On the theory that I have nothing fresh or useful to say about it, I don’t plan to write much about coronavirus. All the social distancing recommendations seem prudent, but I’m concerned about the impact on local small businesses. We’re ordering carry-out and buying gift certificates to try to help a little. We’re not hoarding toilet paper or anything else. I hope that the feds and the state pass strong relief measures. I hope that the public health strategies work and that this all ends sooner than expected. I think Donald Trump is an idiot. But I’m guessing you may have read these things elsewhere.
I’m also guessing that you might be in need of a break now and then to read about anything else. So, for the duration this will be the place for other stuff. With that throat-clearing out of the way, here goes.
Now that Joe Biden is closing in on securing the Democratic nomination, speculation will rapidly shift to who he might choose as his running mate.
Biden has said that he will pick a woman. That was not a courageous or shocking revelation. It’s a simple political necessity. What was strange was that Bernie Sanders hedged on the question.
Assuming that Biden will sew up the nomination in the next week or two, he could start with four of the women who ran for the nomination with him: Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar. But if the Democrats really want to win, a more important factor than gender is geography. Warren from Massachusetts, Harris from California and Gillibrand from New York all come from states that Biden will win easily no matter who he picks.
That leaves Minnesota’s Klobuchar as someone who might help him in the Upper Midwest, where he must win in order to secure a victory in the Electoral College. Minnesota went narrowly for Clinton in 2016, but any Democrat can’t afford to lose it. And Klobuchar is the only candidate to have mentioned deer hunting during a debate. Wisconsinites are going to like the sound of that.
But Klobuchar matches Biden’s moderate politics, so she would do nothing to help win over the Bernie Sanders supporters who will feel that the Democratic establishment has once again frozen them out.
And, while female, she doesn’t touch on any of the other identity groups that are part of the Democratic coalition. That could give a nod toward Harris, who is African American, but she also shares some of the same moderate views as Biden and she has baggage from her days as a prosecutor.
So, who do you know who is a woman from the Midwest who touches another identity politics base and has no political baggage to speak of? Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay U.S. Senator, checks all those boxes.
Baldwin has never lost an election, including the one she and I were in for the Assembly in 1992. She knocked off Wisconsin political icon Tommy Thompson to win her Senate seat in 2012 and then easily bested Republican state Sen. Leah Vukmir in 2018.
And she won while not retreating much from her progressive roots. Baldwin is well-loved on the left. Choosing her would take some of the sting out of things for Sanders supporters. And that’s crucial because a real concern is that some substantial number of his voters will sit out the November election or maybe, even worse, vote for Trump.
Plus the history-making nature of her run would further motivate Democrats, not that Donald Trump hasn’t provided enough motivation already.
If there’s a scandal or an embarrassment surrounding Baldwin, I’m unaware of it. The Republicans tried to make a big deal out of a slip-up in her office regarding a report of mistreatment at a Veterans Administration hospital in Tomah. But they hammered away at that issue for a couple of years and she still beat Vukmir by 11 points.
Baldwin is smart and she’s plenty well-tested. She will not say dumb things under pressure — which is probably more than we can say for the gaffe-prone Biden.
Among successful Midwest female politicians Biden might also consider Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was picked to give the Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union speech earlier this year. But Whitmer doesn’t have Baldwin’s level of experience, as she only started her first term as governor in 2019.
Tammy Baldwin is the ideal crossover candidate. On the one hand, she can excite progressive voters. But she has also demonstrated that she can win over a much more moderate electorate in a general election.
Biden-Baldwin. It has alliteration. It fits on a button or a yard sign. I like it.
[Editor's note: This post was updated to correct incorrect results about the 2016 and 2018 elections.]
