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Jonathan Alter thinks Joe Biden should choose Susan Rice as his vice president:

Yes, President Trump still has time to stage a comeback but the new state of the race suggests that Joe Biden is free to shift from a tactical to a strategic approach in choosing his running mate. Biden’s longstanding prerequisite —a “strong” vice president who is “ready to be president on Day One”—should now be more than a platitude….By that standard, Susan Rice is his best option. He already knows and trusts her (their offices were next door in the West Wing during Obama’s second term) and she possesses a cool, commanding gaffe-free public presence that can fairly be called “presidential.”

This is a very mature approach to the vice presidency. I, however, am not as mature as Jonathan Alter. I could imagine Biden choosing Rice because it would send Republicans into spasms of indignation so severe it would probably cause a few radio hosts to have heart seizures. Fox News might literally melt down. That’s because, aside from Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice was probably the single biggest Democratic punching bag among Republicans during Obama’s second term. The conservative frenzy over Rice would be spectacular.

She’s also very well qualified, and mature observers will certainly consider that more important. I’m just not feeling especially mature at the moment.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s worth noting that choosing Rice would also give liberals a chance to redeem themselves for their lackluster defense of Rice over the Benghazi affair. This is not a matter of explaining her actions with additional nuance, either. She did absolutely nothing wrong. Ditto for the unmasking “scandal.”

Nothing. Period.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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