Another late posting, written 8/27/24.
This may be long and rambling. I actually wanted Harris replaced first on the ticket since I wanted a different backup in case Joe became incapacitated, which has been a high risk throughout his presidency. I've been writing to the White House and DNC since February with this request.
Then Joe got even worse and had that horrible debate. It wasn't shocking to me. I had observed his decline and other episodes like that with visiting heads of state. Joe's speech would slow, get disjointed, and trail off. It happened frequently enough that his opponents considered him senile. Yet he delivered at the State of the Union address in early March. But by June, it was worse with a number of signs of decline at the D-Day commemorations.
Then he had that kind of episode at the late June debate with Trump. In front of the entire world that had tuned in. It couldn't be easily explained away so pressure mounted on Joe to quit the campaign. He resisted and made lots of appearances, but the speech problems were always evident. Denial became impossible, pressure mounted, and he gave it up. Supposedly Nancy Pelosi threatened to go hardball on his, and he capitulated before she made good on threat. But who knows what all convinced the stubborn old goat to give up.
People coalesced around Harris with amazing speed. I have to wonder if the fix was in, specifically that Biden agreed to step back if Harris won the public endorsements of high profile Dems.
I was very excited by Biden stepping back, and maybe over half the country or half the world was. It was one of those rare times when The Powers That Be bowed to public pressure, though there was also tons of donor and party official pressure too. The excitement was so great that it infected the public view of Harris too. Transference is a known human behavior, and this time excitement was the emotion splashing around and infecting other objects.
A WaPo article made the case that Harris hasn't been a bad politician, but rather circumstances have defeated her. First that the Dems really wanted a moderate white man as their nominee after Hillary Clinton unexpectedly lost. Harris was also in a very crowded lane in the crowded primary, with Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren doing a better job appealing to liberal college grads than Harris could.
Harris got the VP slot because Biden promised to pick a woman, and blacks (men and women) have been underrepresented even among Dems, so the pick was likely to be a black woman. When it came to black women with campaign experience, there weren't too many to choose from, and Harris had the highest profile as senator from a large state. She wasn't picked because she had shown great leadership, but maybe the potential was there.
Again the WaPo article explains that Harris didn't fail as VP so much has she was a poor fit for the image the administration was trying to project:
It is hard for me to imagine how Harris would have had a good 2021-2022. The ethos of the Biden White House back then (and really the president’s entire political career) was essentially "Democrats succeed politically when they appeal to White moderate voters, and that’s done by talking mostly about the economy and not being too liberal on abortion, crime, immigration, policing and race."
I don't find this argument convincing. She should have been able to contribute positively for a broad range of issues, not only her strengths.
The conventional wisdom has now shifted on Harris, who is increasingly described as an asset to the Democratic Party and perhaps a superior candidate to Biden. But what’s really changed is the broader political climate and the Democrats’ strategy. Abortion and Republicans banning books by LGBTQ+ authors are viewed as favorable political terrain for Democrats...
The reality about Kamala Harris is that she is a decent-but-unspectacular politician … like the president. Biden and Harris both hail from states that used to be more politically divided but have become reliably Democratic. So they both rose without facing a lot of super-tough races after their early victories. Neither is a great orator, policy expert or visionary leader. Both ran lackluster presidential campaigns but then were vaulted to the vice presidency over stronger rivals for ticket-balancing purposes.
Abortion may be a good issue for Dems, but LGBTQ+ issues is mixed at best. The bigger issues are the border, the federal budget, the economy, and international hotspots. Harris is going to have to show some strength in those, The article is correct that Harris isn't a strong contender and is thrust into the presidential campaign by happenstance. She's a middle-of-the-pack Dem following a typical Dem playbook, and that's all she's ever been. So she went into prosecution when Dems were trying to show that they are tough on crime.
What will her policies be if she's elected? Maybe a generic mix of what Dems support now. A big question is the border, which is a losing issue for Dems right now. Will she get tougher or remain relatively soft?
To me, she doesn't appear to be an independent thinker. She'll probably be guided by her advisors, and who knows if any of them are capable of flashes of brilliance including new ideas. Sadly, I think we'll have a very bland moderate administration. Hopefully not too much will go wrong.
Extras. An alternative plan to choose a Dem replacement for Biden, which could have happened if Harris hadn't garnered so many endorsements.
Trump fantasizing in Truth Social that Biden would come to the Democratic convention and demand to be the nominee again:
What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!
