The Democrats can’t actually be serious about putting Joe Biden up for re-election… right? For months we saw alarming videos of the President stumbling around in a daze, with Biden supporters insisting they were fake. It all came to a head at the catastrophic first Presidential debate, at which Biden was incoherent, slack-jawed, and alarmingly nonsensical.
Donald Trump walked all over him at that debate and, if Biden is allowed to run, we’ll be closing out the year staring down the barrel of four more years of a Trump White House. Put simply, Biden doesn’t have the faculties to be President now, let alone in years to come, and the Democrat letting things get to this point is tantamount to throwing the country under the bus.
The only route past Trump is to ditch Biden as the candidate and install a replacement as soon as possible. Thankfully this is at least theoretically possible up until the Democratic National Convention that begins Aug 19. But while getting rid of Biden is a no-brainer, finding a replacement at short notice is another kettle of fish.
President Kamala Harris?
I’m no fan of Kamala Harris, who is generally considered to be an ineffective Vice President, an average speaker, and is positioned squarely in the middle of well-meaning, do-nothing centrist Democrat ideology. But, as Vice President, she’s by far the logical choice to replace Biden. Plus, the campaign is already a Biden/Harris ticket, so she could access already-raised campaigning funds and use pre-booked ad slots without starting from scratch.
But could she beat Trump in November? Well, current polling isn’t exactly great. Right now she’s doing about as badly against Trump as Biden is, and even after the debate debacle Biden is performing better than her in some surveys. That said, Harris does outperform other potential Biden replacements, and presumably months of careful campaigning would begin to bolster her Presidential image.
The Democrats are also keenly aware that Harris would make waves as the first Black woman to run for the Presidency and if she would be the first female President. This could potentially galvanize Democratic voters who felt Trump’s 2016 win robbed them of smashing that particular glass ceiling. The flipside is that there is no way in heck any Trump-skeptical Republicans are going to vote for a Black woman as President, so you can kiss goodbye to those swing voters. And, obviously, the racist vote is out, but then they’re all voting Trump anyway.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the decidedly mediocre Kamala Harris is our best option for candidate, but I suppose you have to play the hand you’re dealt. Hey, at least she can deliver a speech from autocue without accidentally praising Vladimir Putin. Small mercies.