There are a lot of good reasons why it would be terrible if Hillary Clinton chose Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. For one, Democrats would lose a Senate seat for at least a few months. That would be unfortunate.
Also, we’d have to hear pundits call them the “Bobbsey Twins” every time one of them wore a short, bright blue jacket over a black top and pants, while the other wore a monochromatic periwinkle pantsuit with a long, closed jacket, as they did during an electrifying joint appearance in Cincinnati on Monday. Worse yet, we’d have to hear the same pundits say, “I don’t mean to be sexist” in the next breath, even though scores of middle-aged men wearing indistinguishable navy suits – on the Senate floor, for example – are never called the “Bobbsey Octogenuplets”.
Between the announcement and election day, we’d also have to endure a season of awkward barbecues with conservative aunts and uncles who think the idea of a female president is fine, hypothetically speaking, but putting two women on the same ticket just seems like feminist nonsense. Like a deliberate slap in the face to male voters, who mustn’t be startled.
Our more moderate aunts and uncles will simply cluck that they are too similar – north-easterners about the same age, gasp! This, even though one is a former first lady, senator and secretary of state who spent much of her career in the deep south and is frequently criticized for being both too uptight and too cozy with Wall Street, while the other is a charismatic Republican apostate with a glorious temper, a stone-cold vendetta against the big banks and a habit of publicly dragging Donald Trump. They’re only too similar, metaphorically or literally, if you look at them and see nothing but two bluish, woman-shaped blobs.
Naturally, a Clinton/Warren ticket would see social media overrun by aggrieved Bernie Sanders loyalists, every last one of whom at some point demonstrated their feminist bona fides by tweeting, “I would vote for Elizabeth Warren in a heartbeat!” Now they would never vote for Warren, because she joined forces with that lying, scheming, power-mad bitch. But those folks are definitely still not sexist, even subconsciously, because they would love to vote for the right female candidate, who surely exists among the boatloads of qualified, nationally visible lady politicians this country has proudly nurtured for greatness.
The right female candidate, you see, will be one with unimpeachable progressive credentials and no history of changing her mind in response to activist pressure (if she were a true progressive, she would have been right the whole time!) or compromising with anyone more conservative than Al Franken. Oh, and she should have the ability to win a general election. Until we find her, we’d better keep electing men to be safe.
Do we really want to listen to all that? The ambient sexism is already bad enough when it’s just Clinton at the top of the ticket. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable for everyone if she picked someone “safe” and “boring” like Virginia senator Tim Kaine? Or an exciting progressive man like Ohio senator Sherrod Brown – even if it meant his replacement would be chosen by none other than John Kasich?
Still, I know I’m not the only person who watched Warren and Clinton in Cincinnati and thought, “Yes! Let’s do this!” I know it mostly because because I belong to no fewer than six secret Facebook groups and listservs of Hillary supporters of every gender, formed independently to provide respite from the double-barreled hate hose of Trump fans and Bernie diehards on social media. You should have seen us yesterday, whooping and hollering just as much as the excited crowd that welcomed those two women in blue, holding each other’s hands high in front of a “Stronger Together” sign. We are so freakin’ ready for this ticket – the only real fear is that we’ll short out voting machines with our joyful tears.
Pundits will fret that Warren “could do so much more good in the Senate,” as though it’s even possible to compare the effects of diligent, behind-the-scenes lawmaking with being one of two women atop the executive branch for the first time in American history. Sexist gossips will fret about imaginary catfights. Clinton-hating progressives will fret that the principled Warren’s bound to become little more than the handmaiden of their arch-nemesis. Assholes will fret about vaginas. And everyone will fret about Trump winning. It’s possible, I admit, that every single American will become utterly insufferable between now and November.
But just imagine the two of them winning! Imagine them changing the face of our two highest elected offices forever. Imagine a pragmatic, supersmart liberal as president, flanked by a no-bullshit progressive who will never let her running mate forget about working people. Imagine a generation that will grow up thinking it’s strange that there were no female presidents or vice presidents before, not that it’s strange we have one of each in contention now.
Imagine the speeches Warren will give about Trump before November.
Come on, Hillary! You know now’s the time, old girl. You could clean Trump’s clock if your running mate was a reasonably attractive mop in a suit, let alone a safe, boring white guy.
Make the bolder choice. Be as brave as you’ve always had to be. Harness that magic we saw in Cincinnati and ride it all the way to the White House. We’re with you – and we’re with her.