Have come to the conclusion that @JoeBiden will pick @ewarren for VP....

First, let’s consider why Biden entered the race in the first place. Is it because he’d always thought that 2020 would finally be his year? At 77? If that had been the case, he would have entered the race MUCH earlier and tried to clear the field. Instead, he left it WIDE OPEN.

So why did Biden run? Because he must have seen Warren, Sanders, and a bunch of young newbies & relatively unknown moderates as being in a weak position vs Trump, whom he viewed as a cancer on American democratic ideals, and a clear and present danger to the country he loved.

He knew he was considered too old from the get go, and had to *feel* a bit too old himself, unexpectedly having to come out of retirement to compete with ambitious, energetic competitors, and win over the new wave of rambunctious, ultra-informed/digital/progressive young Dems.

Biden’s people float the idea that he might name Stacey Abrams as his running mate *at the very start of his campaign*. This would have been completely unprecedented politically. He was leading polls, and knew he had rock solid black support on his own. https://www.axios.com/2020-presidential-election-joe-biden-stacey-abrams-vp-54472f8f-5bb2-4d1f-bc7c-0544a09ebba5.html

Then in December—nearly 2mo before the first votes were cast—his people signal that his would be a caretaker Presidency, something without precedent since Polk.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474027-biden-indicates-he-will-only-serve-one-term-as-president-report
https://medium.com/useless-knowledge-daily/which-us-presidents-chose-not-to-run-for-a-second-term-eba9cb2660cb

This news got lost because at that time, all the smart money was on Biden’s support collapsing entirely, which it did in IA and NH, but then black voters in SC reinforced Biden’s original belief that he was the nation’s surest bet for defeating Trump.

As soon as he showed viability, the other centrist candidates swiftly cleared the field for him, leaving his left flank as his greatest electoral weakness, while Warren made her closing argument all about unifying the left.

Biden knows full well that disaffected Bernie folks defecting to Jill Stein or sitting out cost Hillary the election. He’s confident in his ability to win back blue collar Dems, but the primary made it painfully clear that he lacks the street cred to win the left.

So by Super Tuesday it was clear that:

1) Biden was reluctantly signing up for the job of POTUS

2) He only wanted to serve one term, despite the political risk of prematurely creating an open seat

3) He was determined to find a VP ready to step in as POTUS in 2024

Her unity messaging not enough to get a win on Super Tuesday, Warren ends her campaign on 3/5.

Only 9 days later, Biden endorses Warren’s bankruptcy plan—essentially burying a 15 year hatchet between them—on Warren’s most personal area of policy. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/politics/joe-biden-elizabeth-warren-bankruptcy-plan/index.html

And then fucking COVID hits, causing a global public health AND economic crises the likes of which Biden has never seen.

If he was unsure about doing the work of POTUS before, having a VP ready to do big work out of the gate must have become absolutely critical post-COVID.

Meanwhile, he was roaring to a resounding primary win, and his general election numbers have become crazy good now that COVID is finally sinking Trump’s approval.

He doesn’t really need to worry about electability anymore, and certainly doesn’t need to shore up black support.

So whom do you pick at this point, if you’re Joe Biden, and need someone to be working tirelessly from day one to overhaul, expand, and reform the Fed Govt to restore the middle class?

It ain’t Harris. Or Abrams. Or Duckworth. Though all are great & make sense as names to float.

It’s just got to be Warren.

And I have to imagine that the thought of rolling up her sleeves and getting to work behind the scenes, then stepping in to continue the work of implementing deep, structural change in 2024—has got to be pretty damn appealing to her, too. /end