The speculation continues as to who Joe Biden will pick as his vice presidential candidate. The field is apparently self-narrowing.

From the reported six women that were under consideration by Team Biden, the list has reportedly narrowed to two, despite Team Biden’s protestations that it’s down to these two women. Amy Klobuchar made an announcement yesterday (after obviously falling out of the running) that she wanted to be removed from consideration in order for a “woman of color” to be chosen. Elizabeth Warren hardest hit.

The two names that are reportedly being considered are Kamala Harris and Val Demings, with some people still holding out hope for Elizabeth Warren.

Read "as of now" from Wall Street dems w knowledge of the process, which isn't over. Top consideration for @JoeBiden is picking VP who "does no harm." Right now that appears to be @KamalaHarris w @RepValDemings No 2. @ewarren could still emerge based on vetting more @FoxBusiness https://t.co/dxAX70bhAb

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) June 19, 2020

It looks as if Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is now off the list, especially with the insanity happening right now in Atlanta. And to my own personal disappointment, Susan Rice seems to be out of contention as well. Bummer. I was looking forward to the ad campaign.

If the Biden campaign is serious about a candidate who “does no harm” to the ticket, these choices are still problematic. Warren would be a non-starter in that category, as we all saw the logistical knots she twisted during her presidential run in order to justify her “Medicare For All” math. Team Biden may need the Bernie voters, but Warren comes with so much baggage that she would do plenty of harm to a Biden ticket.

Joe Biden could be convinced that Kamala Harris would “do no harm,” but there’s no way that he could ever be comfortable with her. And we all know that the campaign ads of Harris essentially calling Biden a racist, or saying that she believes the Biden accusers, would be on constant replay all over the place. The left has not been shy as to WHY Harris, who looked like the ideal candidate on paper, so completely bombed out of the Democrat primary. Mother Jones summed up what became the standard view of Harris on the hard left this way:

But in the end, it was Harris’ own history that worked against her. As district attorney, she pioneered an innovative program that kept nonviolent first-time offenders out of jail. But she also boasted a tough-on-crime approach, including truancy programs that sent a handful of parents to jail. Harris, still in her first term in the Senate, ultimately could not reconcile the nearly two decades she spent in law enforcement with a rapidly changing political landscape on criminal justice issues that’s driven by the progressive base’s desire for systemic change.”

In the current frenzied environment, would Harris actually “do no harm” to the Biden ticket? That’s a joke. But she is also the VP candidate who has been more in the public eye and had her record scrutinized. The same cannot be said for Val Demings.

Demings got national screen time as one of the Democrat impeachment managers, which feels like a lifetime ago now. She didn’t exactly make a splash in her role, especially with Schiff and Nadler hogging the spotlight. Her time in front of the microphone didn’t exactly inspire anyone, or give anyone the impression that she was ready for primetime. And now that her name keeps coming up on these lists, her history is going to get a full examination.

But as Demings’s star rises, some Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other progressive activists are taking aim at her tenure as Orlando’s first female police chief, which spanned 2007 to 2011, and they are questioning whether someone who spent a decades-long career in law enforcement is right for this moment.”

“While she was chief of police, I felt like public policies and changes to address community policing should have been done. It was not,” said Lawanna Gelzer, president of the National Action Network’s Central Florida chapter. “We’ve had a problem here for years.”

“I will go vote, but I will not vote for her if she’s on that ticket,” Gelzer added. “Biden needs to listen to the people of Orlando and of Florida and elsewhere — not law enforcement — at this time.”

A 2015 investigation by the Orlando Sentinel into the city’s police department found that from 2010 to 2014 — a period partially overlapping Demings’s tenure — officers used force 3,100 times, including kicking, pepper-spraying or shocking suspects.”

And Orlando police used force more frequently on black suspects, the newspaper found, mirroring findings elsewhere in the country. Some 55 percent of use-of-force incidents involved blacks, though only 28 percent of the city’s population is black. Seven of the 10 people shot to death by officers were black.”

While Demings’s personal history would be an asset in a normal election cycle… this is not a normal election cycle. Many, many Black Lives Matters leaders – some quoted in the above article by The Hill – are not going to support a former police chief on the Biden ticket, not even if it is an African-American woman. What will the political realities be like in two months, when the Democrats are having their national convention? Will Team Biden risk putting Demings on the ticket? Or will they resign themselves to a known liability like Harris?

All I know is that two months is an eternity in politics.

Featured image: Flickr/Creative Commons/Gage Skidmore, cropped, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)