Why in the Name of God Would Stacey Abrams Run as Joe Biden's Vice President?

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

23 March 19

A report says Biden is floating the idea of promising to run with Abrams as his VP. That would guarantee Abrams makes one friend and 18 enemies on every debate stage.

t's early days yet, and Joe Biden already has floated the Hindenburg of trial balloons. Twice. First, his people start bruiting about the notion that he will pick Stacey Abrams, who got cheated out of the governorship of Georgia, as his running mate long before he gets the nomination. Then, word comes out that Biden will promise to serve only one term. Both of these are dumb enough to make you wonder if Biden should be allowed to cut his own meat at dinner.

Now, the former comes from Mike Allen at Axios, so you may want to keep a salt lick handy while you think about it. However, the logic, as described by Allen, does sound like it came from somebody in the overpriced Smartest Guys In The Room consultant universe.

The popular Georgia Democrat, who at age 45 is 31 years younger than Biden, would bring diversity and excitement to the ticket—showing voters, in the words of a close source, that Biden "isn't just another old white guy."

First of all, historically, this never works and it always looks desperate. It looked desperate in 1976, when Ronald Reagan tried to assuage the Eastern Wall Street wing of the Republicans, the part of the party he was three-quarters of the way to supplanting anyway, by picking Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania immediately before the Republican National Convention. It didn't work in 2016, when Ted Cruz announced the formation of a Stop Trump ticket with Carly Fiorina in the second spot.

"Elect Me Because Look Who I'm Running With" is an open invitation to every voter to wonder why the ticket shouldn't be reversed. In any event, it doesn't exactly demonstrate confidence on the part of the guy running for president.

More specifically, why in the name of God would Abrams do it? Right now, she's no worse than the second-hottest ticket in Democratic politics, a favorite to win whatever office for which she chooses to run in Georgia. (If it's the U.S. Senate, she becomes even more of a national figure overnight.) She's going to give all that up to throw a life preserver to a guy whose time probably passed in 2008, if not long before. (Jonathan Chait disagrees.) She's going to give all that up to make enemies out of the progressive base that already adores her?

Choosing to go with Biden now guarantees that she makes one friend and 18 enemies on every debate stage.

As bad an idea as that is, the one-term pledge is worse, and it makes you wonder if Biden truly has been alive over the past 10 years. Even if the Republican Party weren't completely committed to the idea that any Democratic president is prima facie illegitimate, it still would mean that Biden would become a lame duck about halfway through his inaugural address. Unless he's planning to drug Mitch McConnell and ship him off to the Kuriles, Biden would find he had a Merrick Garland problem with his entire government.

Moreover, the fact that he appears unconcerned about this obvious fact is an indication that Biden still has in him a belief in the the Good Ol' Boy Senate way of doing things and an indication that he believes that, somehow, that will immunize him against McConnell's proven track record of successful obstructionism. And that might be the best argument of all against a Biden nomination.