Mate…by Nate Davis

When it comes to politics, it’s very easy to make predictions. If your prediction is eventually proven correct, you puff your chest and remind everyone that you made the prediction. On the other hand, if your prediction doesn’t pan out, it doesn’t matter because by that time everyone probably already forgot what your prediction was anyway. It is for the latter reason that it may not be wise to predict who Joe Biden will pick as his running mate. After all, by the time you read this, he may have made his choice, and this article may already have a snug position in the trash can of foolish political articles. But what do I have to lose? In an era when politics is so vile and toxic, it’s almost a reprieve to play the guessing game. So here goes.

Firstly, non-black/non-females need not apply.

Sounds harsh? I’m not the one who proclaimed that Biden needs to pick a black woman as his running mate. This is not a meritocracy. It’s a colorocracy and a genderocracy. Sorry Elizabeth Warren – instead of announcing that you are a Native American, you should have said that you are black. Oh, and sorry Cory Booker – you don’t look that good in a skirt.

So let’s consider the candidates who meet the “qualifications.”

Barack Obama’s pick is his former National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Why are we talking about Obama’s pick if Joe Biden is the nominee? Because a prevailing belief is that, back in February, it was Obama who cleared out all the Democratic candidates and basically handed the nomination to Biden. The second part of that theory is that Obama is not silly enough to give control of the Democratic Party to bumbling Joe and that the arrangement was that Obama would control the presidency through the various officials placed around President In Name Only Biden, starting with the VP, who would really call the shots in the White Hose.

Susan Rice, who is a consummate Washington insider, has been Obama’s rottweiler for a long time. She was the one who repeatedly lied about Benghazi, and she is believed to be the one who unmasked General Michael Flynn, in order to entrap him. She was also one of the architects of the Russian hoax and is still claiming that Trump is Putin’s asset. All of these actions were done on behalf of Obama and demonstrate her deep loyalty to him.

On the other hand, if she is picked as the VP, Trump is going to have a field day dusting off the “drain the swamp” argument. He will hammer her until the cows come home for her proven lies. She would respond, “Russia…Russia…Russia.” The problem with that response is that it’s not a losing fight for the Democrats; they already lost it. They would be better off focusing on the present corona and economic situation than going back to that “Russia hoax.”

Additionally, although Susan Rice is seen as a foreign policy buff, Trump will hammer her for supporting the Iraq War (that is a drumbeat that will continue to work for the next hundred years).

So picking Rice is very risky. The only question is whether Obama is willing to pull the trigger anyway. If they are confident that Biden has a safe lead and is definitely going to win in November, they will put her in. But if they are smart enough to realize that this thing is far from over and that Trump is more popular today than he was when he “came down the escalator” in 2016, they won’t pull the trigger on Rice. And, they are smart enough, so they will not ultimately choose her as VP.

Since she is the only real Obama loyalist in the mix (Michelle is obviously more interested in becoming a billionaire than being stuck at the Naval Observatory for the next four years), once Rice is out, the decision becomes more traditional and one that the Biden team will likely make (sorry Obama…when Biden ran his mouth off and said that he will pick a black woman, he basically eliminated a lot of your people).

So who is the Biden team considering?

There has been a lot of chatter about California Senator Kamala Harris. In fact, she is considered by many to be the frontrunner for the job. Chatter about her hit a frenzy when an AP reporter at Biden’s press conference (the only one he has conducted in the past four months) was able to zoom in on a card that Biden was holding. The card said “Kamala Harris,” under which there were three bullets as to why she is the right choice to be the vice-presidential nominee.

Of course, the media tied themselves in knots and spent three days talking about the journalistic heist –getting a picture of the card. As usual though, they were played. That was a classically orchestrated “hot mic” type of trick, where a politician says something quietly – pretending that he doesn’t want anyone to hear – and it’s played incessantly for days once it’s picked up on a mic, because that is exactly what the politicians intended to happen. Obviously, with Biden’s cognitive decline, his hot mic moment had to be done in a way which he wouldn’t mess up, so there was a piece of paper conspicuously held so that the media could see what was written on it.

Why did the Biden team want the media to see that? Well, here’s what else was written on the paper: that Biden is going to “rebuild the middle class…take responsibility…restore soul…tell the truth…”

The media was a willing partici-

pant in this hot mic charade. While breathlessly showing everyone the card in order to break the scoop that Sen. Harris will be the VP pick, millions of Americans saw that Uncle Joe is going to restore America’s soul.

Mission accomplished. And, an added bonus is that they created additional VP buzz.

Nicely done.

The Biden camp used Kamala Harris to pull off the stunt because she, in fact, has no shot of being the VP pick. Why? For a number of reasons.

Firstly, she openly called Biden a racist on the debate stage during the primaries. That’s an insult that one doesn’t get over easily. Even more, it saves Trump a lot of money on paying ad agencies to create ads. All the president would have to do is take that clip and replay it four-hundred-thousand times a day. If it helps him siphon off even an additional 2-3 percent of the black vote, that could change the whole race.

Secondly, during the primaries, Sen. Harris garnered approximately two votes.

Not two percent.

Not two million.

Not two-thousand.

Two. Period.

It would make no sense to pick a running mate who has proven to be a low energy campaigner. (The fact that she won statewide office in California doesn’t say much because it’s a one-party state.)

Thirdly, Sen. Harris does not bring even one state into play. Her political machine is in California, which is more blue than a blue whale. A big consideration when picking a running mate is to make your ticket more geographically competitive.

Another hot contender from California is the Congressional Black Caucus Chair, Rep. Karen Bass. She too has the blue whale problem. Additionally, she is sixty-six years old and will not bring any youth to an already age-sagging ticket.

So, the West Coast is out.

Now let’s turn to the East Coast, because that is where the VP pick will come from. Biden’s running mate will either be from the ultimate swingstate of Florida or its neighboring state of Georgia, where the Democrats want to force Trump to have to mount a serious defense of a historically red state.

The two contenders in Georgia are former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Abrams, who lost the gubernatorial race but has been running around saying that she really won the race (whatever…), has been openly begging and pleading for the nod. It’s gotten to the point of being awkward, especially in early June when she complained to Stephen Colbert (the former comedian) on his nightly Democrat propaganda show that nobody from the Biden campaign has called her to discuss the job. Well, sweetie, you may want to step away from the phone because they ain’t callin’. Although it may be a good play to pull out the revenge voters in Georgia who are upset that their gubernatorial candidate lost a tight race, Ms. Adams was too eager for the job. You have to retain a modicum of class even when begging for something.

That brings us to the other contender out of Georgia who actually does have class: Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. She would actually be a good VP choice. She is young, energetic and capable. Some say that she doesn’t have enough political experience, but presidents forty-four and forty-five prove that when it comes to presidential criteria, experience is a non sequitur.

One advantage of Mayor Lance Bottoms is that she has four children, which provides a nice optic to middle America who still believes in the nuclear family. (That would also be a useful prop on the stage to divert attention from Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, who is a train wreck.) Another advantage to Mayor Bottoms is that at the beginning of this whole black lives matter craziness, she stood up to the mob and gave an impassioned speech telling them to stop the looting and destroying and to go home to their basements. That speech went viral and would certainly give her crossover appeal.

One demerit to Mayor Bottoms, though, is that, despite her speech, she allowed the black lives matter people to take over an area in Georgia and make it an autonomous zone. That turned deadly when eight-yearold Secoriea Turner, a black girl, was shot and killed when her mother accidentally entered that autonomous zone. An innocent and beautiful young girl being gunned down and killed while sleeping in the backseat of a car should be a pretty big story, and the fact that it happened under Mayor Bottoms’ watch should be something that she should have to answer for. But, evidently, black lives don’t matter when it doesn’t fit the narrative. So this would not affect Mayor Bottoms in the race.

Everything being considered, Mayor Bottoms would likely be a good pick for Joe Biden. But there is an even better choice: Rep. Rep. Val Demings of Florida.

She will be the pick.

Firstly, Florida is the whole kit and caboodle – without Florida’s 29 electoral votes, Trump has practical

It’s a colorocracy and a genderocracy

ly no path to victory. Rep. Demings was a popular police chief in Orlando and will bring out the vote there. In a state which can swing by literally a few hundred votes (remember the hanging chads?), heavy turnout in Orlando for Biden is huge and probably enough to swing the state.

Secondly, Rep. Demings was one of the House impeachment managers back in February when the Democrats tied the country up with their phony impeachment. This gives her street cred with the rabid anti-Trump base of the Democrat Party.

But here is the main reason Biden will pick Rep. Demings: because it cuts the legs out from under Trump’s “law and order” claim.

The ever-increasing chaos and protests in major Democrat-ran cities benefits President Trump because he can point out the idiocy of the Democrats who want to defund the police and turn a blind eye to increasing crime and chaos. This is an argument that can sway many voters who have safety concerns, especially the vaunted class of voters known as suburban soccer moms. As we know, once Trump gets locked into something, he rolls with it; he plans on riding this “law and order” message all the way until the last votes are cast on Election Day.

Now, look at the media’s entire campaign strategy to defeat Trump (Biden is just their happy puppet): it is to frustrate him at every turn and prevent him from getting his campaign footing.

You are good at rallies – no rallies, they are way too dangerous when there’s no social justice inoculation.

You want to talk about a V-shaped corona recovery – we will make sure the economy stays shut because of the growing number of (largely asymptomatic) corona cases.

You want to put out a tweet that makes a good point – we will falsely flag it as false.

This is the way that the Pistons beat Michael Jordan in the 1989 Eastern Conference Finals – hack him before he even gets in the air; frustrate him on the floor.

At this point, the strategy is showing signs of success. President Trump is certainly in a malaise and has not hit his stride. And, when Trump is frustrated, his Twitter thumbs act out in all sorts of ways, leading to even more chaos. Well, imagine if Biden now becomes the “law and order” candidate – that will totally throw off Trump. It would be another blockage that he can’t get around.

Yes, Demings may cause Biden to lose the votes of the real cop haters within the party, but those people are not going to turn around and vote for Trump. Additionally, there are other ways of placating leftists. Tell them you are going to ban hamburgers, and they will be as happy as a pig in mud. Furthermore, the most rabid cop haters are in solidly blue states anyway, so it won’t affect the result of the election. No candidate is perfect, and losing a few cop haters is not a reason not to pick Demings as a running mate.

So, there you have it. Biden will pick Rep. Demings.

Now, by the time you read this, my prediction may have been proven wrong, and this column may seem pretty dumb. But then again, Biden may come out of his basement soon, and then I’ll certainly be bumped down a few notches on the “saying dumb things” list.