New York: Former US Vice President Joe Biden has pledged to nominate a woman as his running mate if he gets the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in the November election.
“I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a woman to be vice president,” he said on Sunday during the Democratic debate directly facing off Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, his sole viable rival for the party nomination.
Senator Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican-African descent, is considered one of the front-runners on a Biden ticket.
For example, The Washington Post’s panel of experts known as “The Ranking Committee” on Friday said she and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar were tied for the first choice as the likely Biden partner.
Sanders refused to make an explicit commitment to nominating a woman as his running mate, although he said: “In all likelihood, I will.” It will be a matter of ideology, ensuring his Vice President candidate is a progressive, he said.
“There are progressive women out there a” so my very strong tendencies would be to move in that direction.”
The national anxiety over the coronavirus overshadowed the debate where the centrist Biden and the self-described democratic socialist Sanders clashed on ideology.
Biden said the nation needed a change, not a revolution, while Sanders said the status quo has to be undone. Their first one-on-one debate after the other candidates who had qualified for debates dropped out took place before Tuesday’s party poll in Arizona.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the venue was moved to Washington from Arizona and held without an audience and ensuring they stood two metres apart to keep the distance recommended by experts. (IANS)
