The Story So Far...

After last week's democratic debate on MSNBC, I can only come to the conclusion that Senators Kamala Harris & Cory Booker are hanging in there to burnish their Vice Presidential Prospects. Both are passionate, articulate, can swing a mean soundbite and even so they are both dead in the water, in the patois of Frank Dell, "They aren't mo-oving bay-bee!" Right now their last best hope of Overthrowing Destiny Lies in a Joe Biden Nomination for President. Harris would make a formidable  Veep for Biden, classy yet tough, Pence wouldn't last long in debate with her believe me.  Booker on the other hand is a Veep for Mystic Symmetry, Biden made it to Veep with an African American Heading the Ticket, now he returns the favor by nominated another poised articulate passionate African American Man as his Veep.
Meanwhile Buttigeig is moving up in the polls out in Iowa, but then all polished articulate outsiders with a Kennedy-esque ability to project a comforting establishment glow have their Day in the Sun in the democratic presidential sweeps. And lets face it, Buttigeig has an Obama-like capacity to incarnate himself as the very  prospect of change, it obscures his essentially centrist pragmatic outlook nicely.  At the moment though, the polling indicates he is pulling support pretty much from Biden which does sent up an interesting confrontation down the line...maybe.
Biden meanwhile lumbers along, abandoned seemingly by everyone save the voters who consistently seem to regard him as the preferred grizzled gunslinger hired to clean out the high binders & bandits currently infesting the Republic.

These are pretty much the front runners at this point, Bloomberg seems poised to spend 37 million dollars of his own money on TV adverts in Iowa and NH, but then this is stark necessity, time has gotten so short its impossible to shake enough hands or eat enough spaghetti to make a fast surge up in the polls.
As for the other late entry, our own Deval Patrick, who apparently if the Boston Globe is to be believed thinks he can turn the South Carolina Primary into a Game Changer...I just don't see it happening, the era of the late coup in the democratic primaries is long over. Its a sort of narcotic myth indulged by the punditariat, like brokered conventions and sudden third party bids.  No right now the field with the inside track seems to be Sanders, Warren, Biden & at the moment, Buttigeig...that fourth outlier spot could change, who knows Yang might catch fire but time is getting short for everyone front runner and dark horse.
But, if I was to speculate, if its Biden it'll have to be someone who excites the base as well as someone younger, that superficially favors either Harris or Booker. I also think Biden may himself feel constrained to choose a woman as a gesture toward the forces of change in the democratic party.
On the other hand, he seems to get along famously with Warren...regardless of their health care policy differences.
Sanders is more of an interesting poser, he is so very self contained politically, I'm not sure what would be his idea of a Veep that would promote party unity? Certainly I think he'd be under some similar constraints to pick someone younger. Who knows, maybe Beto O'Rourke?
Elizabeth Warren likely needs someone that speaks "foreign policy gravitas", A General Perhaps...is Wesley Clark still listening to pitches?
And lastly Buttigeig the change agent incarnate, he faces the longest odds and who knows if his bounce will still be there next week, but with him, the Veepstakes are simple, he needs an African American, Harris or Booker again, even Patrick would do nicely in a pinch.
Granted the race is in flux, but recall please not too much flux, sooner or later someone racks up a plurality that looks pretty formidable, then we are off to the races.