And that's the only thing that matters right now.
Biden wasn't picked as Obama's VP because he had some great ideas and they got along really well together. Biden was picked because Obama needed to shore up his experience gap and adding Biden, who had a wealth of experience as both a senator, and someone who was not only on the Foreign Relations Committee (for 30-plus years & chaired the committee from 2001-2003 and then again from 2007-2008) but the Judiciary Committee. He shored up some of Obama's biggest areas of weakness - which is typical of a VP candidate (his regional play in the rust-belt also helped).
In fact, it's almost universal. Even Trump brought some Washington clout to his ticket, choosing Pence, who was a member of Congress for a decade.
Rice is very qualified but her qualifications don't round out the ticket. They just don't. Biden is not going to be worse off in the foreign policy arena with her as, say, Sec. of State, as opposed to VP.
That's where I come from.
At the end of the day, does she help Biden win in November? I'm not so sure.
And that's why I am more inclined to support someone like Val Demings or Kamala Harris, two individuals who've been elected recently, which I think helps, and bring some level of experience that is just not there for Rice - namely Harris with her strong national standing and Demings with her police chief background + the fact she comes from a swing state.
Rice is not an outsider. Rice is a career unelected diplomat and frankly, I don't know if that will play well in this election.
And this is coming from someone who's advocated for a Biden-Rice ticket for over a year now.
2020 is not a big foreign policy election. Granted, the COVID crisis is internationally tied, and we will absolutely need to repair our broken diplomatic relationships - but this is now a domestic election. It's going to be about rebuilding the economy, fixing systemic racism at home and, likely, reforming our police forces.
Rice has no experience whatsoever in any of those arenas. Harris, being a sitting senator, does. Demings, being a former cop, and now a member of the House, does.
Domestically, I don't know where Rice stands on a lot of issues. Which, obviously, can be a positive, but it also can be a negative because, as a blank slate in that regard, you're not quite sure what you'll get.
I just feel this election is too important to take a risk like that. Especially when Rice is tied to Benghazi and I watched for years how the right vilified Hillary over it and, whether we want to admit it or not, those attacks worked. They hurt. I don't want to relive that line over and over again if we don't need to and you may say that's not a legitimate reason, or it's giving into the hate-mongers on the right, but at the end of the day, beyond shoring up the areas of weakness for the nominee, a VP candidate's biggest duty is to do no harm.
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