No he didn't, he said woman [1]. Elizabeth Warren was reportedly very close to getting the role.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/15/politics/joe-biden-woman-vice...
When you reduce the candidate pool to one minority you have by definition, thrown out a majority of the total candidate pool. When you reduce that pool by sex you've cut it in half again, leaving yourself with a much smaller subset of the total candidate pool.
The odds are low that the best person for the job happens to be in that smaller pool. More importantly, you reduced the pool before knowing that the best candidate was somewhere in the smaller population.
Biden picking Harris to win the black vote is a political stunt and cheapens the role tremendously. Picking a VP only to win votes implies that the role isn't actually important and that anyone winning votes could do the job. I don't agree with that implication and find that it's quite a sleight to the importance of our government and our political system.
When voters stop making it a consideration, winning tickets will stop taking it as a hiring consideration.
At the moment, half the voters are seriously considering a felonious idiot, so I don't expect that they are going to smarten up anytime soon.
Yes, and? Sorry to be glib, but you either play the system by its rules or you cease being a player, survival bias at work.
This is literally every election. Every single one. It's literally all any speculation about VP picks is about. Seriously, pick an election year in the last century and I bet we could dig up articles about what voting bloc the VP is expected to bring in.
What's more is that it's largely independent of the competency of the VP picks, who are sometimes quite accomplished and capable.
And of course, it's always been assumed it will be "white" and "male" for almost the entire history of this country.
And yet for this one you trot out "DEI" and all that you're trying to imply with it. I wonder why.
Until the 12th amendment was passed the VP was whoever got second place in the election.
In more modern history, it's commonplace for VP candidates to be picked because they fill in a gap in experience for the presidential candidate. Bush and Cheney is a good example, as is Obama and Biden. Sure you could make it political and say they were shoring up one group of voters, but the VP pick filled in a gap of experience and skills that was missing. Harris filled in a diversity gap, I'm not aware of anything else she brought to the table that Biden was missing.
Biden specifically said he would be picking a VP that was a black woman. Niether is a qualification for the job nor a valid analog for success in the role. How is that not a DEI hire?
I'm not even saying DEI as a whole is a bad thing. I wouldn't begin to make such a broad reaching and absolute argument. I will absolutely argue that for roles as important as who is next inline to be President should be entirely about qualifications and fitment for the job. I don't think that a crazy stance at all but I'd love to hear any counterpoints you may have.