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Elizabeth Warren And Harry Reid Making Strategic VP Maneuvers

By Nick Younker
Published on: 12:07 PST, Jun 6, 2016

Elizabeth Warren has long been a favorite for Vice President in the Democratic race for the White House, but several of her colleagues in the Senate do not want to see that happen. That’s not because she wouldn’t be good at the job, but rather because of what she could leave behind, as described by Harry Reid.

You see, Harry Reid is that former majority leader that is now in the minority in the Senate. So his main goal is rebuilding the senate so that the democrats can take control. Elizabeth Warren is also a democrat in the senate, and if she were to run for VP under a Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders ticket, and win, then the governor of her home state would have his/her choice as to who would fill Elizabeth Warren’s seat in the senate.

Therein lies the problem for Harry Reid with Elizabeth Warren joining the Democratic ticket, presumably under Hillary Clinton. Although Warren is the perfect choice to run with Clinton, that could make things even harder for reclaiming a majority in the senate, considering Elizabeth Warren hails from Massachusetts and that state currently has a Republican Governor, Charlie Baker.

For those who are following along, Elizabeth Warren running for Vice President and winning in November would mean that she would be handing the republicans in the senate an extra seat and widen the gap that Harry Reid is trying to extinguish to fulfill his quest.

But now, Harry Reid is going back on his decision and looking for new ways to gain some ground in the senate while still letting Elizabeth Warren run as VP, as reported by The Boston Globe.

It appears as though there is some maneuvering that Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren can do that would eliminate the Governor’s choice for filling her senate seat in November. But it does not come without some risk.

The basic strategy here that Harry Reid came up with is that Elizabeth Warren would essentially have to resign her seat in the senate to make sure that Baker did not fill her seat in the 145 to 160 days that he is allowed to. In that case, Elizabeth Warren would essentially make it possible to get a special election in that could likely yield a democratic successor to her seat, should Warren and Clinton win the presidency.

But that would also put Elizabeth Warren in a sticky situation come November if she and Clinton were to lose the election to the GOP contender, Donald Trump. It would not automatically count her out for the seat, but rather force her to run against anyone that is running for the seat she resigned.

Of course, that is only one of the many ways that Harry Reid is approaching the situation, at least for now. Elizabeth Warren is far too big of a voice in the senate, as well as her popularity with the American left. It is her candidacy on the ticket that democrats are hoping to use to pull in those that support Bernie Sanders.

Also, even though Elizabeth Warren is considered a favorite for the 2016 ticket, there is still a downside to her running with Hillary Clinton. Voters will just have to face the fact that even in 2016 America, there is still a misogynistic view of women in society and although they may vote for Hillary in the general election, having Elizabeth Warren on the ticket could lessen the possibility that they would vote for her, meaning they could swing toward Donald Trump or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.

Either way, Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren have a lot of work to do between now and November to make sure that their strategies provide for plentiful fruit in both the Senate and the White house. At the very least, they want to maintain, if not expand upon, their party’s influence in the federal government.

[Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images]

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