The Daily Show examines 'Harris Hunts for a VP' and the Veepstakes from left to center

I wrote that I would return to current events today, so I'm returning to the comedy of The Daily Show with last night's Harris Hunts for a VP & Trump Drags Mindy Kaling Into His Racist Drama.

Ronny Chieng tackles Donald Trump's continued attacks on Kamala Harris's racial identity, this time citing... Mindy Kaling's Instagram? JD Vance handles his own race problems with a lukewarm defense of his wife against white supremacists, and Ronny runs down Harris's options for a running mate, who, as Desi Lydic explains, absolutely cannot be a woman.

Convicted criminal Hoover Cleveland thinks he can gatekeep who is African-American for political advantage. Nope. If Howard University, Kamala Harris's alma mater, accepts her as African-American, then she's African-American in addition to being Asian-American. Hoover Cleveland can stuff his misinformed racist opinion where the Sun doesn't shine.

The skit moved on from there to its main topic, Harris's potential running mates. As much as I would like her Vice Presidential running mate to be a woman, I agree with Desi Lydic that the pragmatic choice would be a man, preferably a white man.* Follow over the jump for the 2024 versions of Democratic Vice-Presidential contenders from left to center according to Voteview and On The Issues' take on Democratic Vice-Presidential contenders from left to center.

I begin by sharing my methods.

Mine was to rank the candidates by economic score from low (left) to high (right, or in this case center) to make it comparable to the liberal-moderate (there are no true conservatives running for the Democratic nomination) ranking I used last week which was based on the economic dimension. I then used the social score to break ties in the economic score with high scores being considered more liberal and low scores being considered more conservative.

With that out of the way, here are the contenders for the 2024 Democratic Veepstakes.


My methods produced a surprising result, Senator Mark Kelly as the most liberal with an economic score of 5 and a social score of 73. Maybe my method of interpreting the scores is flawed because it's too simplistic. If I drew a horizontal line from the far left corner to the far right corner and then projected the ideological point onto it, it might yield a result more in line with On The Issues rating him as a Populist-leaning Liberal. Fortunately, I have another way to depict Kelly's ideology.


Because he's serving in the Senate, Kelly has a Voteview score of -0.217, making him more conservative than 91% of Democrats in the Senate while being more liberal than 55% of the current Senate. That feels more like it and makes for a good balance to Harris being the second most liberal Senator when she left to become Vice President.


Secretary Pete Buttigieg has moved back to the left with an economic score of 20 and a social score of 85 after his journey to the center during the 2020 campaign. Huh. I like him, but this makes me think he's a bit of an opportunistic chameleon. That may not be a bad thing in politics, but it makes me wonder.


Governor Tim Walz sits in the ideological middle of the pack with an economic score of 20 and a social score of 83, just enough to break the tie with Buttigieg. On The Issues still considers both to be Hard-core Liberals. They would get the Democratic base even more enthused, but I don't know if they would appeal to swing state independents beyond them being white men from the Midwest.


Governor Josh Shapiro is next on the trek to the center with an economic score of 28 and a social score of 68. On The Issues rates him as a Moderate Liberal. He's also the Governor of Pennsylvania, a swing state with a lot of electoral votes, so that might be helpful.


Governor Andy Beshear is the most centrist/moderate of the five contenders with an economic score of 30 and a social score of 55, resulting in a rating of him as a Moderate Liberal Populist. On paper, he'd probably be the best to match up against JD Vance. In real life, I think any of the five would acquit themselves well.

My readers and I will find out soon enough who the designee is. Expect me to write about both Vance and the Democratic nominee on Veep Day.

*The Daily Show uploaded the latest episode of the Emmy-nominated Desi Lydic Foxsplains this morning. I might just embed that in tomorrow's entry, then examine all the short form nominees at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Stay tuned for that, too.