It Has To Be Harris
If Not Biden, We Know Who
First of all, I am going to insist once again that Joe Biden can still beat Donald Trump.
But after all that’s happened, it will be easier for Kamala Harris.
I know what the polls say. I also know a few things about polls from my years as a campaign consultant.
You always hear how polls are “a snapshot in time,” and not a predictor of an outcome. But they do accurately reflect the moment, and no one would argue that Joe Biden has been having many good moments lately.
Unlike Donald Trump, who is riding some improbable and impossible to have predicted waves. (See solidarity ear bandages).
If you ask—or poll—even hardcore Democrats how they feel about the race right now, they are not going to be singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Joe Biden’s bad numbers reflect his bad standing in standing, walking and talking—but apart from that…
I don't think he’s losing a lot of voters to Trump—just making it harder for some of those “double haters” to decide to vote for him. But there aren’t a lot of people struggling with the choice between Biden and Trump, and moving closer to the autocrat with signs of dementia because of the debate.
Trump didn’t win that debate either. Nor has he gotten any better at being a candidate himself. Did you hear about his convention speech?
As
points out, “His bizarre, boring convention speech is a reminder that Trump is a terrible candidate.” And shared what Jonathan Chait wrote in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, calling the speech “incendiary yet dull.”Dan Pfeiffer concludes his latest post with this:
Yes, he is ahead in the polls today, but he can be beaten. Look at that guy on stage last night. The speech wasn’t good. It didn’t offer a compelling vision for the country. It was low energy, bordering on somnambulant. Trump couldn’t discuss his policy agenda because that would stick a thumb in the eye of most voters. There was no message. Trump lost his fastball.
It’s easy to forget, given the tone and tenor of the press coverage over the last week, but the majority of voters in this country are anti-MAGA. Trump can — and will — be defeated if and only if we do the work to once again turn out the coalition that defeated MAGA in 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022.
That winning coalition is poised to return in 2024, energized not only by the danger of Donald Trump, but also by all the ballot initiatives about abortion. In my day job as a consultant to a National Organization that focuses on Women’s issues, I wrote this not long ago:
Women are mad as hell at how far and how fast their rights are being taken away—but we’re not surprised. The bans, restrictions and obstacles we face have nothing to do with women’s health, and everything to do with the power politicians want to retain over women’s lives, their future, and their bodily autonomy.
Add that to the culture of toxic masculinity at the root of violence against women, sexual harassment and abuse, amplified by a political movement that glorifies aggression and division, and we see this moment for what it is—an existential threat to women’s lives.
With abortion on the ballot in battleground states like Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Montana and others, Kamala Harris can speak to an electorate that is already focused on what’s at stake in November—making that message resonate even wider.
She can take credit for what she and Joe Biden have done—like naming the first Black Woman to the Supreme Court, and making nearly two-thirds of his judicial appointments women or racial or ethnic minorities, a first for any president.
Joe Biden can make a powerful case for returning a Democrat to the White House—but so can Kamala Harris. It’s not a knock on Joe Biden to acknowledge that Kamala Harris is a better speaker (and reader of teleprompters…)
As I wrote here recently, I believe that Joe Biden is having a bad patch—a very, very, very bad patch—but he’s never been known for his eloquence. I’ll say it again, why do you think they call him a “gaffe machine?”
But now, in the shadow of The Debate, that’s not so funny. Then there’s Biden’s walk, which has an explanation I discovered in this reporting from the New York Times,
“His gait is somewhat halting, a characteristic multiple people close to the White House say is partly because of his refusal to wear an orthopedic boot after suffering a hairline fracture in his foot before taking office.”
I still believe that given a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, voters will not stay home or waste their ballot on a third party as they did in 2016, a gesture that proved costly when 53% of white women voted for Trump.
Given all that’s going on, and the hardening perception—fair or unfair—that Joe Biden can’t win, it may be easier to line up behind Kamala Harris.
But that should be the entire length of the line of alternatives to Joe Biden.
If Kamala Harris was a white man, we wouldn’t be having any conversations about who other than the Vice President should step in if the President steps out. Sorry, Gavin Newsom. Next time, J.B. Pritzker.
Plus there isn’t time to introduce anyone other than the Vice President to voters between now and Election Day.
If he does pass the torch, Joe Biden will have made a political decision to not insist on staying in what he believes—rightly!—is a winnable race, in order to take any uncertainty out of the prospect of beating Donald Trump.
There’s no ambition like presidential ambition, and I learned early on in politics that practically everyone who’s ever been elected to anything has a dream of being President. We can’t imagine what it must be like for Joe Biden to give up on a second term. Once Trump is safely defeated and back inside courtrooms, I hope people realize how much we owe Joe Biden.
But despite what Nancy Pelosi is reported to have said, we shouldn’t “open up the nominating process.” Politico reports,
The concern wasn’t about Harris’ strengths as a candidate — and in fact, several people made clear Harris needed to be the party’s next pick — but instead centered on worries that party bosses were choosing the president, rather than the party’s base.
“Nancy was leading that charge that it needed to be an open process,” according to a person briefed on the meeting, who was granted anonymity to avoid blowback from House leadership.
There isn’t time for a “blitz primary” or open convention, or anything other than activating the chain of command we’re all used to. It has to be Kamala—and a lot of people are going to find that pretty exciting.
If you’re saying that a closed process akin to James Carville’s suggestion, where centrist/corporate-funded party leaders decide the nominee, would be ridiculous and awful — I agree completely.
But if there is some possibility for an open process where the full range of Democratic viewpoints get some kind of say, then I think that would be ideal. To be clear: in that circumstance, I would be doing all I could to see Kamala Harris win that nomination.
But I’m uncomfortable with a coronation for her. A candidate who has been tested within their own party is stronger for it. We have just seen how that works: Our failure to test Biden through a primary process allowed us to ignore his weaknesses—and look where we are now.
Yes, the time is extremely limited to settle on a new nominee. But let’s take the small window of time we have to hear each other out about the way forward for our country.