Mitch Perry Report for 5.17.16 – Elizabeth Warren for VP momentum grows

Democrats in Kentucky and Oregon go to the polls tonight, and all indications are Bernie Sanders will win at least one those two contests. Not that it will make much of a dent in Hillary Clinton‘s delegate lead. The way the party apportions delegates, he’s simply not going to be able to catch up by next month in pledged delegates to overcome her lead.

Tensions continue to grow within the two camps, especially with Sanders supporters after the chaos that ensued in Nevada last weekend.

Since the whole world assumes Clinton will the Democratic nominee, let’s play along for a second and observe the all of a sudden surge in momentum for Clinton to ultimately name Elizabeth Warren to be her running mate.

The idea was first fleshed out in the Boston Globe last month. I initially dismissed the idea, if for no other reason, the fact that Massachusetts has a Republican governor who would replace Warren with a Republican. With the U.S. Senate at stake this November, surely the Dems wouldn’t want to hurt themselves there.

However, as the Globe’s Annie Linskey reports, that would pose only a short-term problem because Massachusetts law stipulates that a special election must be called between 145 and 160 days after a vacancy occurs — so Massachusetts Democrats would have another crack at the seat relatively soon.

Although putting another white woman on the ticket could be considered counterproductive, Slate’s Michelle Goldberg writes that Clinton isn’t going to persuade white men anyway to support her, so she should double down with Warren, who of course, can help her with the Bernie Bros and his intense contingent of supporters who do NOT trust Clinton.

“She will do it by turning out the Obama coalition, probably adding more married white women to it,” Goldberg writes. “Warren can help her do that. She’s shown that she’s eager to, leaping into the Twitter fray against Trump. If a vice presidential candidate’s job is to attack, Warren is ready. Watching her go after the short-fingered orange chauvinist from now until November will be a pleasure.”

Interesting to note, by the way, how the seemingly can’t miss top VP prospect, HUD Secretary Julian Castro, is reportedly going to announce changes to a controversial HUD program to sell bad mortgages on its books. “Castro’s actions could potentially defuse an issue that activists have been using to question his progressive credentials — and he’ll be doing it at the moment the running mate search has begun to get serious at Clinton campaign headquarters,” wrote POLITICO on Monday.

My sleeper pick is actually Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. But enough about that. The time to speculate about a vice-presidential nominee is when Clinton actually has the nomination, which she doesn’t have yet, so why rush the conversation?

In other news …

As we said we would do on Monday, this reporter contacted every Senate candidate who hadn’t weighed in on Carlos Beruff’s remarks last week when he called President Obama “an animal.” All but one responded.

In an interview with WFLA-NewsChannel 8 on Sunday, David Jolly ripped into Beruff’s business background.

Jolly shared the dais with Minnesota Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan to speak about Jolly’s Stop Act at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday.

Tampa attorney Sean Shaw picked up another endorsement in his race to win the House District 61 seat.