During a conversation about Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his future running mate pick, Tangazo! podcast host Hank Thompson talked to Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. (D-MO) about how some prominent Democrats seem to be losing focus on the goal of winning the election in 2020 in favor of other agendas.
“I thought the message, Congressman Clay, coming out of South Carolina was real clear,” said Thompson. “Bernie and everybody else not withstanding, we need to win this election, this presidential election in 2020. No nonsense.”
The podcast host then said he’s been disappointed in failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D-GA), whom he respects, and the people in the media propping her up as a diversity candidate.
“I’m afraid that if you begin to beat that drum, about the vice president has to be a woman of color, has to be a woman of color, then that could become a distraction. You see what I’m saying?” Thompson asked the congressman.
“I do see it, and here’s what I do know,” Clay told Thompson in response. “We went through a process. Bernie Sanders has conceded, and this applies to Stacey, too. You know, at the race tracks, you cannot show up at the winner’s window with loser’s tickets. You haven’t won anything.”
“You can’t show up to the winner’s window with loser’s tickets and demand anything, okay,” said Clay. “Let’s be for real, that’s not how politics works.”
“I was a little bit taken aback when she began to talk about how she has to speak up,” said Thompson, who seemingly referred to Abrams’ habit of hyping herself as a potential running mate to Biden.
Later in the conversation, the congressman told Thompson that he’s actually found Abrams’ blatant push for a spot on the ticket to be “somewhat offensive.”
“I’ll tell you what is somewhat offensive to me,” remarked Clay, “is when you are marketing — marketing — yourself as a VP candidate. Hey, that’s entirely up to the nominee in terms of who’s going to be on his ticket with him.”
“For you to be out there marketing and putting on a PR campaign in that way, I think it’s kind of inappropriate,” said Clay.
Abrams, who served as the minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives for several years, gained national recognition in 2018 for her unsuccessful campaign for governor, particularly after she failed to concede that she lost.
Politico reported on Tuesday that Abrams has been putting in phone calls to influential Democratic leaders in an effort to get the Biden campaign to pick her as his running mate.
Abrams has also been making television appearances and conducting magazine interviews to focus the national spotlight on her unorthodox campaign for vice presidential nominee. She recently proclaimed to be serving as her own “hype-man,” and remarked in an interview with Elle Magazine that she would be an “excellent running mate.”
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