[POLITICO] Tammy Duckworth | ...the Chinese-American child of a military family, she lost both legs when the helicopter she was in the right seat of in Iraq was shot down by jihadis, the first female double amputee of the second Iraq war. She then served in the Illinois National Guard as a Lieutenant Colonel while working for the state and federal governments until she ran for Congress in 2012, where she has been ever since.... |
is no longer an afterthought in the Democratic veepstakes.
The Illinois senator and Purple Heart recipient has landed squarely in the conversation after a high-profile clash with Tucker Carlson last week and her advocacy against politicization of the military in the weeks prior.
The attention hasn't escaped Biden's vetting team. It has stepped up information-gathering on Duckworth recently, scrutinizing her legislative record and talking to her colleagues, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
A contingent of Duckworth-for-VP backers, including high-dollar donors and a politically active veterans group,
| ...which one? Odd that they don’t name it... |
has intensified efforts on her behalf in the past two weeks, pushing her as the best choice for Biden’s running mate.
"I’ve been working my rear end off, trying to get Joe to look at her favorably," Joe Cotchett, a longtime friend of Biden’s and prominent West Coast Biden bundler, told POLITICO. Cotchett said Duckworth’s no-nonsense response to Carlson has further elevated her prospects. |