The Biden campaign has reportedly been holding early discussions about how to best build an administration and cabinet in the event of a general election victory in November, now that former Vice President Joe Biden is the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
According to Axios, the Biden campaign is keen on pitching a “Return to Normal” plan, which would involve bringing establishment politicians and people Biden trusts into a possible Biden administration. While the article is light on details, the news agency reports that Biden advisers expect former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg to be offered a role in the administration.
But the news agency also engages in a fair bit of speculation.
Among these speculative theories, the report describes “several high-profile possibilities,” including former Secretary of State John Kerry serving in a climate change role, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) serving as Treasury Secretary, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg serving as president of the world bank.
The Biden campaign, not amused by the Axios report, responded to these theories in a statement to Bloomberg News.
“This is like fantasy football for politics, and no one who actually works on this campaign and is engaged in getting Joe Biden elected has the time to play. It is laughable speculation and should only be treated as such,” said Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director.
The Biden campaign is currently entertaining a long list of candidates, predominantly women, for the slot of vice president. But the ultimate choice may not actually require strong progressive credentials — one campaign adviser told Axios that the vice presidential nominee will be “whoever Jim Clyburn wants it to be.”
Clyburn, the House Majority Whip who has served in Congress since 1993, has been credited for breathing life back into Biden’s candidacy when he endorsed him for president shortly before the South Carolina primary.
According to Reuters, South Carolina exit polls show that 27% of voters said that the lawmaker’s endorsement was “the most important factor” in making a decision, and 61% of voters said it was an important factor.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, the Biden campaign has been entertaining several women to potentially join the ticket, including failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D-GA), former Assistant Attorney General Sally Yates, and Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH).
Furthermore, Business Insider has reported that a Democratic operative working with the Biden campaign believes Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) is a shoo-in for the ticket.
“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t Kamala Harris,” the source told the news agency. “I actually think [she] is pretty pragmatic. I think Kamala Harris is closer to Joe Biden’s form of politics than she ever was to the stuff she was trying to do on the campaign.”
Since Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary race, Biden has acknowledged he will strongly consider the California senator for a multitude of positions, including on the Supreme Court, and for the positions of vice president or attorney general.
At the time, CBS reported Biden as saying that “Senator Harris has the capacity to be anything she wants to be.”