Gov. Gretchen Whitmer remains on Biden's list as running mate pick nears
NBC NewsAs Joe Biden appears set to begin holding final one-on-one conversations with potential running mates, sources close to the process tell NBC News that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is among those still under serious consideration.
In recent weeks, public speculation about Biden’s narrowing short list had centered largely on a quartet of African American women — Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., former national security adviser Susan Rice and Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla. — with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also still in the running.
Democrats with knowledge of the process tell NBC News Whitmer did not just re-emerge as a potential vice presidential pick, but had long remained in the top tier for the only person with a vote in the process: Biden himself.
Top labor leaders in Whitmer’s battleground state tell NBC News that the Biden campaign has reached out to the state chapters of the UAW, AFL-CIO and Teamsters to sound them out about Whitmer. That outreach began as early as January ahead of the Iowa caucuses, but intensified lately as the vetting process advanced.
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consideration for too many. Many say she must be black as if that's the only way to do right, as if electing a white or brown or other woman would be wrong.
Making any woman VP advances equality for all Americans. Including all black Americans. Just the way that every victory by #BLM for black rights advances rights for all. Except that women are over 50% of all Americans and include all races. If she's not one of the half of the 13.3% who are black women, all AA win anyway. But especially black women.
Let's face it, being women of any color is an ongoing burden, equality being earned and denied over and over and over. Not only did black men get the vote 50 years before any woman of any color, but our first (finally!!!) serious female candidate was dumped (and that is the word) for a black man who entered the race later. (Gee, if only that only happened once instead of being the recurring pattern it is.) I voted for Obama happily, but that doesn't change the reality that misogyny is more intractably discriminatory than racism in any competitive field. White women still make far less than men, and black women, well, on average they eat dirt for wages, far less than men of any color, and are supposed to be satisfied.
So, if a demographic is owed special discrimination in this choice after the last 250 years, and after 2016 in particular!, it's the giant, oppressed and exploited female demographic. Pure and simple. And Biden, who supported and voted for Hillary Clinton, who was disgracefully attacked from all sides, wants to use this chance to advance equality for women.
So I think our making any of the possible women vice president should be a matter of great pride and satisfaction, our only regret that we did not elect her for herself, no appendage to any man, as we did Hillary.
