In Light of George Floyd's Death by Minneapolis PD, Biden Should Avoid Klobuchar UPDATE

In today's edition of The Bulwark, Robert Tracinski makes the case for Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar to be Joe Biden's running mate:

There are a number of options I could recommend if Biden had not limited himself to nominating a woman. Colorado’s Jared Polis, for example, seems to be the Democratic governor who has managed the coronavirus crisis most successfully, free of disastrous early decisions and preening self-regard (Andrew Cuomo), heavy-handed overreach (Gretchen Whitmer), or hypocrisy (Ralph Northam).

But in today’s Democratic party, with its race and gender obsessions, Biden clearly feels the need to counterbalance his old-white-maleness with a partner who would, by implication, be the future first female president.

The challenge is that Biden shouldn’t just pick someone to excite the ideological activists. After the battle with the progressive side of the party, there may be a temptation to try to shore up his support on the left. This would be a mistake.

Just about everybody on the left has a strong incentive to vote for Biden simply because he’s not Donald Trump. The number of progressives who hate a moderate Democrat enough to stay home is small. Biden can afford to lose the votes of a couple hundred communists in Brooklyn, in order to gain thousands of swing voters in the Upper Midwest and Sunbelt.

Tracinski is correct in saying that Biden can afford to lose the votes of a couple hundreds communists in Brooklyn. But Biden cannot afford to lose several thousand African-American votes in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and, yes, Minneapolis. Biden runs that risk if he picks Klobuchar. 

In light of this week's death of George Floyd in broad daylight at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, the selection of Klobuchar would not be helpful to Biden's cause and draw increased scrutiny to Klobuchar's career as a prosecutor. After all, Minneapolis is situated in Hennepin County. This would be the same Hennepin County where Klobuchar served as County Attorney from 1999 to 2007. Despite the killing of 29 police killings of mostly African-American civilians and 122 police misconduct incidents during her time in office she never once saw fit to prosecute a police officer. Then there is the case of a young, African-American male named Myon Burrell who sits in jail for a murder committed by someone else. In light of these facts it is curious that Tracinski characterizes Kamala Harris as "too much of a cop." If Harris is too much of a cop then what does that make Klobuchar?

Let us keep in mind that the African-American vote declined by 7% from 2012 to 2016. A significant portion of that decline was in cities like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. If Hillary Clinton had garnered 77,000 more votes in those three cities, Donald Trump would never have seen the inside of the Oval Office. If a critical mass of the African-American community views Klobuchar as part of the problem rather than as part of the solution then there is a very good chance that you can add Minneapolis to that list. This is critical when one considers that Minnesota has the highest African-American voter turnout in the country. If African-American voter turnout stagnates or declines because of Klobuchar's presence on the ticket then Donald Trump wins a second term. The fact The Washington Post tells us that Klobuchar "scrambles to fix relations with the African-American community" raises a very large red flag which Biden cannot ignore. 

Under the circumstances, Biden's wisest VP choice might be Val Demings, the Florida Congresswoman who spent more than a quarter century with the Orlando Police Department working her way from patrol officer all the way up to chief of police. Selecting an African-American female police chief would balance the concerns of African-Americans with regard to civil rights with the vital importance of law enforcement. 

Of course anyone Biden picks to be his running mate will be subject to intense scrutiny. But given the visceral anger of a significant segment of the African-American community to the idea of a Biden-Klobuchar ticket I believe Biden would be wise to ignore Robert Tracinski's advice on the subject.

UPDATE: When Klobuchar was Hennepin County Attorney, she passed up several opportunities to prosecute Derrick Chauvin, the ex-officer at the center of Floyd's death, of police brutality and misconduct. This will not help her cause.