Former DNC Chairman and pro-Hillary Clinton superdelegate Howard Dean is trying to pour cold water on the idea of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) being the running mate of our party’s presidential nominee, whether the presidential nominee is Clinton or, less likely, Bernie Sanders. In the process, Dean attacked Warren for being too old for whatever fits his description of an ideal presidential candidate:
“Certainly somebody like that would be very helpful,” Dean said about the the Massachusetts senator.
But then he added, “I strongly believe we ought to have somebody under 50 on the ticket. I think the Baby Boomers have run this country for too long. We stepped away from that with (Barack) Obama; we don’t normally go back a generation. We’re gonna have two Baby Boomers running for president on the Democratic and the Republican side. So I would like somebody very much who is not in the Baby Boomer generation. Who is in this new upcoming generation — the younger the better.”
Dean cautioned this wasn’t about Warren herself, “ideologically I think Elizabeth Warren is terrific.” But, he said, there are lots of well-qualified younger options for vice president.
While 2016 is probably going to be the Baby Boomer generation’s last hurrah in a presidential election, Dean’s remarks about Warren are ageist and absurd. In fact, Warren is actually younger (66 years of age) than either Hillary (68 years of age) or Bernie (74 years of age).
Aside from legal qualifications to be Vice President (Natural-born U.S. Citizen, 35 years of age or older, U.S. resident for at least 14 years), there are two important factors that I will use to determine whether or not I could be comfortable with a particular candidate as our party’s vice-presidential nominee:
- Whether or not he or she is prepared to take the presidential oath of office at a moment’s notice
- Whether or not he or she would embarrass the Democratic Party in any way
I prefer the answer to #1 to be “yes” and #2 to be “no” for our party’s vice-presidential nominee. There’s a lot of people who fit that bill, including, but not limited to, Elizabeth Warren. Howard Dean’s real problem with Warren is that he’s an insecure asshole.
The Progressive Midwesterner 