There once was a time when the vice presidency was so worthless that its 32nd occupant, John Nance Garner, compared it to “a bucket of warm piss.” Most of them are lost in the mists of time. Heck, who among us – without the aid of Google – can name Grover Cleveland’s first veep, who dropped dead after eight months on the job?

But we learned the hard way in 1945 that veeps should not be afterthoughts; when Harry Truman ascended upon the death of FDR, he didn’t know a thing about the A-bomb project. We take it for granted today that it matters who’s a heartbeat away. And if Joe Biden becomes the oldest person to ever take the presidential oath, it will matter more than ever.

I was reminded of that by something he said yesterday. Campaigning in Michigan with Senator Kamala Harris and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, he declared: “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”

That is Biden’s core message, as he puts Bernie Sanders in the rear-view mirror. He won’t formally pledge to serve only one term – it’d be nuts to define himself as a lame duck on day one – but by calling himself a “bridge,” he’s signaling the next best thing. He wants to be healer and unifier, a transitional figure who can usher in normalcy after four nightmare years and lay the groundwork for younger Democrats.

All of which makes his veep pick even more consequential than usual. Eho is likely to be? It’s probably too early to play this parlor game, but we’re talking here about a president-in-training, and since we’re waiting for the results of the Michigan primary and five other contests, there’s no harm in speculating.

We can surely assume (although it’s never safe to assume anything) that Biden will choose a woman, for obvious reasons. But since we know it won’t be Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, pictured above), we’re left with these likely prospects, listed alphabetically (because I have no idea who’s on his A-list, and neither do you):

Stacey Abrams. An African-American from Georgia might put that southern state in play for Biden – along with North Carolina and Florida – by stoking huge turnout in minority communities. She nearly won her Georgia gubernatorial race (battling vote suppression), which proved her strength on the stump. But she has no national experience, and Biden is already popular with people of color.

Kamala Harris. She’s eloquent, like Abrams. She could have multiracial appeal, like Abrams. But she didn’t poll well in the black community during her brief presidential bid, in part because of her record as a prosecutor. And she hails from California, which is already blue. On the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily matter where a veep comes from. Biden’s Delaware was already blue when Obama won twice, and Dick Cheney’s Wyoming was already red when Bush won twice.

Amy Klobuchar. Or maybe Biden decides that a veep’s state does matter; Klobuchar’s Minnesota went blue in ’16 by only two percentage points. And her sensible squareness might help with the crucial suburban moms in midwestern states (Wisconsin, Iowa) that tilted to Trump last time. Independents and Republicans disgusted with Trump would likely also find her palatable. On the flip side, Biden and his team might decide that she’d make the ticket too white.

Elizabeth Warren. Maybe she and Joe would make the ticket too old. Maybe her populist presence on the ticket would fatally freak out Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Maybe Democrats can ill afford to lose her in the Senate (Massachusetts’ Republican governor would surely replace her with a Republican appointee). But on the upside, she’d probably make the ticket palatable for a fair share of Bernie’s grassroots progressives, and signal that Joe intends to build bridges between moderates and the party’s left.

Gretchen Whitmer. The new Michigan governor won with the coalition that fueled the 2018 blue wave – especially among moderate suburban women. She’s probably too much of a newbie for the national stage, but, again, if Biden thinks a veep’s state is important, he could do worse than highlight Michigan – a plank in the blue wall until 2016. It swung to Trump last time by only 11,000 votes, and Whitmer could erase that. Although Biden could erase that without her.

Sally Yates. The former deputy attorney general – eloquent, white, from Georgia – is my wild card pick. You may remember that she was one Trump’s first firings in 2017. Her presence on the ticket would underscore the Democrats’ determination to reinstate the rule of law. And she has been vocal lately: “The Justice Department is not a tool of any president to be used for retribution or camouflage. In all of government, the Justice Department uniquely functions in a trusted bond with Americans to dispense justice without fear or favor.” Works for me.

Any of these women would fare well in the vice-presidential debate against Nikki Haley. Bring it on.

—

By the way, Grover Cleveland’s short-lived veep was Thomas A. Hendricks.