The Why Not Susan Rice Editiom
The Why Not Susan Rice Edition?
August 3, 2020
Issue #28
I begin this note with a number of firm disclaimers:
I am not now nor I have ever been a member of the Democratic Party.
On a number of occasions, I have voted for third party candidates and have no regrets.
I will be voting without hesitation for Joe Biden in November because I consider this election to be primarily a referendum on the catastrophic figure of Donald J. Trump.
I do not believe, for a moment, that the Democratic Party is reformable from within into a social democratic party or even close so long as there is not a robust, highly organized, independent social movement pressuring it from below. (One historic example: The Democratic Party was not “reformed” into defying the Dixiecrats and supporting the Civil Rights Bill and The Voting Act, it was forced to by the powerful movement built by MLK and others).
Policy is not cooked up by either the President and certainly not the VP. Clearly, the President has tremendous influence, but it’s not definitive. The nature of the incoming Democratic administration and Democratic Congress ( I expect the Dems to finish with at least 53 Senate seats), will tilt either toward neo-liberalism or some sort of progressive re-alignment depending ONLY on how much pressure is brought to bear from outside. A Biden-Warren administration is de facto no more liberal than, say a Biden-Hickenlooper administration until or unless you add popular pressure to the formula. It’s congress that makes policy and we know already what the default positions are of a Democratic congress (better than Republicans but still falling very short).
I therefore am quite indifferent to who heads up the DNC, I (and tens of millions of others) could not care less what is and is not in the official party platform, and in this cycle, as in most, who Joe Biden names as vice-president matters very little –to me—and to the electorate.
I do have an opinion, however, on who would be his best choice –within this narrow context—for a running mate.
Hold on to your seats, as my preference is Susan Rice. Precisely because I do not look to the party itself as a serious vehicle of change, and because the VP is fairly powerless, I have no hesitation in preferring the woman who is probably considered the most “centrist” or “conservative” of the 11 theoretically under consideration.
Who becomes VP in a Biden administration is somebody, imho, who we should look at primarily from a perspective of mature and steady governance, not ideology. And in that category, Rice is the best choice
