Why Elizabeth Warren Shouldn’t be Joe Biden’s VP
There is a lot of speculation going on about who Joe Biden will choose for his VP. With such a deep pool of talented women to choose from, it’s impossible to know who he will choose. Amy Klobuchar has resigned from consideration to make way for a Black woman to make history. This leaves Elizabeth Warren as the only White woman left in the running.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Elizabeth Warren. I love her life story. I love her career. I love that she is a Democrat while her brothers are all Republicans. I love that she “has a plan for that”. But she shouldn’t be VP due to her age.
Should he win in November, Joe Biden will be 78 and the oldest president ever sworn in in January. He is healthy now, but that can change over the next 4 years. He could die or become incapacitated due to a health crisis. Whoever he chooses for his VP must be able to step in to the role of president and complete the term literally from Day 1 if necessary.
Elizabeth Warren will be 71 in January. She is also healthy. Although women generally outlive men, there is a very real possibility that she too could die or be incapacitated due to a health crisis sometime in the next 4 years.
For the good of the country, Biden needs to choose a VP who is significantly younger than he is for two reasons. Reason one, of course, is that she must be able to take over the presidency and complete the term if he is unable to do so.
The second reason is the more important reason in my mind. It’s time for the Baby Boomers to step aside. I’m tired of the country being governed by the elderly. They are out of touch with contemporary culture. They have limited understanding of technology. They are resistant to change.
The Baby Boomers (of which I am one) have had their day in the sun. It’s time for us to exit the stage and let the younger generations have their turn at running the country. I know that a lot of my contemporaries feel that the current crop of young people are not capable enough to run the country but I would remind them that our parents said the same thing about us. And we didn’t do so badly.
For those of you who are critical of the Baby Boomers and all of the things that we screwed up, let me point out a few of our accomplishments. We invented personal computing. Al Gore not withstanding, we actually did invent the internet. And cell phones. And space travel. We started the Environmental Movement including Earth Day. We started the Women’s Movement which has allowed younger women more freedom and choices than we had. We fought for and won the right to choose.
We have laid the foundation. It’s time for younger generations to build on that foundation. Personally, I am excited to see what they come up with. The future is theirs. They will have to live in it so they deserve to have a say in what it will look like.
I hope that Elizabeth Warren will gracefully step aside. But I would like to see her as part of a Biden administration. She has a lot of talent and ideas to bring to the table. Just not as Vice President.
