that until last night, I thought that that was Lloyd Benson being spontaneous, came up with it on the fly and just like owned him. And it wasn't. were trying to get him to say this in debate prep for weeks because he was not seen, Benson was not seen as a great debater. He was not terribly telegenic in his own view. I'm not judging him. And they were like, this is the winner.

And so the thing is he landed it on the one hand, I was a little bummed to know that he didn't come up with it on the fly, but also stoked because he landed it like a champ. Do you think the vice presidential debate matters at all? I mean, we've just given some examples. Like, I don't think you think that Kerry lost in part because John Embers did a terrible job against Cheney and, you know, Benson delivered that hammer blow.

But then the Dukakis-Benson ticket got clobbered. But do you think, like, how impactful do you think it is if it's impactful at all? I think if your candidate is strong, if your presidential candidate is strong, the VP debate isn't that impactful. I think if they're not doing great, that how your VP does, does maybe sway people more. Not doing great that how your VP does does maybe sway people more. I mean, like, I think that if. Mike Pence.

And I mean, he did pretty badly. I was going to make the argument for having picked Pence and that's why they won. But like, it's not people were just really not smart this time around. So, no, I don't think that I think that it's it's interesting for the vice president. So I think that if Bush had been weaker, had not been as popular, the quail performance might have mattered more. But I think it's interesting for people to watch. I don't know that it moves the needle that much. What do you think? Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think it does not matter as much, the debate itself.

And I think the vice presidential selection overall does not matter as much politically as people who talk about and write about politics for a living tend to suggest. But it can matter in the margins. And I think it's less about how it influences people's choice, and it is about momentum. Because the sequence of debates has been, at least in recent years, first debate between the presidential candidates, vice presidential debate, second presidential debate, third presidential debate. And in both the Kerry race and the Obama reelection race, that vice presidential debate mattered some because Kerry had performed very well in the first debate against Bush and was seen as having won. So if Edwards had performed well, it would have continued their momentum for at least another

week or so. But because Edwards got clobbered, it allowed Bush to resuscitate some momentum. 2012, Obama did not perform well in the first debate against Romney. He lost that debate. Hashtag Denver, never forget. And our campaign was – yes, exactly. And our campaign was reeling, and that was the first time Romney had had momentum in months and was rising in the polls, was raising more money. Republicans were getting more enthusiastic. And then that Biden-Ryan debate happened.

And if Biden had done poorly in that debate, it would have given Romney more momentum heading into the next debate and maybe a better chance at upsetting Obama. It's hard to know exactly how that would work, but it does. It happens at a relatively important juncture, and the performance does matter. So I think it at least will be something that the Biden campaign considers. Now, we take all of this, and we've been through the readiness question, we've been through the governing partnership question, we've been through the politics. And I'm going to talk to Perry Bacon about what the data says, but Alyssa, what does your gut say about how much this decision will actually matter in whether Joe

Biden becomes president or not? Not what kind of president he'll be, but whether he actually wins the election. Huh. Here's what I'm going to say. And I say this knocking all the wood in my house. I say it as the person who bought a raincoat before our outdoor election night event in Chicago, because I thought by buying a raincoat, I would not jinx us for having this outdoor event. I think that Biden's selection isn't about him winning. It's about by how much he wins. That's what I think. I mean, that amount of messing with karma. I told you I knocked on everything. I just knocked on my head. Okay. I just, but like, did you want me to lie? That's what I think. Don't lie to yourself, but make sure you keep karma in the loop of all the plans.

Karma and I are friends. The most important parts are about what kind of vice president this person would be. And the politics are actually directly related to that because if you screw up the first two questions, it impacts the third question in politics. But it does matter on the margins. And close races are won on the margins. And there is lots of reason to believe, despite what the polls say today, that this could end up being a very close race. And so I want to make sure we don't undermine the entire purpose of the three episodes we

just did by saying it doesn't matter, because it does matter. It matters a lot. Yeah, of course it matters. Yes. Thank you for listening. This was inconsequential. Once a decision has been made, the final step in the process is telling the world what the decision is.

You helped plan both Barack Obama and John Kerry's announcement of their vice presidential picks. What's your recollection of how they did it and whether you thought they were successful? So John Kerry picks John Edwards. He makes the decision over Fourth of July weekend, specifically because he thinks the press isn't going to be paying attention. Again, not a lot of social media back in 2004. So people actually did sort of like quiet it down during the holidays. So it's John Edwards. John Kerry makes the announcement on the 6th of July. The event

with the Edwards is going to be on the 7th. But we had on the 6th, you know, again, like we've talked about, so much of this revolves around private planes and trying to get people around where they need to be. So we had to have a private plane on standby, couldn't tell the charter company where the plane would be going, which by the way is a very nice charter company because that's a very difficult thing to do. They had to sign NDAs once we were going to tell them what city they were going to be going to to pick up the person and take them wherever they were going. This was the same in 2008. So John Kerry makes his announcement. On the 6th, the press all head over to Georgetown where John Edwards and his very telegenic family are leaving to go to Pittsburgh where John Kerry and his family are. It was really scripted. Edwards was not to talk to the press. No one in the family was to talk to the press. They were just supposed to like look great and wave and get in the car and go. So then the next day was like the big, like you made fun of me last time when I said,

like the big Time Magazine cover kind of day where everyone's wearing neutral tones and they look really good and like a beautiful ticket and family that's going to lead the country. We did our big rally with Edwards. And then that was that. And like I said, around that announcement, so much of what we were doing was meant to be secret and be a surprise. The people who printed the placards that we have also discussed revealed three different potential choices. The Carrie Gephardt, Carrie Vilsack, Carrie Graham, and Carrie Edwards.

Sack, Cary Graham, and Cary Edwards. Even the people who printed those four versions of placards had to sign NDAs because we didn't want them to tell anybody who the final four might be, even though the New York Times more than had that covered. And then with Barack Obama, we meant a much more sort of trimmed down version because as you know, Barack Obama does not like anything that is over the top. And the truth is, the more over the top, the harder it is to execute well. I know that we told people by text, because I read about it, but I don't remember it. And I don't think I'd signed up for the text. So I didn't get it. You sent your first text in 2013, if I remember correctly. Right after you set up my Twitter account.

That's right. Now look at me, so prolific. And then Barack Obama, we all agreed. Obviously, all of us had conversations that without it even knowing if it was going to be Joe Biden, I think that we all agreed that the symbolism of bringing it full circle to Springfield, you know, where we had launched the campaign, made good sense. And again, chartered plane. Didn't pick them up in Wilmington.

Picked them up at some small airport outside of Philadelphia. And Pfeiffer, I think there were a lot of Bidens that came with us that day. I think we had a plane full of Bidens, which was a little complicating when you're trying to be like small footprint. But at that point, like, you know, people already knew that it was them because we had texted the world about it. And again, like our event, if you look back, it was ours was much more pared down, much more simple, but still the enthusiasm and excitement that it was meant to garner. It did. And probably some good fundraising, as I recall. So the text thing is interesting. So every campaign in recent years has tried to leverage the pending announcement to get people to sign up for whatever their communications

method of choice is. So Kerry told everyone he was going to announce it by email to get people to sign up for his email list. Oh, I forgot that. By 2008, we wanted people to sign up for text because we wanted to develop texting relations with as many people as possible. And also, you want to get their cell phone number so you can add it to your database. And so you can reach out to them about volunteering, about registering to vote, turning out to vote, all of the above. And so we said we were going to do it by text. We were going to send the text first thing Saturday morning. And the event with Biden would be Saturday.

But what happened was CNN late, late into the night on Friday night reported that it was Biden. Now, they had sort of reported it based – no one in Biden world, I believe, had told CNN this. But I think the two other people on the list had been told that they were not going to be it. So sort of by process of elimination, you know, and their desire to keep that secret goes down greatly when they know they're not going to be the VP. And so CNN reported it. And we had this, it was a huge debate that was happening among the digital team, myself, and Plouffe about what we do. Like, when do you send the text?

Like, the thing we cared so much about is we said we were going to be the ones to tell our supporters first, right? We were going to tell them before we told reporters. And so under orders of potential firing, basically Plouffe said to all of us on the communications team, you cannot confirm this to any reporter until the text goes out. And so I did not go to bed that entire night. We eventually made the decision to send the text at 3 a.m. because it had become untenable. Now, Romney tried a similar tactic that he was going to announce it through his campaign app, which seemed clever on its face, but really made almost no sense.

And then Donald Trump, in a very on-brand way, did something that had no organizational value, which is he just tweeted his answer out. So having Twitter followers, does that help you win an election? Certainly doesn't help you get volunteers and voters. get volunteers and voters. That whole conversation, perhaps too long and too boring about an email chain I was on about texts 12 years ago, speaks to what campaigns are trying to get out of this. The first and most important thing is they want to grab the nation's attention and hold it for as long as possible, which is why you preview the announcement, you do the announcement, then you kick it off with some sort of bus tour, boat tour, some sort of planes, trains, or automobiles tour across America with the two

of them, right? Because that'll get coverage. The other thing is you want to leverage it for organization, which is why you do things like get people to sign up for texts and emails. But Alyssa, I have to ask you, as the person I described as the foremost living expert on the vice presidential selection process, you have planned two of these announcements. What advice would you give to the Biden team about how they were to make this announcement when this decision has been made? So I obviously have thoughts. I leave the social media stuff to you, like how you would maybe like tee it up and actually communicate the choice. So if I were to do the event for Joe Biden and I were going to

tell him what to do, one, we are in July. August 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. He is picking a woman. This is some low-hanging fruit. I would include it in my announcement in some way, at least if it only means waiting until August 1st to say, this month is so important, and I'm acknowledging it, and this woman is going to be the first woman to be vice president. I think that would be important. The thing that you want to communicate, which will be hard and will take some finessing, is like momentum and excitement and enthusiasm. And I think that that will be very hard if they

can't have a crowd, which they more than likely cannot have a crowd when they do the announcement, do some like big energetic speech. So if I were the Biden campaign, and if they want to hear more, they can just tweet at me. I would go for something really beautiful and symbolic and something that's just going to take people's breath away. I don't know. This might sound trite, but honestly, when I was thinking about it, this was the first thing that came to mind. If you have Joe Biden either in downtown Manhattan or New Jersey, and you have the Statue of Liberty in the background and they do like a very serious speech about the future of America and why this is such an

important pick, such an important election. I think it could be really powerful and beautiful and symbolic. The Statue of Liberty is a statue. And so Donald Trump obviously will have feelings about that. But I think that that's what I would do. I think that if I'm Biden, have feelings about that. But I think that that's what I would do. I think that if I'm Biden, you're all the things in your announcement that Trump is not. You are dignified. You are a statesman. You are doing an event that is about you, but more about the country and sort of like a path forward. I think that's probably what I would do. I mean, per usual, that's super interesting and super smart. It is both totally and logistically impossible to have the sort of traditional enthusiasm images that are around these picks, right?

Like huge crowds for Obama and Biden, huge crowds for Kerry and Edwards and Pittsburgh. Like that's traditionally what you do. And then you get off on a bus tour and you go places like that's not available to you. So, you know, I think you're right to swerve in the exact opposite direction, which is be serious, right? But I think like, you know, maybe this is a situation where you either you find the sort of beautiful backdrop that you talk about without a crowd, you know, or even a COVID version of a crowd, or you do it in front of flags, right? Like that, like Biden, I think that Biden is on a lot of things with that traditional

flag backdrop, which is supposed to signify to the viewer and to the press, like this is a serious speech, right? On a campaign, you put the flags up and you're doing a serious speech. And these are serious times. So doing it that way is good. The other two thoughts I had is one, you would probably do a gazillion joint media interviews right off the bat, because the only way you're going to be to reach people is by being seen everywhere and often. And oftentimes, like the sequence of this is you wait a week and do a joint 60 minutes interview is sort of it. But now like you just got to jump in and do all of it because you can't tour the country like you normally would in a lot of local press. And the other thing is, because of the sort of email, Twitter, campaign app, text sort of tempo we've been on with

campaigns, there's going to be a lot of really terrible digital ideas. Like they should announce it on TikTok. Oh, no, no, no. Do it over IG Live. And I think that is totally off, right? If there is a clever way, like certainly have people sign up for tax because you want to continue to build that database and other things like that. But I don't think there is some super snazzy thing to do. Like these are serious times as a serious election. Well, and also, I just think it's like not a medium that Biden would be comfortable in, right? Like that's why whether it's the flags or my Statue of Liberty idea, I have some others I'll share with you later that like you need something where he feels like completely great in his skin. And like but it's like there is the fear that, you know, there's going to be some wacky digital ideas that I mean, we should just put in the in the trunk until after the good announcements over. in the trunk until after the good announcement's over.

I mean, we're all craving the normalcy of campaigns, and those aren't coming, and we should give that up because it doesn't fit with what we're doing right now. Okay, when we come back, I'm going to talk to FiveThirtyEight's Perry Bacon. I'm now joined by Perry Bacon Jr., a senior writer at FiveThirtyEight. Perry, thanks for coming on. That's the ticket. Thanks for having me, Dan. I wanted to have you on. We've known each other for a long time. But you wrote a great piece titled The Debate Over Biden's VP Pick is Full of Half-Truths and Misleading Arguments, which I guess we could say that is true of most debates in politics now. But in that article, you divide sort of the three main schools of thought.

Right. And I want to sort of go through those with you and talk about the data underlying them and what is really at stake here. So let's do these one at a time. So I want to one of the schools of thought you talk about is something called basically the Warren school of thought, right? People who want Elizabeth Warren. How do they make their argument and what data is there to back it up? So the piece was kind of trying to argue that everybody's making an electoral claim about why their preferred candidate is best. But in reality, the electoral claim was often more contested versus there's a clear sort of ideological other claim. So the Warren claim, it was in other words that basically she is the most popular candidate with Democrats overall, and that she is particularly the most candidate with younger people, and that she is more popular than Kamala Harris with younger black people. And I think

there is some evidence for those things. If you poll Democrats generally and ask them who is the most popular VP candidate, Warren is generally ahead of that. I mean, it's not fair to Keisha Bottoms, because Keisha Bottoms didn't run for president, so her name ID is obviously much lower. But that does suggest Warren and Kamala did run for president, and Warren tends to be a little more popular than her. And when you break that down in terms of black voters, because we're having this sort of proxy debate on whether you need a black VP or not, and the numbers tend to show that Warren

and Kamala are basically even among black voters, and you ask them, who do you want to see as the VP? And when you break down, there's a few polls that have showed younger black voters, and for those polls often are younger people of color. And it tends to be that Warren is more popular than Harris among that group. And that's a relevant group because all the data we've seen that has really broken down black voters suggests that Biden is really strong with the over 45 crowd and sort of weak with younger black voters, really those under 30. So if the biggest electoral weakness for Biden potentially is younger people and maybe younger people of color, the case might be for Warren more than Harris particularly. Abrams tends to do well

in these younger people of color polls too. I don't want to make too much of these surveys because, again, Susan Rice, Keisha Bottoms, and Val Demings did not run for president and do not have high name ID in that way. So I think it's a little unfair to them. But in terms of the Warren Kamala debate, I think the broader point here might be that we should not assume that black voters necessarily favor or are deeply inclined toward a black VP any more than other Democrats are. So that gets me to your second group, which is the case for a black woman on the candidate. As we've talked about on previous episodes of That's the Ticket, Biden has pledged to pick a woman. And the question is, is it going to be a woman of color, specifically a black woman? And you wrote in the piece that there's some evidence that black turnout goes up when there's a black

candidate on the ticket. But some of that data is contested. Can you explain what you mean there, what the data shows? So political scientists have looked at like city council, state legislator, mayor, and house, because there's just not a lot of black people that have run for senator or governor or president, obviously. So in those races, in general, like mayor, city council, house, the races where we had lots of black candidates, in general, black turnout goes up slightly if there's a black candidate running compared to a white candidate. There are some scholars who say that evidence has been overstated a little bit,

and they say that that's a little bit more, that's not as confident as we think it is, and it's a little bit more, and it may relate more to the first round of black candidates who ran for things in the 70s and 80s, and may be less clear now that we've had more rounds of black candidates. In other words, like the first time people got to vote for a black person, they were very excited by that, and that may explain some of those studies. But those studies are of a black candidate running for office, and the black candidate themselves. Another thing worth noting, of course, is that we had a black presidential candidate run in 2008-2012, and black turnout in the U.S. was about 65%

in 2008 and 2012. It was around 60% in 2004 and 2016 so at the presidential level a black candidate who's you know this one man at least was inspiring to black voters in a unique way the the challenge here is that is that we don't we don't necessarily have much evidence for what is a black running mate do for a white candidate? Because we really had never had that studied any real way before. The other challenge is that we have five people, and it's not clear that we can,

even if you say you want to have a black woman to increase black turnout, we have five different black women we're talking about here. Val Demings, Kamala Harris, Keisha Bottoms, Stacey Abrams, Susan Rice. I like Susan Rice. I respect Susan Rice. I'm not sure Susan Rice would show up here and tell you she's going to increase black turnout. She's never run for office before. I'm not sure she would be confident to say that.

Versus Stacey Abrams has run for governor in a state full of black people. And Kamala's from California. Keisha Bottoms never runs statewide. So even if you said there's some kind of black female or black turnout effect, I think it'd be hard to argue it's the same for all five women in a similar way. I mean, ultimately, one of the challenges here is,

I mean, certainly on the national level, is it's a sample size of one, right? And a sample size of zero when it comes to the running mate. This might be an unfair question because it wasn't fully addressed in your piece, but is there any sense of how running mates have affected turnout in the past, whether it's among certain groups? You know, obviously we have two examples of women being on the national ticket. among certain groups. You know, obviously, we have two examples of women being on the national ticket. So for women, it did not, you know, there was not a effect in terms of turnout or in terms of vote percentage with Geraldine Ferraro or with Sarah Palin. Now, those are not great examples

either, though, because those are sort of Hail Mary picks where the person was sort of losing and trying to get some kind of big buzz. There is some evidence that Palin helps slightly with evangelicals in 08, sort of boosting McCain with evangelicals. So the other evidence we have on vice presidents is, and this is a little contested as well, but the general evidence is that you get two to three points in your home state by picking a person for vice president, meaning Amy Klobuchar might get Biden two more points in Minnesota.

So in general, VP effects are very contested, but there is some small evidence. But again, I don't think there's a strong evidence we can say much about black or Latino VPs for those groups because we've had no black or Latino VP nominees. Latino VPs for those groups because we've had no black or Latino VP nominees. Then the third group you talk about is the not Warren group, right, which essentially argues that Elizabeth Warren would be either because she's too progressive or too polarizing, whatever the case these people are making, saying that she would be a net negative on the ticket because of some set of voters that Biden might be targeting. Can you explain that? So this part of the piece was a little bit less electoral, but I basically made the case

and, you know, I respect Amy Klobuchar. I was maybe a little mean to her, but I made the case that when she went on that night and said, we must pick a woman of color because, you know, because of what's happening in the world, we need to heal the country right now. because of what's happening in the world. We need to heal the country right now. I think there are a fair amount of more centrist Democrats who are sort of uncomfortable with Warren because they disagree with her own policy.

And so they prefer a more moderate person. Kamala's more moderate. Susan Rice is more moderate in their view. And I guess what I was hinting at is that maybe that they are sort of using the woman of color case to sort of knock down somebody they disagree with. In terms of like, would Warren hurt the ticket? We've seen a lot of polls that have sort of compared Biden, Warren, Biden, Harris, Biden, Klobuchar.

And those polls have all showed pretty similar results. And most of the ones I've seen have showed Warren Biden doing the best. But I think that might be again, because Warren has higher name ID. But there's just very little evidence in the data right now that Warren would kind of drag down the ticket. I know it seems conceptually obvious that Warren is more left. So you might lose kind of more centrist people who like Biden when we turn off by her. We just don't see that in the numbers yet. And I think that might be because people sort of know the vice president is not driving policy. And so they might be fine with someone for vice president who they might have been nervous about

for president. I mean, just this may seem patently average to someone like you who is steeped in the data, but can you explain the relationship between name ID and how one of these candidates might be doing in these hypothetical vice presidential polls? Yes. In general, in polls, like, you know, if you listen to Pod Save America, particularly if you read FiveThirtyEight, you probably know who Keisha Bottoms is. You might know who Val Demings is. You definitely know Elizabeth Warren is. But a lot of voters, a lot of people when we poll, even Democrats, do not know who these people are.

lot of people when we poll even democrats do not know who these people are so automatically if you ask democrats for who should be the vp and you include keisha bottoms and val dimmings and you include warren and harris it's a little bit unfair because most of the polls show warren harris ran for president and warren was very famous before that so they have about 90 percent of democrats in most of these polls know who Warren and Harris are. When we're talking about Keisha Bottoms, you're talking about, I think one of the surveys I saw showed like 30% of Democrats had heard of her. And that may be changing as she gets more coverage. But when you have that amount of disparity in terms of name ID, of course Warren is going to be the favorite. Even among black Democrats, most black people who do not know who Keisha Bottoms is.

So in that sense, so these polls are showing of the people who have heard of Keisha Bottoms, she's doing pretty well. But if you're asking people at random on a phone call, do you support Warren for VP or this person you've never heard of? They will say Warren. This sort of gets to the larger point of your piece, which is that the data is quite hypothetical at best, right? Anyone can find any piece of data to make their argument. Anyone who is picked as the vice presidential nominee, whether it is Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, or Keisha Layans-Bottoms or Val Demings or Susan Rice, that person is going to have 100% name ID seven days after they are picked. And it will dramatically change how it is viewed, right? Right.

But the other element of this is we've only had a pretty small number of presidential elections over a long period of time in American history, and politics has changed pretty fast. So this is quite theoretical at best. Would you say that? Yes. So the piece was trying to say, and look, 538 is a part of this more than anybody else probably.

The piece was trying to say, everybody is arguing about the VP process through sort of electoralism with these sort of claims about our guy's going to be better for this kind of voter, our guy's going to do this. And I was sort of saying, we don't really know.

We have a tiny amount of evidence for these VP claims. Why don't we calm them down slightly? And my argument was, a lot of the black people who are saying black, like Jim Clyburn is saying, we need a black person, and he's hinting at black turnout. But I think Jim Clyburn really wants to see a black woman on the ticket. And a lot of black women think forget about electoral politics we do everything possible for this party every four

years every two years why don't you guys give us something and you know kamala particularly kamala harris is very extremely qualified we have a black female senator who ran for president and ran a credible campaign if If the Democratic Party wants to show it values black women, here's someone, here's a way you can do that. So that's the case they're really making. When you get to the centrist, what they're really saying is, look, this is a country that is centrist. We want to have a centrist person kind of on deck for president after Joe Biden. We don't want Elizabeth Warren as our person next. And then the left part of the party is saying, look, you guys pick Biden. We we've eaten Biden already.

Can you at least give us something for VP that'll get us excited? That's what's really going on. We're having sort of a shadow boxing. And Dan, you would say this every debate in Washington the whole time we were there. People were masking their own views through electoralism. This is nothing new. Right. And it's sort of annoying at times.

But I was just trying to make sure for people who are not plugged into this, here's like what's really going on is what we always try to do at FiveThirty. And that's what I was trying to get at. And one of the things that's hard, like there is a incredibly strong case for representation, right? Not just for payback for previous support, but because it is a very important way in which we can move the country forward. Right. previous support, but because it is a very important way at which we can move the country forward, right? And, you know, we, Alyssa and I had a long conversation about Geraldine Ferraro's vice presidential candidacy and what that meant for whole generation women. You can imagine how a black woman being on the national ticket would obviously change perceptions very quickly for a

large number of people about what was possible in this country. You know, like, obviously, we can't know what will happen with turnout, right? But then there's this other question that I think has been changed by what's happened in America in the last few months, which is what if Biden doesn't pick a black woman? Right. Like what is that conversation look like? And do you think everything that has happened over the last few months with our sort of national reckoning with structural racism changes the backdrop for that decision for Biden? racism changes the backdrop for that decision for Biden? This is the hardest question I've been thinking about, because if you look at the polls, even post George Floyd protests, black people are not demanding a black VP. Would they tend to, you know, if you look at the polls, do you care about having a black person of color or a black running mate?

Black voters are sort of like 30 percent say very important. The rest say somewhat important. It's not like black people are opposed to it, but it's not as if they're sort of dry. So it's a weird norm to say we have to have a black VP because the question is because the question almost assumes the black VP is for black people. Right. And maybe I'm wrong, but I think it sort of assumes that. And I don't think that's exactly right. And maybe I'm wrong, but I think it sort of assumes that, and I don't think that's exactly right. And if you went to one of these protests, and I respect Kamala, but if you go to these protests, you're not hearing people say, let's send the prosecutor to the White House. That's not exactly the message they're giving. So even if you say black – even if you – we really have to sort of – to me, we have to zone in on – even if we say it might be a moment for a black woman, we have to pick one of these people still. And I think the moment is going to be complicated for Val Demings or Kamala because what the protesters are really protesting in some ways is how law enforcement treats black people.

And some of them have real concerns about what Kamala has done in particular, and they probably would not be excited about val dimmings who was a sheriff as well so i think that complication is there at the same time it is the democratic party the party where like when biden promised there would be a woman that was a nod to the democratic Party is a party that is majority female. In the same way, the Democratic Party is about 40% non-white. And so even before George Floyd, I would argue it was going to be awkward for the party that literally talks about its diversity all the time to have two white people. And I do think, and it might be one of the things where I would actually say that a lot of white Democrats I talk to really don't want to see an all-white ticket it may be that I think in some ways I try to think more about diversity in this way was we if you see these polls we now have the Democratic Party's not just black people demanding diversity and white people or minorities

demanding diversity and white people standing there you increasingly have I think a lot of white Democrats would be uncomfortable with a, as uncomfortable as black Democrats to be more uncomfortable with an all white ticket than black people are. Yeah, I think I remember seeing polling in the primary that showed white liberals the most uncomfortable with a mostly white democratic field at the end. And then black voters overwhelmingly supporting Joe Biden, who is most definitely white. And so like it is definitely more complex than that. I do think one more thing in this is a brief is that black voters are somewhat nervous about electability and they're focused on that. And if you if I went down to South Carolina, my guess is I would find that black voters are nervous that Kamala or a black woman on the ticket will help Trump.

are nervous that Kamala or a black woman on the ticket will help Trump. Black voters have a deep cynicism about their fellow Americans' racial views and are nervous that their fellow Americans may not be excited about having a black woman on the ticket. Like, that is part of what's going on here is black voters see Warren as white and the other people as not. And they think that, and I've heard this discussed, that Warren is safer. And I don't agree is not. And they think that, and I've heard this discussed, that Warren is safer. And I don't agree with this. And I think the data supports that. And you guys won twice. I think that fellow black people are overly pessimistic about the racism of the country, but I'm not going to convince them of that. And I think that is underlining this as like, a black person is a risk. Look how they treated Barack.

Perry Bacon, thank you so much for joining us on That's a Ticket. I hope everyone reads your article. It was super fascinating and really helps us explain what we know and what we do not know about what this decision means politically. And then just to finish, I should say, I wanted to say this at the start, but, you know, I covered politics all this time, covered politics 20 years. I met a lot of people who are very smart. I met a lot of people who – I met a lot of people who weren't that smart,

who just were famous because their daughter went to Yale Law School to have you. I would say this. I've been excited about Dan doing this because I covered the Obama campaign. I covered the Obama White House. Dan did not always love my coverage, and Dan at times was quite honest about that. But usually he was right. And often he and whenever we talked, I learned a lot about politics from Dan, because Dan is one of the smartest people I know. I'm not saying this on the podcast. Dan is one of the sharpest people I know about politics. I'm excited to be on. I'm excited he's doing this. I think people have learned a lot from his thoughts these

last four years. So thanks for having me, Dan. I appreciate it. Well, Harry, that was very, very nice of you. And I apologize for how direct my honesty was at times, even when it was sometimes both the product of not being caffeinated enough in the morning when I sent the email and being overly crabby. So thank you so much. Thank you. All right, Alyssa, I'm going to give you a choice. Okay.

You ready for this? Yeah. You can do one of two things here for our listeners on this, the series finale of That's the Ticket. You can either give us your guess for who you think Joe Biden will pick, not who you think he should pick, but who you think he should pick, but who you think he will pick. Or you can right here and now reveal the name of the flatulent contender to be John Kerry's vice president. Buddy, you know that I could never do that because that would be uncool. And the whole reason that anyone's ever given me any good shit to do in my life is because

I'm discreet. Not anymore, but I was back then. So I have to maintain my oath to John Kerry of being discreet. So I will tell you that I think Joe Biden is going to pick Susan Rice. Whoa, what a pick. All right. We'll see if you're right thanks for listening don't you hang me out to dry you motherfucker oh it's all fun and games let's just have alyssa walk the plank yeah that was the plan no it's not the plan people people want to know what you think i have to be. I feel very hesitant to do this for two reasons. One, I gave up predictions very explicitly. It's actually the entire theme of Pod Save America is that we're out of the prediction game. So I have some discomfort with that. But since I walked you

down this plank, I feel like I should also jump in the deep end. If I had to guess, based on no insider knowledge, with no opinion on whether this is the right pick or the wrong pick, and the context that I think that there is no one on the list, on Joe Biden's list, as we understand it, that would be a bad selection. If I had to guess what Joe Biden would do, I would guess that he would pick Kamala Harris. Hmm.

Well, we'll see if one of us is right. Also, all the caveats you said applied to what I said, but I just didn't use that much air to buffer myself around a potential karmatic bad pick. Per usual, you accomplish a lot more than me in less time. LOL, LOL. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to That's the Ticket.

It has been a blast talking to you all about the vice presidential selection process. And Alyssa, we can't wait to talk to you again on Pod Save America after this choice is made. I cannot wait. Hopefully it is soon. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,

Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.