5.31.2020 Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series
The protest against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is not limited to the urban streets of San Francisco.
The revulsion sweeping the country can be found in the artwork “Stop Police Terror” on Kennedy Drive in world famous Golden Gate Park, normally a sanctuary from the turmoil of contemporary America.
Text by Liz Heidhues
Photos – Lee Heidhues
The country is now burning and what the Minneapolis prosecutor does will be closely watched after the smoke clears.
Minneapolis prosecutor Mike Freeman is being severely criticized for his seemingly lax attitude in prosecuting police abuse. His decision to charge ex-cop Derek Chauvin with only third degree homicide in the brutal killing of George Floyd is being challenged.
To date the prosecutor has brought no charges against any other cop involved in the murder of Mr. Floyd.
Minneapolis Star Tribune 5.30.2020
On Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced criminal charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd
Despite the criticisms and challenges, Freeman on Friday appeared undaunted.
He touted the speed in which the charges against Chauvin were filed — less than four days from Floyd’s death — as the fastest his office has ever brought charges against a police officer.
“This case has moved with extraordinary speed,” Freeman said. “We have charged this case as quickly as admissible evidence has been collected and presented to us. We have now been able to put together the evidence that we need,”
And, for now at least, he said the third-degree murder charge is most appropriate. Freeman acknowledged the road ahead might be difficult.
The burden of proof makes it difficult to convict a police officer of murder. But, he reminded people Friday, his office has done it before.
On Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced filing the same charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd.
In doing so, Freeman once again finds himself in the glare of the national spotlight as he attempts to succeed a second time at what has been an exceedingly rare result in Minnesota and across the country — convincing a jury to convict a police officer of murder.
Despite what the now-viral video shows — a seemingly nonchalant Chauvin’s knee pressing the neck of a clearly distressed Floyd for nearly nine minutes — local legal experts say convictions are far from ensured in cases where cops are charged with murder. Even when much of the public is convinced police were in the wrong, police officers have won acquittal.
From Freddie Gray’s 2015 death in Baltimore while in police custody to the 2016 shooting death of Philando Castile during a Falcon Heights traffic stop, cases that seem open and shut often are not.
In part, it’s because state law gives police wide latitude in using deadly force if they fear they or others will be seriously injured or killed.
While that seems unlikely from the video of Chauvin restraining Floyd, former Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said the fact remains that prosecutors must be painstakingly thorough.
“These cases are way more complicated and the burden on the prosecution is higher than I think the public understands,” she said.
Thomas Heffelfinger, former U.S. attorney for Minnesota, agrees.
“It’s not a slam dunk and these cases never are,” Heffelfinger said. “These cases are hard to prove and we have to make sure we do it correctly.”
Obtaining a murder conviction is not the only challenge Freeman faces.
Demands are growing louder for charges to be brought against the other three police officers who assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd on Memorial Day. And the longtime prosecutor’s relationship with the local black community continues to be strained.
In 2016, Freeman announced he was eliminating the long-standing and secret use of a grand jury in police-involved shootings after the November 2015 death of Jamar Clark. Activists praised the decision, only to make him the target of derision after he announced that he wouldn’t charge the officers involved.
He faced a similar backlash in July 2018 when he declined to prosecute the officers involved in the shooting of Thurman Blevins, a decision made just one month after the shooting. And when Noor shot and killed Justine Ruszczyk Damond after he responded to her 911 call in 2017, some activists noted that it only occurred when the officer was black and the victim a white woman.
Freeman also drew controversy in the case when he was caught on tape telling activists before Noor’s charging that he didn’t have the evidence to do so because investigators “haven’t done their job” and that a charge would be “the big present I’d like to see under the Christmas tree.”
On Thursday, the county attorney was criticized after he said: “It’s a violation of my ethics to talk about and evaluate evidence before a charging decision and I will not do that. I will say this: that that video is graphic and horrific and terrible and no person should do that. But my job in the end is to prove that [Chauvin] violated criminal statute.”
Freeman later issued a statement “that it is critical to review all the evidence because at the time of trial, invariably, all that information will be used.”
A group of local activists on Friday launched a campaign to remove Freeman from office, saying Freeman’s statements Thursday “will make securing a criminal conviction against Derek Chauvin more difficult.” The recall group said Freeman “has mishandled the murder of George Floyd” and that “this is not the first time that Mike Freeman has protected killer cops and stood in the way of justice for unarmed Black men. We cannot let him continue to use his office to protect police who abuse and murder Black and Brown folks in our city.”
Even the charges Freeman chose to file against Chauvin — the same that were used to convict Noor — were criticized by local experts as understating the severity of the crime. In separate interviews Friday, local attorneys Joe Friedberg and Christopher Madel called Freeman’s decisionmaking in the case “inexplicable.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t fit this,” Friedberg said of the charge of third-degree murder.
“That charge is more appropriate for someone doing something deadly, without a particular person in mind.”
He added: “They have put themselves in a position here where any intelligent judge would dismiss this case.”
Madel, a former trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department who has represented clients in several high-profile cases, said the video of the incident appears to make a charge of second-degree murder more appropriate.
In the video, Chauvin appears to repeatedly ignore Floyd’s cries that he can’t breathe, despite witnesses pleading with him to stop.
“Multiple witnesses can be heard telling [Chauvin] ‘I think you’re killing him.’ ” Madel said. “And he just sits there with his hands in his pockets.”
“The whole world’s watching,” was the chant at the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago when the Police rioted against thousands of demonstrators protesting the War in Vietnam.
This American scene is unfolding again as the country erupts following the Police murder of black civilian George Floyd.
Minneapolis (CNN)[Breaking news update at 2:23 p.m. ET]
It may be 2020 but one needs to go back to August 1965 and remember the Watts riots in Los Angeles. Here are are, again. The police murder of George Floyd lit the spark. The country is aflame
Frank Zappa in his “Freak Out” album memorialized the moment with his classic, prescient song “Trouble Comin’ Everyday” which has stood the test of time in ways he probably couldn’t forsee at the time
“I’m not black but there’s a lot of time I wish I wasn’t white,” is one of the most telling lines in musical history.
Lee Heidhues
The Minneapolis Star Tribune is the go to publication for details about the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops earlier this week. A crime which has created a political and media firestorm.
The Star Tribune did its research and published the following piece about the murderous cops.
Minneapolis Star Tribune 5.29.2020
The Minneapolis police officer shown on video kneeling on George Floyd’s neck as Floyd pleaded for help, along with another officer who stood by and watched, have both been involved in use-of-force incidents over their careers.
Officer Derek Chauvin has been identified as the officer pinning down Floyd in the now-viral video, which shows Floyd saying he can’t breathe repeatedly before losing consciousness. Floyd later died. Four officers on scene have been fired. They have not yet been officially identified by department officials.
Chauvin, 44, is a 19-year department veteran. Department records and news accounts show that he has been involved in several police-involved shootings over his career.
In 2008, Chauvin shot and wounded Ira Latrell Toles during a domestic assault call. According to a 2011 article from the Pioneer Press, Chauvin and other officers showed up to an apartment in south Minneapolis just before 2 a.m. Toles grabbed for an officer’s gun and Chauvin shot him in the abdomen.
In 2006, Chauvin and five others responded to a stabbing. After Wayne Reyes, 42, allegedly pulled a shotgun on the officers, one of the officers shot and killed Reyes, according to a report titled “Stolen Lives” from Communities United Against Police Brutality, a police watchdog nonprofit based in Minneapolis.
The other officer identified in the video is Tou Thao. According to a deposition he gave in a 2017 lawsuit, Thao started with the department as a community service officer. He went through the academy in 2009. He was laid off for two years and returned to the department in 2012.
In 2017, Lamar Ferguson sued Thao and another officer, Robert Thunder, for excessive use of force. According to the lawsuit, Ferguson and a woman who was eight months pregnant were walking home when Thao and Thunder stopped and searched them without cause. The officers handcuffed Ferguson, and Thao threw him to the ground and began punching him, while Thunder kicked him, according to the allegations.
The officers took Ferguson to the hospital for medical treatment. Afterward, they escorted Ferguson to jail wearing only his underwear and T-shirt, rejecting hospital staff’s requests that he be allowed to fully dress, according to the complaint.
In a deposition, Thao said they arrested Ferguson due to an outstanding arrest warrant. He said he only punched Ferguson after one of Ferguson’s hands slipped out of the handcuffs.
“He tries to pull away,” Thao said in the deposition. “And he puts his hands on me and tries to give me a stiff arm in a way to try to get me off of him. After — at this point he’s actively resisting arrest. He — so I had no choice but to punch him. I punched him in the face. It causes him to pause a bit which gives Officer Thunder the time to come around and help.”
The case settled out of court for $25,000, according to Seth Leventhal, one of Ferguson’s attorneys.
The rest of the country continues to ignore the danger of the Coronavirus.
San Francisco, always the trendsetter in art, politics, technology and now Pandemic fighting, has mandated all citizens wear face covering both indoors and outdoors.
It’s the medically correct move and guarantees San Francisco will be one of the healthiest places in America.
San Francisco Chronicle 5.29.2020
People in San Francisco must wear a face covering outside in most circumstances under a major new health order announced Thursday, as the city paves a path toward reopening.
Under the new order, which is scheduled to take effect at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, face coverings are now generally required — with a few exceptions — when someone is exercising within 30 feet of another person, walking past someone else on a sidewalk or preparing food or other items for people who are not part of their household.
The rules, which extend and expand existing orders that require people to wear masks indoors at shops and other establishments, are bound to be difficult to enforce and cause tension between residents who wear coverings and those who for various reasons do not. But officials feel it’s necessary to curb the spread of the coronavirus as they loosen shelter-in-place orders and residents undertake more activities.
“As we begin to reopen, it is going to be more important than ever that people cover their faces when they are outside the home,” Mayor London Breed said. “With more people moving about, we are tempting the virus to spread, and we need to do everything we can to stop that from happening.”
Coverings are also required for anyone working at or seeking goods or services from most businesses and government agencies, as well as people involved in essential infrastructure work, most health care services and transportation, officials said. (San Francisco’s Muni transit system had already required face coverings.)
The coverings should go over a person’s nose and mouth and fit securely. During a news conference Thursday, Breed said that businesses will be allowed to turn away people who do not mask up.
The exceptions include when someone is alone in a private office; driving in a car alone or with people in their household; alone or with members of their household in an outdoor area like parks and not within six feet of anyone else; and eating or drinking if they are alone or only with members of their household without anyone else being within six feet.
Children younger than 12 and people with documented medical exceptions or other conditions that prevent them from wearing a face covering are also exempt.
Joggers or other exercisers who are not within 30 feet of other people are not required to wear a face covering, but they just have it with them in a visible place, ready for use if they get close to someone else.
City officials in early April recommended face coverings before requiring they be worn for all essential businesses and in public facilities, on transit and while doing essential work.
The execution of George Floyd is beyond outrageous.
It is a wanton and unprovoked murder by the cops.
The fact the Mayor cried in front of the cameras to express his feelings says it all. The murder is an act which has aroused worldwide condemnation and aroused the mainstream media to provide surprisingly unvarnished coverage of this shameful, cruel and mind numbing event.
Coming close on the heels of the murder of black jogger Ahmuad Arbery in Georgia by two white men the Clear and Present Danger of racism has been displayed in brutally raw fashion.
Excerpted from Minneapolis Star Tribune 5.27.2020
Hours after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for a police officer’s arrest and charges in the death of George Floyd, violent protests erupted anew, causing widespread damage and looting at south Minneapolis storefronts.
“We watched for five whole excruciating minutes as a white officer firmly pressed his knee into the neck of an unarmed handcuffed black man. I saw no threat. I saw nothing that would signal that this kind of force was necessary,” Frey said.
Earlier, Frey called for the arrest and charging of now-fired police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck as he pleaded to breathe.
“I’ve wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey said. “If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that.”
A fatal shooting in the protest area was over looting at a pawn shop, the shots fired by the store’s owner, Minneapolis police said early Thursday at a news conference. The wounded man was taken to HCMC, where he died. One person is in custody, a police spokesman said.
A Target and Cub Foods anchoring the corner of E. Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue were looted, along with other small businesses, including Minnehaha Lake Wine & Spirits. Flames and smoke shot into the air when a nearby AutoZone auto parts store was set ablaze. As some protesters tried to put out the fire, others danced gleefully in front of it, snapping selfies.
The violence followed a daylong protest outside the Third Precinct police headquarters, where officers sought to disperse crowds with flash-bang grenades, tear gas and projectiles through the day and night.
Minneapolis Police Federation President Lt. Bob Kroll did not respond to messages requesting comment and declined to take questions from a reporter at his office. However, he said in a statement provided to Forum News Service before Tuesday’s firings that, “Now is not the time to rush to judgment and immediately condemn our officers. We ask that the community remain calm and the investigation be completed in full.”
‘Shocked and horrified’
Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that he was “shocked and horrified” by the video of Floyd’s death.
Frey said he made the decision to call for charges after watching the video. He said he has not spoken to the officers involved or seen the footage captured by their body cameras. Frey said the restraint technique used against Floyd is not authorized by the MPD, is not something officers were trained in and “should not be used, period.”
What do you expect in America?
Small wonder people headed for the parks and beaches this holiday weekend ignoring the best medical advice. Better to live in a fantasy world and go down happy rather than face the reality. Covid-19 kills.
America 2020. People torn between wanting to maintain their health, a vocal group of reality deniers wanting to pretend Life is Good and a totally clueless Imbecile masquerading as President. It’s hardly surprising the population is heading for the nearest recreation hub to ignore social distancing and hope for the best. Good luck with that.
Washington Post 5.26.2020
Here are some significant developments:
When asked questions normally used to screen patients for mental health problems, 24 percent showed clinically significant symptoms of major depressive disorder and 30 percent showed symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder.
The findings suggest a huge jump from before the pandemic. For example, on one question about depressed mood, the percentage reporting such symptoms was double that found in a 2014 national survey.
The troubling statistics were released last week in a tranche of data from the Census Bureau. The agency launched an emergency weekly survey of U.S. households at the end of April to measure the pandemic’s effects on employment, housing, finances, education and health.
Buried within that 20-minute survey, U.S. officials included four questions taken nearly word-for-word from a form used by doctors to screen patients for depression and anxiety.
Those answers are now providing a real-time window into the country’s collective mental health after three months of fear, isolation, soaring unemployment and continuing uncertainty.
Here we are in the midst of the Pandemic.
It is a day to remember 53 years ago today in Europe the release of the long awaited Beatles album hit the record shelves. People lined up to grab copies. Parties were held. Critics waxed poetically and philosophically. All with good reason. Sgt Pepper is one of the most listened to, scrutinized and revered albums of all time.
https://youtu.be/HCTunqv1Xt4
Following is the original New York Times Review
June 1, 1967 – Richard Goldstein
The Beatles spent an unprecedented four months and $100,000 on their new album, “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” (Capitol SMAS 2653, mono and stereo). Like fathers-to-be, they kept a close watch on each stage of its gestation. For they are no longer merely superstars. Hailed as progenitors of a Pop avant garde, they have been idolized as the most creative members of their generation. The pressure to create an album that is complex, profound and innovative must have been staggering. So they retired to the electric sanctity of their recording studio, dispensing with their adoring audience, and the shrieking inspiration it can provide.
The finished product reached the record racks last week; the Beatles had supervised even the album cover — a mind-blowing collage of famous and obscure people, plants and artifacts. The 12 new compositions in the album are as elaborately conceived as the cover. The sound is a pastiche of dissonance and lushness. The mood is mellow, even nostalgic. But, like the cover, the over-all effect is busy, hip and cluttered.
Like an over-attended child “Sergeant Pepper” is spoiled. It reeks of horns and harps, harmonica quartets, assorted animal noises and a 91-piece orchestra. On at least one cut, the Beatles are not heard at all instrumentally. Sometimes this elaborate musical propwork succeeds in projecting mood. The “Sergeant Pepper” theme is brassy and vaudevillian. “She’s Leaving Home,” a melodramatic domestic saga, flows on a cloud of heavenly strings. And, in what is becoming a Beatle tradition, George Harrison unveils his latest excursion into curry and karma, to the saucy accompaniment of three tambouras, a dilruba, a tabla, a sitar, a table harp, three cellos and eight violins.
Harrison’s song, “Within You and Without You,” is a good place to begin dissecting “Sergeant Pepper.” Though it is among the strongest cuts, its flaws are distressingly typical of the album as a whole. Compared with “Love You To” (Harrison’s contribution to “Revolver”), this melody shows an expanded consciousness of Indian ragas. Harrison’s voice, hovering midway between song and prayer chant, oozes over the melody like melted cheese. On sitar and tamboura, he achieves a remarkable Pop synthesis. Because his raga motifs are not mere embellishments but are imbedded into the very structure of the song, “Within You and Without You” appears seamless. It stretches, but fits.
What a pity, then, that Harrison’s lyrics are dismal and dull. “Love You To” exploded with a passionate sutra quality, but “Within You and Without You” resurrects the very cliches the Beatles helped bury: “With our love/We could save the world/If they only knew.” All the minor scales in the Orient wouldn’t make “Within You and Without You” profound.
The obsession with production, coupled with a surprising shoddiness in composition, permeates the entire album. There is nothing beautiful on “Sergeant Pepper.” Nothing is real and there is nothing to get hung about. The Lennon raunchiness has become mere caprice in “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.” Paul McCartney’s soaring Pop magnificats have become merely politely profound. “She’s Leaving Home” preserves all the orchestrated grandeur of “Eleanor Rigby,” but its framework is emaciated. This tale of a provincial lass who walks out on a repressed home life, leaving parents sobbing in her wake, is simply no match for those stately, swirling strings. Where “Eleanor Rigby” compressed tragedy into poignant detail, “She’s Leaving Home” is uninspired narrative, and nothing more. By the third depressing hearing, it begins to sound like an immense put-on.
There certainly are elements of burlesque in a composition like “When I’m 64,” which poses the crucial question: “Will you still need me/Will you still feed me/when I’m 64?” But the dominant tone is not mockery; this is a fantasy retirement, overflowing with grandchildren, gardening and a modest cottage on the Isle of Wight. The Beatles sing, “We shall scrimp and save” with utter reverence. It is a strange fairy tale, oddly sad because it is so far from the composers’ reality. But even here, an honest vision is ruined by the background which seeks to enhance it.
“Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” is an engaging curio, but nothing more. It is drenched in reverb, echo and other studio distortions. Tone overtakes meaning and we are lost in electronic meandering. The best Beatle melodies are simple if original progressions braced with pungent lyrics. Even their most radical compositions retain a sense of unity.
But for the first time, the Beatles have given us an album of special effects, dazzling but ultimately fraudulent. And for the first time, it is not exploration which we sense, but consolidation. There is a touch of the Jefferson Airplane, a dab of Beach Boys vibrations, and a generous pat of gymnastics from The Who.
The one evident touch of originality appears in the structure of the album itself. The Beatles have shortened the “banding” between cuts so that one song seems to run into the next. This produces the possibility of a Pop symphony or oratorio, with distinct but related movements. Unfortunately, there is no apparent thematic development in the placing of cuts, except for the effective juxtapositions of opposing musical styles. At best, the songs are only vaguely related.
With one important exception, “Sergeant Pepper” is precious but devoid of gems. “A Day in the Life” is such a radical departure from the spirit of the album that it almost deserves its peninsular position (following the reprise of the “Sergeant Pepper” theme, it comes almost as an afterthought). It has nothing to do with posturing or put-on. It is a deadly earnest excursion in emotive music with a chilling lyric. Its orchestration is dissonant but sparse, and its mood is not whimsical nostalgia but irony.
With it, the Beatles have produced a glimpse of modern city life that is terrifying. It stands as one of the most important Lennon-McCartney compositions, and it is a historic Pop event.
“A Day in the Life” starts in a description of suicide. With the same conciseness displayed in “Eleanor Rigby,” the protagonist begins: “I read the news today, oh boy.” This mild interjection is the first hint of his disillusionment; compared with what is to follow, it is supremely ironic. “I saw the photograph,” he continues, in the voice of a melancholy choir boy:
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood aud stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was reallysure if he was from the House of Lords.
“A Day in the Life” could never make the Top 40, although it may influence a great many songs which do. Its lyric is sure to bring a sudden surge of Pop tragedy. The aimless, T. S. Eliot-like crowd, forever confronting pain and turning away, may well become a common symbol. And its narrator, subdued by the totality of his despair, may reappear in countless compositions as the silent, withdrawn hero.
Musically, there are already indications that the intense atonality of “A Day in the Life” is a key to the sound of 1967. Electronic-rock, with its aim of staggering an audience, has arrived in half-a-dozen important new releases. None of these songs has the controlled intensity of “A Day in thg Life,” but the willingness of many restrained musicians to “let go” means that serious aleatory-pop may be on the way.
Ultimately, however, it is the uproar over the alleged influence of drugs on the Beatles which may prevent “A Day in the Life” from reaching the mass audience. The song’s refrain, “I’d like to turn you on,” has rankled disk jockeys supersensitive to “hidden subversion” in rock ’n’ roll. In fact, a case can be made within the very structure of “A Day in the Life” for the belief that the Beatles — like so many Pop composers — are aware of the highs and lows of consciousness.
The song is built on a series of tense, melancholic passages, followed by soaring releases. In the opening stanza, for instance, John’s voice comes near to cracking with despair. But after the invitation, “I’d like to turn you on,” the Beatles have inserted an extraordinary atonal thrust which is shocking, even painful, to the ears. But it brilliantly encases the song and, if the refrain preceding it suggests turning on, the crescendo parallels a druginduced “rush.”
The bridge begins in a staccato crossfire. We feel the narrator rising, dressing and commuting by rote. The music is nervous with the dissonance of cabaret jazz. A percussive drum melts into a panting railroad chug. Then
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.
The words fade into a chant of free, spacious chords, like the initial marijuana “buzz.” But the tone becomes mysterious and then ominous. Deep strings take us on a Wagnerian descent and we are back to the original blues theme, and the original declaration, “I read the news today, oh boy.”
Actually, it is difficult to see why the BBC banned “A Day in the Life,” because its message is, quite clearly, the flight from banality. It describes a profound reality, but it certainly does not glorify it. And its conclusion, though magnificent, seems to represent a negation of self. The song ends on one low, resonant note that is sustained for 40 seconds. Having achieved the absolute peace of nullification, the narrator is beyond melancholy. But there is something brooding and irrevocable about his calm. It sounds like destruction.
What a shame that “A Day in the Life” is only a coda to an otherwise undistinguished collection of work. We need the Beatles, not as cloistered composers, but as companions. And they need us. In substituting the studio conservatory for an audience, they have ceased being folk artists, and the change is what makes their new album a monologue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band
Selecting Senator Elizabeth Warren will solidify Joe Biden’s standing with the dedicated and committed large progressive wing of the Democrat Party.
It will also put a woman in the White House who possesses the brains, political smarts and willingness to fight hard for what she believes in.
Excerpted from The Nation – Jeet Heer 5.24.2020
Biden will face the enormous task of cleaning up Trump’s mess, with both the pandemic and the economic meltdown requiring policies that are quick, bold, innovative, and far-reaching. It’s hard to think of anyone better equipped to help Biden in such a crisis than Warren. She’s the politically smart pick. She’s also the best person for the job.
Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic primaries on March 5. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign a month later, on April 8. Yet, more than six weeks later, both Warren and Sanders continue to rack up votes in the primaries. In the Oregon primary, on May 19, Joe Biden got 66 percent of the vote, Sanders 20 percent, and Warren nearly 10 percent. In the Hawaii primary, which ended on May 22, Biden got 63 percent and Sanders nearly 37 percent.
It remains astounding that a third of the Democratic Party continues to vote for someone other than Biden even after his receiving the endorsement of all his main rivals, including Sanders and Warren. By contrast, Donald Trump has a unified Republican Party behind him.
Biden has been making policy overtures toward progressives, notably in selecting the committees that will shape the party platform. But he still has a way to go. In April, longtime Democratic Party strategist Stan Greenberg warned the Biden camp that Sanders voters were “dangerously not” ready to accept Biden yet. A recent Change Research poll in Michigan showed that Biden was doing 5 points worse among voters under 35 than Hillary Clinton did. Biden leads the state by 49 percent to Trump’s 46 percent. If Biden could get young voters as excited as they were in 2016, he’d have a much more comfortable lead in a crucial swing state.
A recent poll conducted by Data for Progress laid out a strong case that Warren is the candidate who is best positioned to unite the party if selected as a running mate. According to the polling organization, “Sixty-one percent of Sanders supporters would be more likely to vote for a Biden/Warren ticket, compared to 42 percent for a Biden/Harris ticket, 33 percent for a Biden/Klobuchar ticket and 26 for a Biden / Abrams ticket.”
Unifying the party goes beyond any simple polling advantage. The consensus among political scientists is that a vice-presidential candidate makes little difference unless they are notably unpopular (Sarah Palin probably cost John McCain between 1 and 2 percent). But a vice-presidential pick is important for building a coalition and getting different factions of a party to work together.
As David Leonhardt pointed out in The New York Times, many of the most successful presidential tickets have involved a balancing act between candidates who are dissimilar. “Donald Trump, a divorced reality-television star, chose a religious conservative,” Leonhardt notes. “Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both worried about seeming inexperienced, chose party elders. Ronald Reagan, who was labeled a radical conservative, chose an establishment figure: George H.W. Bush.” By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s pick of Tim Kaine did little to help her, since he shared her political profile.
The fact that Warren has a record of challenging Biden on issues like bankruptcy law might make him averse to picking her. But, in cold political terms, these earlier fights should make her a more attractive candidate, one whose selection can bring the party together. She has real credibility with progressives and can be trusted to be their advocate in a Biden administration. Even progressives disappointed by her backtracking on Medicare for All still know she’s by far the most left-wing candidate on Biden’s short list.
But Warren’s credibility goes beyond her policy prescriptions. She also has the specific character traits needed in a top-level government official. Trump’s corruption and incompetence have demoralized the civil service, notably the State Department and the Centers for Disease Control. Any successful Democratic administration will need to rebuild the administrative state, attracting thousands to join the new government. Warren, uniquely among the plausible picks to be Biden’s running make, has built up a network of policy wonks who could help fulfill this task.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-warren-vice-president-pick/
Lee's Perspective 