Now that Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi have all told Joe Biden that the Democrats face a wipeout unless he gets out, rumors are a-milling that, after requisite soul-searching, the Democrats’ faltering quarterback is going to take a knee after all and bench himself.
Perhaps Joe will want to anoint Kamala Harris as his successor to avoid “the chaos” of a speed-date contest for the nomination. The anxious Democratic leadership will probably go this route (and Harris’ odds of beating Trump are certainly better than Biden’s), but they have, apparently, still not learned the lesson that a little chaos can be interesting and might offer their best chance to shake up the race and create an opening for a new generation. I sketched out one scenario for this recently in Post Alley. Here’s an updated, streamlined proposal.
It just so happens that the DNC has been building out the infrastructure to support secure virtual polling of its convention delegates wherever they may be in advance of the convention. Originally, the party was going to ask that delegates respond to the poll by, in effect, pre-nominating Biden ahead of the convention in time to beat an early Ohio filing date and, presumably to shut down further discussion of alternatives.
If Biden indeed departs, this ready-made polling infrastructure can be put to a much better use: asking the delegates who, in the absence of Biden, they’d like to see on the short list of candidates to replace Biden on the ticket. Send each delegate a generous list of 8-12 possible candidates, large enough to include anyone with a conceivable chance, vetted to ensure that the finalists will be reasonably young, and to reflect appropriate diversity. Each delegate would be asked to choose his or her top four choices (without ranking them).
The top four overall vote-getters would become the official short list, and all subsequent effort would be focused on helping the delegates learn fast about these four. In the brief interval before the convention, the final four would participate in televised events—maybe in debate format, maybe in questions by panels of journalists, maybe in shared rallies, etc. The formal audience would be the delegates, but the whole country could be watching in. This would be a great way for the Democrats to drain some coverage energy away from the Trump/Vance ticket in the time period between conventions.
- On Day One of the convention, each of the four finalists would give a 30–40-minute speech.
- On Day Two, they’d participate together in three or four rounds of AMAs, each defined by a topic area (foreign affairs, the economy, etc), with delegates asking the questions through a system that consolidates and streamlines the process and gives each of the four a fair amount of exposure.
- On Day Three the delegates would once again use the polling system to vote in a ranked-choice model, with the winner becoming the nominee.
- On Day Four the nominee would announce his or her VP choice, and both the VP and the nominee would give prime time speeches.
Whoever is on the ticket, the campaign messages would be focused on moving on from the bad old days of warring gerontocracies into a new and vigorous next-generation future. There’s a good chance that Harris would win this, and if so, it would be a much stronger launch for her than a backroom deal entangled with Biden’s agreement to step down. If she didn’t win it, she’d still have been given a fair chance, rather than seeming to have been “denied.”
What could go wrong? Republicans could try to find ways to get Biden’s name on the ballot anyway in a swing state or two and would certainly try to damn the Democratic Party for its unfair treatment of their old warhorse. There will be another month of uncertainty about the Democratic ticket. The VP choice would need to be made late and quickly, which has risks of its own.
Still the opportunity to make a fresh start for which the Trump campaign is not prepared, to make Trump the candidate with the “too old” problem, and to launch its ticket on a wave of attention and interest should not be lightly dismissed in desperation to avoid any hint of chaos after Biden bows out.
Last, at some point in the convention Joe Biden should get his due and take a bow for his long service in the Senate and as Vice-President, for beating Trump in 2020, for having a helluva run as President, and for nobly passing the torch to runners with fresh legs, clear minds, and strong hearts.
Somehow I missed your July 3 piece on Post Alley, so just referred to it. Your latest, streamlined version is easy to follow, but the process you outlined earlier helped me understand the complexity of trying to recreate a “laboratory model” of the primary process.
Any attempt to organize a fast-track process to come up with a new/different slate at the convention is likely to run afoul of the Democrats’ Achilles heel — the egos of all the people involved, starting with The Old Man himself, Joe Biden.
Nice idea but you’ve shot yourself in the foot:
“Send each delegate a generous list of 8-12 possible candidates…..and to reflect appropriate diversity.”
“Appropriate diversity” is our problem to begin with because Biden appointed Harris because he had announced that he explicitly wanted a black woman as his VP. From the very first debate, Harris announced herself as smarmy and phony, and it was obvious that she was not a vote-getter. But Biden wanted an affirmative action pick. His poor judgment was not just that he appointed her, but that he specifically appointed her because he wanted a black woman.
Identity politics is at the core of Democratic Party weakness and to repeat that weakness demonstrates The Party’s unwisdom.
Wow! Tell me you’re a racist misogynist without telling me you’re a racist misogynist. Then tell me who better than a woman of color, with four years at the president’s right hand behind her, to run against the possibly most racist, misogynist ticket in the nation’s history since before the Civil War? Do you imagine this is the candidate Trump and the Project 2025 fascists want to run against? For us to beat them, we are going to need the women’s vote like we have never needed it before, and mansplaining and whitesplaining are absolutely not needed.
I hope black women are going to be more concerned with besting Trump than with “identity balance” or “appropriate diversity” or your fear of being accused of being a “racist misogynist”.
If you want to continue with Democratic Party racist identity politics then you’ll get Trump as president.
Merit first.
I don’t presume to speak for Black women, and now that Biden’s out, Kamala Harris is who you’re going to get. So het used to it.
Contrary to your assumption, I have no problem with Harris.
I have and had a problem with Biden making an “affirmative action” decision based on race and sex. I think it was bad policy and bad politics.
But I think that is part of a Democratic team, she would certainly be a decent POTUS at least.
Thanks for bringing up race and gender. Before your screed I just saw a savvy, experienced lawyer and politician. Now I see a DEI candidate. Heil Neighbor.
I don’t agree with How’s evaluation of Harris, but I think I can disagree with making “appropriate diversity” a selection criterion without being a racist misogynist.
Unless there’s really good reason to think that this diversity is going to raise the odds of the candidate winning, and then it seems to me there’s kind of a head-scratcher on the way: there’s ultimately going to be only one Democratic party president candidate, who is thus never going to be diverse whatever happens.
I’m looking forward to see Harris jump up and start looking like a presidential candidate, which of course she has been unable to do until now. Her “diversity” quotient probably works less for her than against her – when a white voter who won’t vote for a black president looks at her, she’s black, but I have a hunch an awful lot of people who would like to vote for a black president don’t see her as all that black. I have no way to know, really, but I think she’s a good illustration of the folly of identity politics. If she can take Trump apart on a debate stage, that’s what should count. Ultimately, if people will vote for the chosen candidate, is all that matters.
Donn,
I think we are aligned on identity politics & especially that she doesn’t even look particularly “Black” which might be work for or against her.
And let me caveat my characterization of Harris.
I’ve never liked her. I’m not impressed with her. But that’s irrelevant.
But I just donated to Act Blue ($25 — big deal!) to her campaign. The goal for me is not to elect a Democrat but to defeat Republican Trumpism.
And my big complaint is not so such about her as a person but that Biden was bamboozled by affirmative action & identity politics. But enough said. It’s time for reasonable people to put aside things about which reasonable people can disagree and we must unite and fight.
I’m convinced that Harris will be easily nominated. There will be no chaos in Chicago. I pray that she will be a powerful, imaginative and charismatic campaigner.
Tom,
Great idea. It will be riveting television. If the DNC changes the name from “the convention” to “The Apprentice: Four Days of Appointment TV” it will garner a 45 rating and 132 million viewers.
I wondered about President Biden resigning before convention to avoid any chaos so that VP Harris would then be incumbent president thus placing her in a powerful position before election. Realize this scenario is extremely unlikely and, in my heart of hearts, believe President Biden should serve out his term. Just a thought.
Well, that’s’ one way to go about it. But how the new Democratic candidate gets chosen after Biden gracefully drops out to focus on the last six months of his presidency doesn’t really matter. What happens is that in any case the Democrats dominate the news for at least a month and probably more. That’s the change they need and could take them to a win in November. All the candidates will praise Joe and the Chips act and the Inflation Reduction Act, etc., and with Biden’s age out of the way, these accomplishments would get the public and media attention that the Biden White House and Biden campaign have been unable to get for the past year. That’s a plus. But content doesn’t matter so much. It’s the volume of coverage the Ds will get, driving Trump coverage down. Not to mention that this will hugely boost the Democrats down ballot.