No, Nancy...

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by Jacuzzme

This fat mess was a state representative who couldn’t even win a statewide election. I’m trying to figure out what the attraction is with her, and why someone so underwhelming would even be considered for the VP spot.

It is interesting although "sickening" how the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC are all in favor of Abrams and are promoting her with glee. They almost can't contain themselves with giddiness. WTF? What is the appeal? I actually know the answer to my question. She, behind AOC who isn't quite Black enough, has become the leader of the identity politics movement. It's her mantra.


https://www.heritage.org/progressivi...ecipe-disaster

Stacey Abrams’ Full Embrace of Identity Politics


Is a Recipe for Disaster I hope



Following the 2016 elections, liberal intellectuals like Mark Lilla and Francis Fukuyama counseled Democrats to stop embracing identity politics and instead appeal to Americans as Americans, not as divided groups.


The Democrats’ choice of Stacey Abrams to deliver the response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address may be a sign that’s not in the cards.


Abrams ran for governor of Georgia last year and lost by more than 50,000 votes, but has yet to be gracious about her defeat. She is now using the enthusiasm her campaign generated among her far-left base to argue against the universalist Enlightenment ideas upon which this nation was founded.




Abrams says those ideals are false, or at best “devoid of context.” What we need is “revolt.”
Her recent essay on identity politics, published last Friday by Foreign Affairs, is a forthright defense of dividing America into groups based on identities that can be as varied as race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and even disability status. The only thing that matters is the ability to claim a trait that bestows victimhood status.


To people like Abrams who subscribe to this view, this status—and not intrinsic worth, hard work, or talent—is what entitles one to respect, government protection, and benefits.


This is a Marxist worldview that divides humanity into monolithic dominant or subjugated groups where any interaction between them is viewed only in terms of power relations.


Not everything that Abrams wrote in her essay is wrong. She is right to note that organized labor for a long time discriminated against African-Americans, and this “contributed to the rise of a segregated middle class and to persistent pay disparities.”


But much of the rest of her essay, written in a response to one by Fukuyama in the same publication, relies on selective or just plain wrong views of history.


She is wrong, for example, when she writes that “the marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.”


Blacks in America have a long history of victimization and exclusion. But analogizing their unique experience to that of other people and creating a long list of different castes with grievances is a complete non-sequitur. Yet it is a project to which activists have devoted a lot of time and effort, as an examination of the record shows.


A 1970 study from UCLA, funded by the Ford Foundation, showed that even at the dawn of the ‘70s, rank-and-file Mexican-Americans neither saw themselves as a marginalized group nor even as a minority at all. “Indeed, merely calling Mexican-Americans a ‘minority’ and implying that the population is the victim of prejudice and discrimination has caused irritation among many who prefer to believe themselves indistinguishable white Americans,” the authors concluded.


The testimony of the time is riddled with evidence that identity politics was far from a grassroots movement, as Abrams and others always proclaim. As the historian David G. Gutierrez wrote, “Even if many Mexican-Americans refused to accept a Chicano self-identity, much less the ethnic separatism espoused by the militants, the actions of the Chicano activists undoubtedly convinced at least some government officials that the militants’ grievances warranted attention.”


Even earlier, the sociologist George I. Sanchez had written to Julian Samora (one of the activists who sought group making, and later went on to found La Raza), “For gosh sakes, don’t characterize the Spanish-American with what is obviously true of the human race, and then imply, by commission or omission, that his characteristics are peculiarly his and, OF COURSE, radically different from those of the ‘Anglos.’”


The poor, Sanchez wrote to Samora, all shared the same societal dysfunctions, no matter their race and ethnicity. “The characteristics that distinguish the Spanish-speaking group in any part of the United States are much less ethnic than they are socio-economic … . [T]here is no real ethnic sameness among the various subdivisions of the same Spanish-speaking group.” It takes “a veritable shotgun wedding to make Puerto Ricans, Spanish-Mexicans, and Filipinos appear to be culturally homogenous.”


But in her essay, Abrams rejects socio-economic arguments as a “class trap” and doubles down on what she thinks is the real narrative: identity politics.


And of course, there’s the part about politics being a means to revolt. The Declaration of Independence takes an entirely different view when it states that “governments are instituted among men” to secure the rights to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”


But of course, these are natural rights that are part of the inheritance of the Enlightenment, and Abrams makes very clear that she thinks its universalist claims are a bunch of hooey.


She attributes the success of her coalition (again, she lost, despite the support of the entire cultural establishment; even Oprah Winfrey campaigned for her) to “articulating an understanding of each group’s unique concerns instead of trying to create a false image of universality.”


She returns to this theme when she warns against “a retrenchment to amorphous, universal descriptors devoid of context or nuance.”
It is here that Abrams demonstrates the danger of identity politics. She is rejecting the ideals of the Enlightenment and even the Renaissance, and returning us back to the estates and classes of the Middle Ages. This threatens fundamental concepts such as the right to conscience, property, speech, and due process, never mind the bedrock ideal that “all men are created equal.”


It simply isn’t true, as Abrams writes, that identity-politics activism “will strengthen democratic rule, not threaten it.” It is equally contradictory that embracing “the identities of groups in a democracy enhances the complexity and capacity of the whole.”


Thinking of individuals as members of sub-collectives can never strengthen democracy, at least not democracy as we understand it, just as minimizing or even erasing commonalities is destructive of common purpose.


Abrams has a momentary lapse into lucidity when she points out that “the current demographic and social evolution toward diversity in the United States has played out alongside a trend toward greater economic and social inequality.”


Right. That’s why identity politics isn’t working. It is predicated on inequalities, so it has to perpetuate them.
But, alas, that’s not her takeaway. Instead, she says the entry of marginalized groups into public life has “spawned reactionary limits on their legal standing.”


Pray tell, what are those limits? Is this philosophy what one of our two major parties is going to be pushing going forward?


YEP!

[smokedog01]

Originally Posted by HedonistForever

It is interesting although "sickening" how the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC are all in favor of Abrams and are promoting her with glee. They almost can't contain themselves with giddiness. WTF? What is the appeal? I actually know the answer to my question. She, behind AOC who isn't quite Black enough, has become the leader of the identity politics movement. It's her mantra.

Abrams is an idiot and the only thing that she can win is a pie eating contest. When you say those media outlets are promoting her do you mean as an important voice or as a VP candidate? If it is the latter please provide citations. I need to see it to believe it.

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by smokedog01

Abrams is an idiot and the only thing that she can win is a pie eating contest. When you say those media outlets are promoting her do you mean as an important voice or as a VP candidate? If it is the latter please provide citations. I need to see it to believe it.

I don't have free access to the Washington Post site so I'll have to give you the Fox News version of the story.


https://www.foxnews.com/media/washin...ile-photoshoot


Washington Post panned for over-the-top 'supermodel' Stacey Abrams profile, photoshoot


The Washington Post raised eyebrows over the weekend for a glowing magazine profile of potential VP pick Stacey Abrams.



Abrams, who became a rising star among Democrats after her Georgia gubernatorial defeat in 2018, has made countless media appearances in recent weeks in an unprecedented campaign to be former Vice President Joe Biden's running mate in the 2020 election.


However, a profile titled "The Power of Stacey Abrams," which was initially published last Thursday, sparked plenty of criticism for the over-the-top portrayal of the high-profile Dem.


Such a glowing portrayal of Abrams was ripped by critics on social media.


"How is every journalist employed by the Washington Post not named Jennifer Rubin not completely embarrassed by this Stacey Abrams profile. How does something like this even make it past editors who care about their reputations?" conservative commentator Stephen Miller reacted.


"Stacey Abrams has no legitimate argument for the Vice Presidency, and it's ridiculous that she's even being fake-considered. But that hasn't stopped the elite media from eagerly enabling her obnoxious promotional tour -- I guess they're bored under quarantine or something," journalist Michael Tracey wrote.


"Did... did Stacey Abrams write this?" Washington Examiner's Siraj Hashmi asked.


"To the Washington Post, Terrorists are 'Austere Religious Scholars' and Stacey Abrams is a 'supermodel.' Just GTFO," radio personality and comedian Tim Young tweeted.


What further prompted mockery were the photos that were featured in the profile, including one of a smoky silhouette of Abrams wearing a cape and striking a pose that resembles a superhero.


"I can not believe this is a real image that the Washington Post used in their profile on Stacey Abrams. The desire from so many in the media to make Abrams into a larger than life superhero is bizarre and telling. You'll never see a conservative woman get this kind of coverage," writer Josh Jordan tweeted.




To be completely fair, there are others at the Post who are questioning Abrams as a pick but I just found this so amusing. So before I get hammered, here is a Google search for other "opinions" for Abrams as VP pick if you can read them, I can't because the Post won't give me free access like the NYT's is doing right now, for a while but I will never pay for membership to the NYT, though I will read it for free and post some article ( when they post something I agree with ) if for no other reason than to satisfy those who will not believe anything if it isn't on the front page of the Times.

https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=Washingt on+Post+picks+Stacey+Abrams+as +VP+pick&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/us/politics/biden-vice-president-trump.html



You can call this progress, a win for the notion of saying what you want and advocating yourself. Credit Stacey Abrams as a trailblazer.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/opinions/stacey-abrams-joe-biden-vp-pick-jealous/index.html
The creative thinker who should be Biden's vice president

Opinion by Benjamin Jealous

And it's time for Abrams to break one more barrier — as Joe Biden's vice-presidential candidate. She has many of the strengths that can help Biden win in November, including popularity among key Democratic constituencies: progressives, young voters and voters of color — and the data backs it up.

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...abrams-hatred/

Opinions

Gosh, what could be behind the right’s hatred of Stacey Abrams?



By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer

May 20, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. CDT

There is now a whole genre of right-wing punditry declaring, in hysterical and angry tones, that Stacey Abrams would be the worst pick in the history of vice-presidential picks. No, really. The people who defend their vote for President Trump, who support the most unqualified Cabinet in history and who think political experience is overrated now see a catastrophe if the former minority leader of the Georgia state House, the founder of Fair Fight and Fair Count and a rising star in the Democratic Party is picked as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

Rich Lowry declares: “President Trump has rewritten the rules of political experience, yet it’s still a stretch to imagine someone who has only served in the Georgia legislature — and as a state representative, not even a senator — is ready to become leader of the free world.” She was actually the Democratic leader from 2011 to 2017, but I’m sure overlooking an African American woman’s credentials was inadvertent. He continues: “Her foremost political achievement to date — making her loss in Georgia a cause celebre among Dems — is built on nonsense.” Ah, yes, that old “nonsense” — massive voter suppression.

In any event, he says, “Abrams can reasonably boast of an ability to stoke turnout among minority and young voters — she won more votes than any statewide candidate in Georgia ever. But given her high-octane progressivism, she’d have limited appeal to working-class swing voters and suburban women.” (She actually won more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history and a greater share of the white vote than any Democrat in years, but whatever.) What about nonwhite suburban women? They count, too. (Also take note that Republicans have been hemorrhaging white suburban female voters under Trump.)

The same ridicule bordering on contempt for Abrams is now de rigueur in right-wing circles. Ben Shapiro calls her a “nonentity.” All but calling her “uppity," Kimberly Ross accuses her of feeling “entitled to power” because she campaigns to be vice president. (That tactic might not be wise, as I have noted, but campaigning for the job suggests you know you are not entitled to the job and have to fight for it.) The right-wing Spectator hisses, “Stacey Abrams has no business being vice president.”

Why all the venom? Let’s begin with the assumption that it is perfectly reasonable to argue she is not the best VP choice or that her lack of national experience would weaken the ticket. But the anger, the determination to ignore her accomplishments (she did found a voting rights group, deliver a response to the State of the Union and hold the minority leader position in her state for more than half a decade), the resentment over her insistence on calling out voter suppression as the reason for her loss and feigned offense at her ambition (horrors!) smack of racism. I suggest the tone of these voices — How dare she?! — would be far different if, say, Pete Buttigieg or Beto O’Rourke were promoting themselves for the job.

Abrams has committed the cardinal sin for an African American woman in the eyes of the right: She will not accept the legitimacy of elections won through voter suppression, and she will not be appropriately docile and humble. Unfortunately, I fear that this is just the beginning of the thinly disguised racism that we will see should former vice president Joe Biden select an African American as his running mate.

We’ve seen this movie before. I fully expect that any African American will be portrayed as less qualified than white contenders, a bigger “risk” for Biden and lacking the “right” temperament. Brace yourself. It will be ugly.

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/15/biden-has-4-great-options-black-female-vp-one-is-his-best/


Opinions

Biden has four great options for a black female running mate. One is his best.



By Jonathan Capehart
Opinion writer

May 18, 2020 at 12:13 p.m. CDT

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he will choose a woman as his vice-presidential running mate. In a previous post, I argued that she needs to be African American. And I stressed an often ignored point: Winning the Midwestern states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 and appealing to African American voters are not mutually exclusive.

Now comes the parlor game of figuring out who that black woman should be.

Biden knows how important it is to have an empowered governing partner who commands respect inside and outside the White House. That’s who he was as vice president to former president Barack Obama, and Biden is right to want the same for himself.

Before I list some popular choices, let me obliterate an argument that has cropped up in response to my first post. When folks say that whomever Biden selects should be the most qualified or that “identity politics only gets you so far,” they should be aware of how that hits the African American ear. Since Jim Crow, such sentiments have been used to question our abilities and snuff out our ambitions. No matter how brilliant we are, we are never brilliant enough in a world that still believes someone not straight or white or male (usually all three) is inherently unqualified for any role, let alone being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

The four black women most often mentioned as a possible Biden running mate defy that racist notion. They are worthy of the speculation.

Stacey Abrams was the Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives for six years before she resigned her seat to run for governor in the 2018 election. Abrams won the Democratic nomination with 76.5 percent of the vote. Had Abrams prevailed in the general election, she would have been the first African American female governor in the United States.

Abrams lost the race to Republican Brian Kemp by just 55,000 votes. He was the Georgia secretary of state, where he oversaw elections in Georgia for eight years. In that time, according to New York magazine, Kemp went about “purging 1.4 million voters from the rolls, placing thousands of registrations on hold, and overseeing the closure or relocation of nearly half of the state’s precincts and polling sites.”

Abrams was born in Wisconsin and raised in Gulfport, Miss. Her mother was a college librarian. Her father worked in a shipyard. When Abrams was in high school, the family moved to Atlanta, where both of her parents became Methodist ministers. Abrams would get her bachelor’s degree from Spelman College, a masters in public administration from the University of Texas at Austin and a law degree from Yale. Abrams now runs Fair Fight, an organization she started after the governor’s race to focus on suppression in 20 states.

Why folks are talking about her

Abrams’s name has been on the lips of Democrats since she almost won Georgia in 2018. She nailed one of the toughest assignments in politics when she delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address. And Abrams has been the boldest of all the potential picks in her pursuit of the vice-presidential nod. When I interviewed her at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum last December, I asked her if she would want to do it. “I’m a black woman who’s in a conversation about possibly being second in command to the leader of the free world, and I will not diminish my ambition or the ambition of any other women of color by saying that’s not something I’d be willing to do,” Abrams said to thunderous applause. She has repeated some form of that answer at every opportunity ever since.

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) has been in Congress since 2017. The Jacksonville native, whose district includes Orlando, had a front-row seat to impeachment as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and as one of the seven impeachment managers arguing the case against Trump before the Senate.

Investigating the president was no stretch for Demings. She spent 27 years in the Orlando Police Department, becoming the city’s first female police chief. But she wasn’t the first African American. That distinction belongs to her husband Jerry L. Demings, who is now the mayor of Orange County, Fla., the first African American elected to that post. The Demingses are a Harley-Davidson-riding power couple in Florida’s all-important I-4 corridor whose individual achievements are the embodiment of the American dream.

Why folks are talking about her

The visual of a black female former police chief helping to make the case for the rule of law against the president had many in the Democratic Party in full swoon. During an interview in March, I asked Demings if she’d be interested in being vice president. She leaned into her blue-collar roots.

“I grew up the daughter of a maid and a janitor. I grew up poor, black and female in the South, someone who was told a lot of times that I wasn’t the right color or gender. But my mother pushed me and said, ‘No, you can make it. If you work hard and play by the rules, you can be anything you wanna be and do anything you wanna do,’” Demings said. “So the fact that my name is being called in such a special way for such an important position during such a critical time, it’s such an honor.”

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) came to Washington in 2017 after serving six years as the attorney general for California and two full terms as district attorney of San Francisco. Harris joined the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in January 2019 but ended her campaign in December.

Harris is the daughter of immigrants. Her late mother was a breast cancer researcher from India. Her father is an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University from Jamaica. They divorced when Harris was 7 years old. Harris graduated from Howard University, where her identity as an African American woman was cemented. She returned to California to get her law degree at the University of California at Hastings.

In “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” Harris writes that fighting injustice was a major part of her upbringing. Her decision to become a prosecutor took her family by surprise. In an interview with Harris that I did in conjunction with her book tour in Washington in January 2019, she said, “I had to defend my decision like one would a thesis.” She then made her argument before the audience, saying, “What I tried to live in my career as a prosecutor is the understanding that, in that role, you have the power to be the voice of the most vulnerable among us."

Why folks are talking about her

Harris came to Washington with presidential buzz already around her, which only increased as she questioned Trump administration officials. She so flustered then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions at one hearing that he admitted Harris’s questioning “makes me nervous.”

Harris jumped into the race for the presidential nomination before a crowd of more than 20,000 people in her hometown of Oakland last January. (Disclosure: My husband volunteered at that event.) Her debate performances had memorable moments, including when Harris went after Biden over his past stance on busing. The resulting bump in polling Harris received was fleeting. She ended her campaign before a primary vote was cast. But the VP buzz grew louder. When Harris has been asked about being Biden’s running mate, all she will say is she would be honored.

Susan Rice was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama in his first term and then served as his national security adviser in his second term.

If you read her memoir, “Tough Love: My story of the things worth fighting for,” you know that Rice was reared in the elite circles of Washington. Her mother was known as the “mother of the Pell Grant.” Her father was a Tuskegee Airman and economist who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, the second African American to hold such a post.

A graduate of Stanford and a Rhodes Scholar with a master’s and a Ph.D in international relations from Oxford, Rice’s first foray in government was as assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration. She has never run for elective office. Nevertheless, she has been battle-tested in the partisan crucible of Washington and the fever swamps of Fox News. See, Benghazi.

Why folks are talking about her

Rice has been unsparing in her criticism of Trump’s response to the coronavirus and uses language that scratches deep that itch among Democrats to take the fight to the president. “He has demonstrated utter lack of leadership, utter incompetence,” Rice told me last month.

When I asked her what she thought about the Biden running-mate talk, Rice responded via email, “I am honored to be among the highly accomplished women mentioned as possible VP candidates. I have great admiration for Joe Biden. Biden will be an excellent president, and I am committed to doing my utmost to help him win and govern effectively.”

At a virtual fundraiser last month, Biden said, “I view myself as a transition candidate.” If elected, he would be the oldest sitting president in U.S. history and would lead a nation in desperate need of stability and leadership from the White House. Therefore, Biden needs to choose a future vice president who is young enough to embody the transition he envisions while also being a governing partner. That person has been staring us in the face for months now. Her name is Kamala Harris.

Harris has demonstrated broad appeal by winning two local elections and three statewide races in California. So she entered the 2020 presidential campaign somewhat battle-tested. Having run for president herself, Harris knows the rigors of that kind of campaign and has endured the microscopic press scrutiny that comes with it.

Harris would not be rattled by the inevitable bullying by Trump and his campaign. She is neither afraid of a fight nor afraid of him. “I know he has a reason to be afraid of me,” Harris replied when I asked her last November if she thought Trump was afraid of her. Considering he has yet to give Harris a sophomoric nickname, I’m convinced the president is really afraid of her.

Black women are the Democrats’ most reliable voting bloc. Here’s how seven prominent black female activists and media figures say Joe Biden can win them over. (Kate Woodsome, Joy Sharon Yi/The Washington Post)

Biden will need a fighter. And Harris would be for Biden what he was for Obama: a loyal vice president who fights for his agenda. But as the last person in the room with the president, Harris would not be shy about sharing unvarnished opinions.

Harris’s friendship with Biden’s late son Beau, then the attorney general of Delaware, produced a deep well of mutual respect and admiration that was tested by last June’s debate. But I think they both learned something from that bruising encounter. Biden learned that Harris is a fighter. Harris learned that some punches need not be thrown.

Vice-presidential nominees might not influence the outcome of elections, but what they can do is excite the electorate where votes are needed most to win the electoral college. As I’ve argued, Biden must ensure that African Americans turn out in November if he wants to win. He must ask for their vote in Detroit (Michigan), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Atlanta (Georgia) and Miami (Florida).

As we learned in 2016, when the black vote is taken for granted or not even requested, black voters don’t show up. The nation cannot afford to have that happen again. Biden must give African Americans a reason to vote. A Biden-Harris ticket is a reason to vote.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @Capehartj.
Subscribe to Cape Up, Jonathan Capehart’s weekly podcast


Jonathan Capehart
Jonathan Capehart is a member of The Post editorial board, writes about politics and social issues, and is host of the "Cape Up" podcast.

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/u...ent-trump.html

The End of ‘Who Me? For V.P.?’ Politics

Maybe now people can actually admit their ambitions.



By Mark Leibovich

May 19, 2020

WASHINGTON — Politics has always abided by certain unwritten rules. Not all of them make sense.


One timely example: the rule stating that people who want to be picked as a presidential nominee’s running mate must never appear to be openly campaigning for the job — even though he or she plainly wants it (probably very badly).

If, traditionally, prospective vice presidents were asked whether they would like to be so-and-so’s running mate, they would typically follow some variation on the familiar dodge. They would say how flattered and humbled they were to be mentioned before claiming that they were not really thinking about getting selected, not at all, not one bit.

In other words, they must be reluctant. Or at least act reluctant.
But that custom is fading in this strange lockdown of a veepstakes season. Prospective running mates appear more and more to be shedding their fake reluctance — or not bothering to shroud their ambition in faux nonchalance.

You can call this progress, a win for the notion of saying what you want and advocating yourself. Credit Stacey Abrams as a trailblazer.

Ms. Abrams, who barely lost the Georgia governor’s race in 2018 and whose name has seemingly been bandied about as a potential Democratic running mate ever since, has repeatedly flouted this first rule of (non)campaigning for the vice presidency.

“Yes, I would be willing to serve,” Ms. Abrams said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked whether she would be the best running mate for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr. She told The New Yorker that she would be willing to help Mr. Biden “not only win an election but to govern.” She believes she would make an “excellent running mate,” she told Elle. “If I am selected, I am prepared and excited to serve.”

Again, this is not how this courtship has usually worked. Or how it still works, in the case of some other candidates that Mr. Biden is supposedly considering.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, for instance, Democrat of Minnesota and a former presidential candidate, seems to have the reflexive hesitation move down pat:
She would be loath to “engage in hypotheticals,” Ms. Klobuchar told CNN’s Michael Smerconish when he asked her the (hypothetical) question about whether she would be interested in serving as Mr. Biden’s running mate. “Right now, I am focused on my state,” Ms. Klobuchar assured everyone.

Of course, Ms. Klobuchar undermined her sheepishness in a spasm of possible Freudian candor when she told a Biden rally crowd that she could not imagine a better way to end her presidential campaign “than to join the ticket — to join Joe Biden!” She promptly corrected herself, saying she meant “join the campaign.”

Likewise, Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, has said that while she would be “honored” to be considered as Mr. Biden’s running mate, she has also been “focused full time” on her day job. Same with another oft-mentioned prospect, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who has said she is “focused on helping the people of my state.”

“I’m not running for anything,” Ms. Whitmer told Politico. “You don’t run for that,” she added, “that” being running mate.

Which is not to say that Ms. Whitmer would not love to be the former vice president’s future vice president.

“If you are seen as playing hard to get, it protects you from being publicly rejected,” said Joel Goldstein, a law professor at Saint Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency. (Note: Mr. Goldstein gets a lot of calls in running mate season; his wife compares him to “an exotic plant that blooms every four years.”)

Politically, there is also a self-protective element to this, Mr. Goldstein added. “If someone campaigns for the job and doesn’t get it, they leave themselves open to the charge that so-and-so doesn’t want to be senator or governor or whatever,” he said. For this and a variety of other reasons, it has been considered safer not to be direct about one’s desires.

That is changing in 2020, though, which is an especially notable shift, given that Mr. Biden has pledged to name a woman as his running mate, and voters have traditionally expected women to be more circumspect about their ambitions.

In the case of Ms. Abrams, candor about her ambition is part of a larger political imperative. Not only is she not interested in being coy, she said she had an obligation to do the opposite. “As a young black girl growing up in Mississippi, I learned that if I didn’t speak up for myself, no one else would,” Ms. Abrams said on “Meet the Press.” “My mission is to say out loud if I am asked the question — ‘Yes.’”

In addition to Ms. Abrams, other potential Biden running mates have been open about wanting the job. “I would certainly say yes,” the former national security adviser Susan Rice said last week when asked by PBS’s Margaret Hoover what she would tell Mr. Biden if he asked.

“Yes,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, after MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked her the same question last month. Ms. Warren’s firm and unqualified response appeared at first to stun Ms. Maddow, who eventually became delighted. “I’m so happy you just gave me a concise answer to that,” Ms. Maddow said, before going to a commercial.

Several factors might explain this recent erosion of political reluctance. Social media has fostered an ethic that rewards getting noticed. “We’re in a much more aggressive celebrity and self-promotional culture in 2020,” said Beth Myers, a longtime top aide to Mitt Romney who oversaw the former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee’s running mate vetting process in 2012. “Everybody has their own mini-celebrity personality to maintain.”

The incumbent president has basically been saying and tweeting the quiet part out loud for the last four years. And he has been rewarded for it, at least by his supporters. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, no one will ever accuse him of being bashful.

Mr. Trump’s own running mate selection in 2016 followed a reality show format in which three presumed finalists (Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Speaker Newt Gingrich) engaged in public tryouts before being winnowed in a final elimination round — with Mr. Trump serving as judge, jury and M.C.

Still, it’s worth noting that Mr. Trump’s eventual running mate, Mr. Pence, assumed a much more uninterested posture than the other candidates did, to a point where Mr. Trump felt the need to ask him late in the process if he even wanted to be chosen.

“Chris Christie calls me nonstop about this job,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Pence, according to an account in the 2019 book “Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House.” “He’s dying to be vice president. And you, it’s like you don’t care.”

Mr. Pence had indeed given the impression he would be just as content to seek another term as governor of Indiana, according to the book. Mr. Trump announced his selection the next day in a tweet.

As a general rule, the expectation that presidential candidates must “wait their turn” — another form of reluctance — is nowhere near as powerful as it once was. Two of the anointed Democratic “stars” of the last midterm elections did not even have to win their 2018 contests before hearing their names mentioned as presidential candidates in 2020.

This included Ms. Abrams, a former Democratic minority leader in the Georgia Legislature who narrowly lost her campaign for governor in a race laden with controversy over accusations of voter suppression; and Beto O’Rourke, a little-known former congressman from Texas, who barely lost his Senate race in 2018 and was next seen on the cover of Vanity Fair declaring himself “just born to be in it.” In this case, “it” referred to the presidential race of 2020 (which ended in November for Mr. O’Rourke, no longer the “it” candidate).

Pete Buttigieg, 38, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., did not bother to even win a statewide or federal office, or even a race for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, before bolting for Iowa. He appeared not the least bit self-conscious about being in such a hurry.

In one revealing exchange during a November appearance by Mr. Buttigieg on the New York Times podcast “The Daily,” the host, Michael Barbaro, asked the candidate whether he had joined the military in part because it might benefit his future political prospects. Nearly every presidential candidate in this situation would have replied with the same definitive claim of purity, whether or not it was true: Yes, of course they would have joined, no matter what.

Not Mr. Buttigieg. “You know, I wrestle with that,” he replied, adding he would like to think he would have enlisted anyway, but could not say so for sure.

“That strikes me as a very candid answer,” Mr. Barbaro observed.
It was, even in the guise of angst or “wrestling.” Beats fake reluctance any day.


Mark Leibovich is the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, based in Washington. He is the author of three books and has also won the National Magazine Award for profile writing. @MarkLeibovich

A version of this article appears in print on May 20, 2020, Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: A Little Less Reluctant to Wear Ambition (at Least in Public).

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

“identity politics only gets you so far,” they should be aware of how that hits the African American ear.

And Democrats should be aware of how what they say, hits the ear of Whites in America. I have absolutely no objection to a Black person holding higher office as long as they don't speak of identity politics. Speak to the broader issues that all Americans face. Knock off this reparations crap. Talk about lifting all Americans regardless of their identity.



That's how you'll get my vote but you damn well better bring Conservative economic and foreign policy initiatives into the discussion or you can join Al Sharpton with a bull horn for all I care.


If all you want to talk about is the "privilege of being White", keep on walking.

[smokedog01]

Originally Posted by HedonistForever

That photographer has a great sense of humor. Looks like a solar eclipse.

[Jacuzzme]

Originally Posted by smokedog01

Abrams is an idiot and the only thing that she can win is a pie eating contest.

One of my favorite movie scenes ever.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zK0JaEde4VI

[dilbert firestorm]

i didn't see that movie. stephen king wrote it.