No. of Recommendations: 4
No, but Kamala Harris is one of the least talented politicians of her generation.
As I used to tell people who marveled at the rise of Bush 43, who couldn't understand how someone so apparently unadept at basic political skills could succeed....you can't always tell from the limited snapshots you get of a public person. You can't get to be a U.S. Senator - or state attorney general - without some degree of political talent. There's just too many people fighting for those spots, too many smart and capable folks who would kill to get those jobs. You might not be a once-in-a-generation political talent...but you can't be untalented.
You disdain her, but that's understandable. There's no way that she would ever be what you look for in a politician even if you were exposed to the complete picture of who she is (which none of us ever get to be, with any politician). And from your media diet, you're going to be overexposed to the worst parts of her, and all-but-unexposed to the better parts.
Again, we're going to have to agree to disagree. There's no universe where the party puts Kamala Harris on the top of the ticket in 2024 if Biden can't go.
Again, you keep thinking that there's some entity that you describe as "the party" that just gets to decide who goes on the top of the ticket from a tabula rasa, and that BidenWorld isn't a huge part of that entity. Neither of those things are true. If "Biden can't go" and that happens before the convention in August, the convention will pick the nominee. But they'll only be picking the nominee from the people that genuinely pursue the nomination. "The party" is going to be limited to those choices. They don't have the power to just give the nomination to someone if Harris is actively fighting for it - that person has to seriously commit themselves to pursuing the nomination and cash in all their chips to fight to take it from Harris on the convention floor.
Who enters that contest, other than Harris and a bunch of second-stringers and no hopers? Not Newsom, Shapiro, Whitmer, or any other top-tier Democratic candidates. They have much better shots in 2028 than trying to push out Harris at a contested convention heading for a certain loss to the GOP. They're not going to pursue the poisoned chalice that is the "emergency back-up nominee" and engage in a bloody convention fight with Harris - who is the metaphorical successor to Biden and is already on the ticket. Sure, Dean Philips might be there - and no one thinks Dean Philips is more likely to be able to raise $150 million and introduce himself to the country in two and a half months.
But there's no one else. There's no one who looks at this moment and says, "Yes, now is my one shot!" All of the 2028 likely candidates are too young, and not cresting now, for them to view 2024 as their last shot. The two other big hitters in the party (Sanders and Warren) probably view their time as having passed. Everyone else is young, and better positioned for a 2028 run. Newsom and Whitmer's terms expire in 2026 - perfect for a 2028 campaign.
There's no one on the board that is a better choice than Harris that will want to burn their political capital fighting to wrest the nomination in a sure-lose election year. None of them gain any upside from taking the bullet of stepping in and facing the likely loss except Harris, who kind of has to accept.
