https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/08/02/harris-to-interview-final-vp-contenders-this-weekend-as-decision-nears/74653586007/
Vice President Kamala Harris is set to interview finalists to be her running-mate over the weekend before announcing her pick.
That’s only the half of it. He got into politics as a gun control advocate after his wife, a house representative, was fucking shot in the head at a political out reach event! He somehow won his senate seat in gun loving AZ! It’s wild.
He's got a bit of an uncomfortable stance on Gaza is the only issue. If he could take a harsher stance on Israel he would be the perfect pick, but as is he might be a bit risky depending on how much actual impact that issue will have on the election.
It's hard for Republicans to argue against... but I imagine that would make environmentalists and people who want universal healthcare pretty annoyed. I mean most of those people will probably go out and vote Harris either way
Putting an astronaut in the VP position is our best shot to win the new space race. Not to mention that an astronaut would probably love the VP’s official residence which is literally an astronomical observatory.
The VP office has traditionally been very close to NASA and stereotypes of a VP’s values tend to be a good harbinger of the direction NASA will go in, often more so than the President’s values.
LBJ laid the groundwork for the moon missions, and made sure NASA would deliver on JFK’s promise to get to the moon by the end of the decade.
Former CIA director HW Bush led the shuttle towards the deployment of Star Wars and surveillance tech and military communications.
Gore developed earth-observing capabilities and climate science initiatives and planetary-scale perspectives.
Cheney focused so much on surveillance and military support and privatization that the Constellation program fell apart.
Biden got us JWST (eventually…), rebuilt our rocket program with Orion, and brought important cultural changes.
Pence shifted Orion into Artemis while also spinning up the space force to better separate NASA’s exploration and defense objectives (to avoid another Cheney).
Harris has doubled down on the Biden cultural shift, is looking to rebuild our aging climate observation systems from the 90s, and is moving forward with Artemis while letting Boeing and SpaceX take all credit/blame for whether or not her predecessor’s decision to outsource to the private sector was worth it.
Obviously reality is much more complicated, and the VP isn’t the only person calling shots. NASA is a sprawling and complex organization with many objectives and leaders. This comparison only seems to work to first order and for big-ticket items. It also could be coincidence and my brain being desperate for a pattern. The VP’s proximity due to living in an observatory is possibly a reason for their apparent influence. The VP doesn’t have to help lead NASA, but they happen to live in a spot where they are aware of what’s going on in space, have proximity to exert influence, and the VP is known for having time on their hands. I don’t know enough about how decisions get made at NASA to say any of this with certainty, it’s just the vibe I’ve gotten, and it makes sense within the built infrastructure.
A VP pick geared toward returning humans to the moon and with an interest on following through on missions like the Uranus probe would be a huge boon for space exploration, and would represent an investment in our country and our future by the technologies and science results returned.
Mark Kelly is the most qualified candidate for this aspect of the VP’s job. I don’t always agree with his political positions, but he would be able to hit the ground running and do a fantastic job with NASA.
What else does a VP really do? They make the ticket appealing during the election, and they live in an observatory with world class access to knowledge of what’s going on in space while hoping the president doesn’t die.
I think they’re just drawing it out to call attention to the fact that one party actually has multiple decent candidates.
Please not Shapiro. Please not Shapiro. Harris doesn’t need this weighing down the campaign: https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-josh-shapiro-aide-sexual-harassment-296d605f3533ca7a38e9f2983e533059
I hope she's not looking for the biggest unforced error she thinks she can get away with.
Appointing her union busting brother-in-law as campaign advisor and picking Shapiro for VP, what could go wrong?
I gotta admit, I was incredibly dismayed by the brother-in-law angle after reading into it.
She has already done so much but I hope Nancy Pelosi can do us just one more solid and nudge Kamala to pick Walz as the VP. I would love nothing more than his profile being raised to become a pres. contender in the future, not to mention maybe his progressive policies being adopted by Kamala.
Even former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appears to be leaning in Walz’s favor. A source familiar with the California Democrat’s thinking told The Hill she “is always especially fond of former House colleagues” when asked about Harris’s running mate, a nod to Walz.
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