According to the latest news, future president Joe Biden will be announcing his VP pick during the upcoming week.  (At the latest, it would be the following week with the virtual convention scheduled to start on August 17.)  As I noted two months ago, there are two things that go on behind the scenes which make guessing the name a fool’s errand — skeletons in the closet and personal compatibility.  Simply put, even if we knew what Joe Biden wanted in a candidate, we would not know what the vetting of the potential candidate revealed and among the three or four candidates who meet the wish list of qualities and survive vetting we would not know which one will “click” with Vice-President Biden.   But the third factor — political considerations — is something that we can talk about.

There are three aspects to political considerations:  1) the status quo (what the current state of play is in the race); 2) a guess about November (regardless of where things are now, what states will be in play in November); and 3) what are your goals for the next four years (how will the pick help your administration).  On the third consideration, it is always possible to pick a running mate that you will keep mostly on the sidelines (see Dan Quayle), but most recent presidents have wanted somebody who would be able to handle some of the heavy lifting after the election.

The reality is that most VP picks have limited impact on the political equation.  They may make a marginal difference in their home state, but, as long as they are generally qualified, they tend to disappear into the background over the campaign with people ultimately voting based on the presidential candidate.  But the VP pick does say something about the judgment of the presidential campaign and their vision for their administration.  So here are the basic questions that the campaign has to answer.

1. Progressive or Moderate — This issue is the ultimate dividing line in the party.  If your concern is about exciting the base, then the obvious solution is to go with somebody recognized as a progressive (say Senator Elizabeth Warren).  On the other hand, if you see this election as the chance to win over suburban voters and dramatically shift the balance of power permanently, you may want to go with a more moderate choice (say Governor Gretchen Whitmer).
2. Executive vs. Legislative; State vs. Federal — The question here is what type of experience in government best says “ready to be President.”  Simply put, state legislative experience has typically been seen as not enough.  The real debate has been whether it is better to be the woman in charge (a governor) or have work at the federal level (U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative).  Some in the mix (Senator Harris, Senator Duckworth, Senator Hassan, and Governor Grisham) can claim both executive and federal experience.
3. Woman of Color? — Minority groups have been some of the most solid parts of the Democratic base.  So there is some argument that a Democratic ticket should be balanced by both race and gender.  To some degree, this view is a very old-fashioned concept.  In the old days, in urban elections, there was a belief that all of the larger ethnic groups in the community needed to be on the ticket.  So you might have an Italian candidate for Mayor, an Irish candidate for City Council President, and a Polish candidate for City Comptroller.  Like with the progressive versus moderate question, this debate is about rewarding the base versus being seen by some swing voters as pandering to the base.
4. Law Enforcement Background — Several of the candidates mentioned have backgrounds in law enforcement (or law-enforcement related) positions.  In a normal year, that type of service would be a “moderate” credential that might offset the contender’s history of progressive votes in Congress (basically something for both sides).  This year, the concern about excessive police force makes this credential less of a positive.  The reality is that the line between “not pretty, but legal” and “excessive” is a very thin line.  And these potential candidates had to make tough choices in light of a set of laws that tend to give police officers a lot of discretion.  (For example, just this week, the new prosecutor in St. Louis County who ran, in part, on a pledge to take another look at the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, concluded his review of the case and concluded that, ultimately, his predecessor made the right decision by not filing charges against the police officer.)  However, some part of the base will be unhappy if Biden picks one of these people because they think that these officers should be chargeable (regardless of the law).  But we have already seen one candidate knocked out because of questions about her charging decisions when she was a district attorney, and this factor may have quietly eliminated others.
5. Age — Even more so than in most election years, age may be an issue.  Both President Trump and Vice-President Biden are older than almost everyone who has previously served as President.  Ronald Reagan turned 78 several weeks after he left office.  Donald Trump, if he gets and completes a second term, will be older than Reagan was at the end of the next term.  Joseph Biden, if he wins, will be older at the start of his first term than Reagan was at the end of his second term.  As such, there is some incentive to go with a significantly younger candidate as the VP pick.   On the other hand, going with a too young pick will just emphasize how old Joe Biden is.  Fortunately, for the Democrats, Trump has been so erratic and is almost as old as Biden that it has been hard for his attempts to attack Biden on age to make much headway.

It is hard to tell which approach will be best except in hindsight.  (And even then, the analysis tends to be distorted by the biases of those conducting the analysis.)  We do not know whether the November election will be close (or if the final  goal will be to win some reach states and districts in down ballot elections).  And we don’t know which states/districts will be close.  If we were psychic, perhaps we could tell whether the goal should be to increase minority turnout in states with high minority populations, to increase progressive turnout in mostly white states, or to get voters in lean red districts to decide that the Republican Party under Trump is no longer their party.    In the next week, we will see how the Biden campaign and Joe Biden has answered these questions (and which candidate Biden feels comfortable running with and potentially working with for the next four years).  Stay tuned for further developments.