Let me preface this by making clear that nothing, but nothing, here suggests that Trump is a viable or better alternative to any person, living or dead. That said, the job of president doesn’t start at 10 am and end at 8 pm. The job of president isn’t done by committee. The job of president requires someone capable of being woken up at 2 am after a couple of international trips to be told of incoming ICBMs and make the decision of what to do about it. I don’t make the rules.
All of this raises the next question, which must first be decided before any argument about the nuts and bolts of how to accomplish it: If not Biden, then who? Apparently, the decision-makers have already made their decision without asking those of us who want two things, someone who can beat Trump and someone who can be trusted with the presidency.
According to Axios, it’s Kamala’s party now.
If President Biden steps aside, Vice President Harris would be almost impossible to beat for the nomination, thanks to endorsements, money, optics and 2028 politics, top officials tell us.
Why it matters: All Harris needs is Biden’s backing. If she gets it, the Obamas and Clintons likely would follow, making any challenge an affront to the sitting president and two former presidents.
There are many reasons why this might be so. Most of all, she’s the veep. If the pesident can’t do the job anymore, the vice steps in. That’s the generally accepted scheme of things. It even says so in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. While politics may present other paths, this is the straightest line and most obvious answer, no matter how unsatisfying it may be. After all, it’s not as if anyone wanted Kamala to be president, as conclusively shown by her failed campaign for the office when she dropped out before Iowa because she was about as unpopular as they come.
But then, Biden made her veep for a reason, right? After all, she was a woman of color and little mattered more in the heady days of 2020 than being a woman of color, no matter how many black men she burned as a prosecutor before she morphed into a pseudo-woke senator.
And that gives rise to the next problem. How can the Democrats skip over a woman of color as candidate when they’re all about identity?
The big picture: If she gets Biden’s endorsement, the only way a top-tier Democrat could challenge her would be to risk their future by saying “not your turn” to the first woman vice president, first Black American vice president and first South Asian vice president.
But what if Biden was asked, right before lunchtime, whether Harris should be his heir apparent?
The intrigue: Biden and his closest advisers have long felt Trump would beat Harris. They question her political skills and likability beyond the liberal bases. But polls show her running no worse than Biden in a hypothetical match-up with Trump.
And the old codger elder statesman can advise his youthful grasshopper to temper her unlikability with a . . . more competent veep.
Biden’s private worries wouldn’t necessarily keep him from endorsing her publicly. It’s called politics. Biden would push to pair her with a moderate Democratic governor like Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro (51), Kentucky’s Andy Beshear (age 46), North Carolina’s Roy Cooper (67) or Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker (59).
But as Harris was to Biden, a more moderate running mate will be window dressing to a Harris administration. According to White House press secretary and gay black woman, Karine Jean-Pierre, Kamala Harris was more than just a pretty face.
If Biden “got there” on deciding to throw in the towel, top Democrats expect he would announce he was endorsing Harris — his running mate in 2020, and partner in governing for the past three years. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her briefing Wednesday that one of the reasons Biden picked her back in 2020 “is because she is, indeed, the future of the party.”
Is it Kamala Harris’ party now?