Welcome to Genesis Brand’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): You may have thought that with former Vice President Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee our 2020 drafts were finally over. Well, no such luck. There’s still the question of whom Biden will pick as his vice president. We know thanks to his announcement at an earlier presidential debate that he plans to pick a female running mate, but that’s it.
So we’re back with a snake draft of whom Biden should pick for his VP. How it works is simple: Three rounds total, so between the three of us, nine potential 2020 Democratic veeps. And the draft line up is …
- Nathaniel
- Sarah
- Geoffrey
OK, you’re up, Nathaniel.
nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): Ahhh, I wanted the second pick.
geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Hahaha, really?
nrakich: Yeah — I think there are two equally strong contenders for the first overall pick. But I will go for the more obvious one: Sen. Kamala Harris.
Harris obviously ran for president already, which means she’s been vetted. She has also long been considered a rising star in the party. Plus, she would make history as both the first African American and first Asian American vice president, and African American voters are probably a group that Biden should reach out to given that he won the nomination thanks largely to their support. And this goes without saying, but Democrats will want to try to get African American turnout in the general election closer to where it was for former President Barack Obama than where it was for Hillary Clinton.
There will inevitably be some “ooh, remember how they