Why do you hate our system of democracy? 3.5M people over 65 (eta: are eligible to) vote by mail every election in TX...how many fraudulent votes have you found?
I LOVE Susan Rice and, in any other election, she'd be my pick. She's incredibly smart. But her greatest asset is her foreign policy chops. That's one place Biden doesn't need help. He needs help rebuilding the economy and rebuilding government infrastructure that was devastated by Trump firing anyone with any experience (people with decades of serving both parties that Trump called 'the deep state'). That's Warren. Re: the rest of your post, as I said in my original post, she's my pick for governing, not electability or 2024. Even though she's my pick for both of those things as well, I'm not interested in that debate, except to say VP's don't lose presidential elections unless they're Sarah Palin bad. I'm only making the argument that in this time of unprecedented crisis, Biden needs major help governing. No other candidate (or person) fits that bill as well as Warren does. Nobody comes close.
First, the Democrats have a very good chance of holding the House and winning the Senate. That changes the equation on the "zero sum game" thing. As for Biden/electability, it was his entire argument and the entire argument of each of his major advocates, in public and private--that he was best suited to beat Trump. And that nobody else could win, which was ridiculous. Exit polls in states he won also cited his electability as the major reason for supporting him. I'm not belittling Biden by saying that. It's an historical fact.
Hilariously, this anti-Trump group of Republicans is headed up by Kelly Conway's husband George Conway. All of their ads have been pretty great.
Wall Street Journal editorial... "trump is debasing his office, and he’s hurting the country in doing so.”
The Hill (center right news site) op-ed written by a Democratic strategist... Seniors will make Donald Trump a one-term president https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/499451-seniors-will-make-donald-trump-a-one-term-president
With the Senate on such tenuous ground and Dems needing every person they can get, that rules out Warren. I agree with you in that she would probably be the best VP choice...however, her state has a Republican governor, which means her replacement would likely be a Republican. Dems can't afford to make Warren VP only to come up one seat short in the higher chamber. Sucks for her because it probably also rules her out from any cabinet positions as well.
You have a great point, and I think it's a knock against her, because if Biden wins those first few months will be critical. But I don't think Baker's going to name anyone that won't go along to get along. They'll have to run in the special election too. Charlie Baker is a Republican governor in a very blue state and he'll have to run for reelection. There's precedent there for naming a replacement of the same party. Also precedent there for the blue legislature passing a bill to speed up the special election so they don't have to wait the customary 90 days. She could also resign from the senate early to speed up the special election. I don't think she's the favorite though. I just think she's the best choice. If she's not named though, Biden can wait for her wrt a cabinet position and I think he would. He can announce his intention to appoint her, but wait to actually do so.
And if he did name her to a cabinet position, I think he would invent a new one for her giving her a lot of control over the economic recovery and fixing the broken system we had before all this pandemic stuff.
While Democrats focus on battleground states and maybe throw some efforts at a couple of traditional red state pickups, Trump will have to defend himself in NC, GA, and TX at least. We don't know yet if that UT poll is an outlier, but it's a good sign. Older votes are hell of pissed at Trump's response to coronavirus and that really doesn't bode well for him in FL. If Florida goes blue, that's the election.
Honestly, I'm not a big fan. It's not at all clear to me that there is potential for corruption at scale without getting caught. I just don't know. Experts say it can be done safely. Nevertheless I'm uncomfortable with standing up a new protocol on an emergency basis. You don't have the time to do a pilot, to build fraud detection capabilities, etc. And, maybe most importantly fraud or not, you don't have the luxury of socializing the tool to the electorate to give them comfort that the protocol is safe and effective. That's not where I want to be for the most consequential election of the last 50+ years. Election day will be a big coronabomb. But right now we're suffering the compounding effects of two simultaneous disasters. In November we have a chance to knock out one of those disasters, which will make dealing with the other one a lot easier. I'm reluctant to do anything too crazy that will jeopardize that chance. If Trump wins re-election, we are effed with or without the coronabomb on election day.