An initial list of possible running mates compiled by Hillary Clinton’s campaign this year included a wide variety of names — including some surprising ones, like former Attorney General Eric Holder, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, according to an email released in the WikiLeaks dump.
But the March 17 email — released in the WikiLeaks dump on Tuesday — sent from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to Clinton also reveals that the campaign is very much focused on identity politics, organizing prospective running mates in apparent groups based on race, sex and other distinctions.
In the email, Podesta told Clinton that senior staffers “did a first cut of people to consider for VP.”
“I have organized names in rough food groups,” Podesta wrote to Clinton.
The email didn’t explicitly identify the “food groups” but the labels are obvious: Hispanics, women, white men, African-Americans, military, businesspeople or philanthropists and the Bernie Sanders/Democratic socialist wing of the party.
Here are the name, grouped as they were in Podesta’s email:
Hispanics: Javier Becerra, Julian Castro, Eric Garcetti, Tom Perez and Ken Salazar.
Women: Tammy Baldwin, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Jeanne Shaheen, Debbie Stabenow and Elizabeth Warren.
White men: Michael Bennet, Sherrod Brown, Martin Heinreich, Tim Kaine, Terry McAuliffe, Chris Murphy and Tom Vilsack
African-Americans: Steve Benjamin, Cory Booker, Andrew Gillum, Eric Holder, Deval Patrick, Kasim Reed and Anthony Foxx.
Military: John Allen, Bill McCraven and Mike Mullen.
Private sector: Mary Barra, Michael Bloomberg, Ursula Burns, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Muhtar Kent, Judith Rodin and Howard Schultz.
Democratic socialists: Bernie Sanders.
“Let me know if there are people you would like to see added or removed before we begin the process,” Podesta wrote.
