Tammy Duckworth Is Nothing and Everything Like Joe Biden

Senator Tammy Duckworth, like the man she might serve as vice president, prizes loyalty in her ranks and occasional mischief in her workplace.

So when a top communications aide prepared to defect last year to the presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg, Ms. Duckworth recognized an opportunity. She recorded a faux media interview trashing Mr. Buttigieg for hiring her staff away, recruiting an intern to pose as a journalist on the tape. The file was sent to the departing aide, Sean Savett, who called the Buttigieg team in a panic.

Soon, Mr. Savett was summoned to the Illinois senator’s office, where she fumed theatrically, stalling as other staff members filed in quietly for the reveal: It was all a ruse. Ms. Duckworth handed him a parting gift — a Smirnoff Ice, the centerpiece of a viral drinking game known as “icing” — and gave a final senatorial directive:

“Get down on one knee and chug.”

A year later, Ms. Duckworth is the one thinking about a new job and submitting to the attendant rituals. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, is vetting her to be his running mate, and many of his allies see the freshman senator as a model contrast to President Trump: a death-cheating, double-amputee Iraq war veteran whose life story — whose very appearance, whooshing by wheelchair through the Capitol — defines the decency and service that the president’s opponents have found lacking in this White House.

There are more accomplished legislators than Ms. Duckworth under consideration. There are more prolific policy thinkers and more electric campaigners.