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

[Del Tachi]

Note that if Kaine is picked, then McAuliffe picks his replacement in the Senate, but that person then faces a special election in just a year's time (November 2017).  Will McAuliffe be able to find someone who'd be favored to win that election in an odd-numbered year?

McAuliffe obviously wants Kaine to be appointed so he can run for the seat in the 2017 special.

Probably get some feel-good McAuliffe adviser/insider as an interim until then.  Someone like Carlos Hopkins fits that bill. 

And I'll agree, all of the talk of Vilsack is just a way to get progressives begging for Kaine by the time of the announcement this weekend. 

[Del Tachi]

Interesting to see the NYT say the announcement will come Saturday when the campaign was signalling Friday earlier in the week.

My thoughts:

(1) Hillary hasn't actually made the pick yet, and might need an extra day to decide (unlikely)
(2) The campaign has contingency plans and is prepared to use either a Friday or Saturday event as an announcement.  If the RNC continues to go bad, expect a Saturday announcement (it allows the negative news out of Cleveland to dominate for a whole other news cycle).  If Trump's acceptance speech goes well, expect a Friday announcement as a way to stop any positive momentum. 

I'd say number 2 is probably what's going on here.

For those of you in the know, does Warren's schedule have her in Florida on both Friday and Saturday?  Or just one of the days?

[Del Tachi]

I am cautiously optimistic that she'll make an exciting pick.

I mean, she must have "felt the magic" during her joint rally with Warren, because there's no way she could have felt it with Kaine. It was just so obvious what a bore the guy is, and for all her flaws, Hillary isn't stupid.

Plus, it seems to me that Trump has kind of made a tactical error. Pence was a super-boring pick, and his convention so far has been a dud. It'll appeal to the most hardcore of hardcore Republicans, but I have a hard time seeing how someone who is on the fence could turn on the TV, witness the tone of the RNC (blatant racism, factless lip-flapping, chants of "lock her up!" etc.) and feel more comfortable voting Trump.

A choice like Kaine or Vilsack is status quo. Maybe it keeps the race at Clinton +3 or so, but that's still an uncomfortably thin margin when the stakes are as high as they are. At this stage with Trump, I have a very hard time seeing how Warren would actually hurt Clinton, net-net... and with Warren there is a real opportunity to unleash some excitement for the campaign. What is more, I think Warren's energy helps make Hillary a better candidate herself. And when she feels like she's fighting to make history, it becomes personal for her and she begins to exude a kind of warmth that could improve her favourables. Plus, Hillary needs a more coherent message, and Warren helps crystallize one for the campaign (kind of like how Romney's Ryan pick was seen at the time to give the GOP ticket some ideological teeth).

Even so, my one fear with Trump is that his campaign and messaging are so thin that it is very easy for people to project whatever they want onto him. A core message of "greatness" is pretty flexible. CNN had a family of Trump supporters on Don Lemon's show last night (a black family, no less), and their message was thoughtful, precise, well-informed... except Trump has never really indicated his support for what this family was fighting for. They just, sort of... saw it in him. That's scary. Especially when it gives surrogates the chance to actually present an intelligent case for Trump.

All that to say, Hillary needs someone who actually makes her ideological case stronger as well as someone who is not afraid to go on the attack in a substantial way. She also needs to find a way to at least partially make her campaign transcend the political and become a movement. The only candidate who does all this for her is Warren. The party's demographic advantage makes it hard for Hillary to lose regardless, but it would be nice to give the Republicans a thumping so that things can actually get done. And long-term, the only way Hillary wins re-election is if she can actually point to progress.

Interesting point, but one major argument I see against this way of thinking.

Don't change the game when you're ahead.

[Del Tachi]

Interestingly, a lot of Hagrid's logic surrounding the reasons for a Warren pick would also work in the event of a hypothetical Crist pick.

Except this time, instead of reach out to progressives and other liberals she's building excitement and reinventing the political paradigm by creating a center-to-center-left "grand coalition" type of ticket.  That would generate plenty of excitement from still dissatisfied #NeverTrump'ers who are looking for anything at this point. 

[Del Tachi]

Srsly, y'all

Crist is no more of a VP candidate then Gwen Graham, Buddy Dyer, Corrine Brown or Marco Rubio

[Del Tachi]

As we're awaiting this, can someone remind me why Kaine is the #1 frontrunner and nobody cares about Warner, who has (I think) all his positives and is less boring?

He blew it in 2014. Ran a bad campaign, and almost lost.

He's also the wealthiest member of the Senate.  Might have been too much for progressives to swallow.