Having received President Biden’s endorsement to run as the Democrat’s presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris said she would seek the nomination, adding: “Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
Harris can unite the Democrats to beat Donald Trump. She has had critics blaming her for not being progressive, likable, or charismatic enough. However, she is articulate, moral, and thoughtful beyond what Trump has displayed. If she can focus her energies on reaching out to liberals and independents without scaring conservatives, she will win the election.
Biden’s endorsement of Harris was critical but was not enough. He must reach out to his 3,850 delegates, who were pledged but not legally bound to vote for him as the Democratic candidate. He must tell them that Harris will continue the values that led their administration to pass historically significant progressive legislation.
Biden needs to talk personally to the other politicians who were mentioned as possible candidates. He must ask them to support Harris and advise her on policy issues and campaign strategies. In other words, the Democrats must demonstrate similar party solidarity around Harris as the Republicans have shown toward Trump.
As for Harris, she must demonstrably respect all of the other potential presidential candidates. They must feel included in her campaign and, if she wins, have an opportunity to be included in her administration.
Harris must also contact Biden’s delegates, perhaps in a formal joint statement with Biden assuring them of her commitment to pursuing pragmatic progressive policies. This statement would be a perfect medium for Biden to release his delegates, encouraging them to vote for Harris.
Harris might not have been the best candidate if the Democrats had begun an effort to select a candidate through the presidential primaries and caucuses. However, many Democrats resisted that, feeling comfortable with Biden continuing as president. Biden’s decline in health altered that acceptance. But history cannot be rerun; the Democrats must accept the cards dealt.
Harris has access to the $95-million campaign fund. If she were not selected, the Democratic National Committee would receive the funds and decide how to spend them. By inheriting the Biden-Harris reelection campaign infrastructure, she may have more state offices operating than what Trump’s campaign has currently. Any other Democratic presidential candidate would not necessarily obtain all Biden campaign offices.
Any other candidate wanting to be selected must secure a minimum of 300 delegates, which no one has now. With no single state being allowed to provide more than 50 delegates, it would be difficult for any candidate to challenge Harris if she receives the bulk of Biden’s delegates.
Early polls show that Harris does slightly better against Trump than any other candidate. According to the Washington Post/ABC poll, she is also the clear favorite among other possible presidential Democratic candidates, with Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing far behind.
Right after the debate, Bulwark’s reporter Marc Caputo reported that Trump’s team believed it was best for him to lie low to avoid interfering with the drumbeat of coverage of Biden’s debate implosion, initially believing that Biden wouldn’t be forced out. Even after the debate, a top Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., bashed the idea that Biden could be replaced on the ticket because of campaign finance law restrictions.
Speaking at the Republican convention, Donald Trump’s co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, said that choosing a candidate after the Democratic primaries was “literally a coup.” Republicans seem intent on keeping Biden in the race. Before Biden withdrew from the race, House Speaker Mike Johnson discussed a legal strategy to save Trump from running against another Democrat.
He said it might be against the legal electoral process in some states for the winner of a major party’s primary election to be replaced on the ticket by another candidate. Johnson suggested that Republicans look into filing legal challenges in states where it could be contested.
Johnson tried another tactic on the day of Biden’s announcement. He said Biden must resign immediately. He conflated not running for president with not being fit to serve as president and then continued the narrative that the Democrats should not be allowed to choose someone other than Biden.
Democrats must be prepared to face an onslaught of Republican attacks on Biden being replaced. Johnson says they “invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden as the Democrat nominee for president.”
In defending Biden as the presidential candidate, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Democrats that some Republicans would legally challenge Biden’s replacement, leading to “a presidential election being decided by Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court,” like in 2000.
When she made that point, she accused “the donor class” and party “elites” of pushing Biden to leave the race. Expect the Republicans to cut and slice her comments into ads to push progressive Democrats not to trust their party’s leadership.
Republicans’ messaging about protecting our democracy reveals that they are not sure Trump would win the election against another candidate. They have spent the last year attacking Biden and only recently started mentioning Harris more frequently.
Republicans are now scrambling for a way to denigrate Harris personally. That will be a tricky maneuver. How do they avoid alienating Black and women voters? And since she is 19 years younger than Trump, they must be aware that Trump is now the doddering old man in the race.
Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s prediction of what would happen to the Republicans if Biden dropped from the race is unfolding. Replacing Biden would not simply energize the Democratic Party; it would also win back some swing voters who dislike the elderly candidates currently on offer.
Amazingly enough, A majority of Biden’s delegates are already now pledged to Harris and all major potential competitors for the nomination have endorsed her. Had Biden not run at all, Harris might not have won the nomination through the primary process, but, barring some catastrophic surprise before the conversation, she’s got a lock on it. I hope she’s learned a lot in the last five years about how to be a good candidate and run a good campaign at warp speed.
Your present post is already old news overnight. May of your wishes became reality overnight.
Taking note of Republicans’ negative commentary — about Biden, about Harris and about the Democratic Party’s nominating process — and using it against them would show undecided voters how anti-democratic (with a small d) the GOP has become. Apart from their endless supplies of lies and exaggerations, now that Trump is no longer running against a white male opponent, a whole new set of slurs and epithets will become available for use.
Actually, it has started already. In their initial public statements, Republican politicians and Right-Wing Media enablers are already starting to paint Kamala Harris as a “DEI Candidate”, a slur implying she is unfit for the office of President. JD Vance has suggested that her advancement in California politics was due to her relationships with powerful men.
This certainly didn’t age well.
Well, you can’t blame Nick. Things have been happening so fast that it really does make your head spin and I don’t know about the internal Post Alley review process but these days you don’t want to let a text sit — “hit it and git it” — because as you say, it can easily age in hours.
As long as we are hoping….mine is she eases up on the Prom Queen demeanor, and demonstrates she can be persistently persuasive. Presidential manner
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