Clinton VP news LATEST: Podesta now calling the losers to tell them its not them

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Becerra's a far better bet than Castro. As mentioned upthread, Castro doesn't speak Spanish and has never held an elected federal office. Becerra has for years, speaks Spanish natively, and is already assuming the role of Clinton surrogate. I'm shocked this Castro discussion is even still happening.

Kaine: 80% yawn, 20% eyeroll. Longtime Clinton ally who's been on the fence with a couple issues---perfect match for her? It'll probably be him.

IMO, Warren's not happening. Booker's not happening. Tom Perez, much like Warren, would freak out her Wall Street and Silicon Valley donor base too much.

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Kaine as VP is the classic do no harm pick. It solidifies Virginia and indicates that Clinton is taking little risk as a candidate who is solidly ahead.

Warren as VP indicates that the obstinate Sanders voters are cutting into her margin some and she needs a pick to draw them in and build a solid lead.

Castro as VP, not sure what to make of it...maybe draw Trump's fire into further racial attacks? Trump really got hurt with the Gonzalo Curiel smears so maybe she would try and create another backlash.

I agree with some of the other posters that Perez or Becerra are much better Latino VP picks than Castro

BTW I think it will be Warren. Look at how active Warren has been with Clinton since she endorsed. She visited Brooklyn HQ and gave a pep talk to the ground staff; she's been the lead attack dog, which is the VP's political role in a presidential campaign, and polling has indicated that Democrats want Warren over the other VP choices. Her messaging when attacking Trump is almost identical to Clinton's.

Harry Reid even went to the unusual step of trying finding a loophole to replace Warren with another Dem senator should Clinton pick her which is another indication that Warren is the frontrunner

Good post even though I slightly disagree with parts. What's the loophole? I'm not familiar with this but am open to it.

I'd love Warren, for obvious reasons. But they have no personal relationship (Clintons like confidants), she freaks out the big donors (Politico), and her message would almost assuredly upstage Clinton's.

If I were the Clinton campaign and I were looking at the fundraising, Trump's recent stumbles, and how the Democratic Party is piling on him pretty effectively, I wouldn't bother "going left" with the VP pick. Instead, I would assume that most of Sanders's voters will come home eventually after the convention---the ones that don't were not going to reliably vote for a mainstream Democrat anyway, if at all. All they have to do now is execute the campaign cleanly and concisely, and make the (easy) argument to suburbanites that Trump cannot be trusted.

There's talk about using Warren to "rally the base," but this "base" Clinton is said to need to reach is murky and unreliable. She already has the more reliable blocs behind her, and people who would actually carry out their threat to vote third party (yay!) were likely either not going to vote, or pull a third-party ballot the entire time. Are liberals really going to abandon her en masse in the face of SCOTUS vacancies and President Trump?

I think Perez is a much better call than Castro but he also would never happen because he scares big business even more than Warren does.

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That's an interesting take. I was thinking all this surrogacy and all her speaking out against Trump is her trying to show that she can do the job, that she's willing. I never thought that it could potentially backfire because she's doing so well at it outside of the role as VP that she can continue to do it without being the running mate. But I do think that not picking Warren at this point, after everything she's done and how well she takes down Trump would bring some people down.

I'm not sure 'backfire' is the right way to look at Warren's effort if she doesnt' get VP. Remember in the pre-Bernie days everyone talked about Warren running. She was polling 2nd behind Clinton. She was the queen of the progressives. Then she didn't run and Bernie stepped in and in a way for over a year people kind of stopped paying much attention to Warren, short of wondering if she would endorse Bernie. In the last few weeks she has been reasserting herself, so being a Clinton super-surrogate is in her self-interest, regardless of being named Veep nominee.

Warren's always had punchy, deconstructed-but-still-cohesive attacks on the right. I'm not sure if this is more of the same or if she's really making some sort of move.

I'd very loosely agree with the "backfire" label and extend that to the VP question---I think Warren's message is too populist and focused to be Clinton's VP, to the point where she would upstage Clinton or co-opt her message. Clinton doesn't really have super-specific economic talking points, much less ones that get an angry, populist crowd going like Trump, Sanders, or Warren. Her most specific policies are on social issues.

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Well, I think Warren would work well as Clinton's running mate. She's not Sanders. She's a loyal Democrat and she tows the party line.  She stays on message. I wouldn't worry about her going "rogue" or whatever.

I don't think there's any danger that she'll go rogue, stray off-message, or be unprofessional or anything. She definitely checks the boxes of being an effective, loyal attack dog who stays on message.

What I'm imagining is Warren upstaging or outshining Clinton with her strategy of naming names and calling for fiery justice against the private sector, which would, at worst, undermine Clinton in the process, or at best, awkwardly highlight a divide between New Democrats and the Warren-Sanders wing of the party even when the strategy is to unify it. That's tough to pull off without one of them compromising or tempering their rhetoric, and Warren is not Warren when she's not going after banks and big business.

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I'd be shocked if it weren't Kaine. He fits the profile of a Clinton VP beautifully: loyal friend, confidant, winner of multiple Virginia races, not exactly liberal but "evolves" on issues (eh).

Booker is closer to Castro than the other options when it comes to experience. I can't imagine he'd ever seriously be considered; I don't get it. Why not just go with Castro at that point? A Clinton running on the Obama legacy does not need help with the AA vote. They need to take advantage of this election to permanently [further] re-align Latinos and moderate suburbanites by successfully tying the Republican Party and its brand to Donald Trump.

Agree that it's a shame Becerra isn't being taken more seriously and that he is underrated. He was probably my top pick. He could help out with said realignment. It seems like Castro would only be a Hail Mary pick at best, if the polls plummet and Trump picks someone competitive.

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Still holding out hope for Becerra.

It's going to be Kaine.

Yes to both.