Oy vey. Just what we need, right?
Axios has been one of the most hysterical of all media outlets over Joe Biden’s debate debacle so I’m loathe to put much stock in their gossip reporting. However, this is actually informative:
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.
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.
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.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the House Jan. 6 committee, told Axios’ Hans Nichols that Harris is “incredibly strong … You can’t say Biden has done a good job without saying she’s done a good job.” For her to be pushed aside from consideration, he said, “would be the kiss of death for the party.”
Of course, all this may take a while. Biden stunned — and annoyed — lots of powerful Democrats on Wednesday by digging in ahead of his interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos (now being shown as a prime-time special at 8pm ET Friday).
I think you have to give the man a little bit of time to absorb what’s happened. He’s human. He’s probably terribly embarrassed. Give him a minute.
They report that Biden and his advisers don’t think much of Harris but that sounds like more gossip to me. Maybe they don’t. But it’s irrelevant. She’s polling better than Biden and any other candidates so with this short window, it would very likely be her, as I’ve been saying since last Friday.
I agree with this analysis of the likely best next steps:
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).
We gamed out potential scenarios with some of the nation’s most experienced Democratic operatives. Most feel strongly that for both political and practical reasons, Harris looks all but unbeatable.
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.”
One reason to go that route is to avoid the mayhem of a wide-open convention in Chicago beginning Aug. 19. That would take Democrats’ focus off Trump while they scrambled, knifed and preened.
Harris as nominee, or perhaps president, would become part of Biden’s legacy, which matters a lot to him — a proud, stubborn man who’s been in public life for 50+ years.
Then there’s the practicality: If you’re eyeing the 2028 nomination, you’re thinking about the base. Do you really want to torpedo Harris’ chance to become the first woman president of color? What are your real chances of defeating Harris and her formidable apparatus (White House, DNC, Biden-Harris campaign) when you’re less well-known nationally than she is — then beating the Trump machine, with its huge head start, in the 75 days between the Democratic convention and Election Day?
I don’t think there’s enough time to do anything else and the reality is that the Democratic base has something to say about this too.
They gamed out some of the other possibilities being mentioned:
- Let’s say Biden didn’t endorse, or Democratic leaders insisted on a process. At the highest levels of the party, there’s talk of a series of, say, five regional debates before the convention. The candidates would debate live before the Democratic delegates, gathered in cities throughout the country (e.g., New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and L.A.).
- It’d all be televised. Then when the convention opened in Chicago on Aug. 19, delegates would have seen the field in action. There are a few problems with this, including determining who gets to debate. And you’d be trying to do something really complicated, in basically no time. “We can’t organize a two-car parade at the moment,” said one veteran of presidential campaigns who’s knee-deep in possible Plan Bs.
- What if Biden gets out too late for that, or the debates never come together? Then you could have an old-school frenzy in Chicago of candidates racing among delegation breakfasts to make their case.
- Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), a Biden campaign co-chair, said in response to a question from Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that he’d support Harris if Biden dropped out, although he wants the ticket to continue to be Biden-Harris. “This party should not, in any way, do any thing to work around Ms. Harris,” he said. “We should do everything we can to bolster her.”
- On CNN on Wednesday, Clyburn said you “can actually fashion the process that’s already in place to make it a mini-primary, and I would support that. … I think that Kamala Harris would acquit herself very well in that kind of a process. But then it would be fair to everybody.” A Clyburn aide later clarified that he was just explaining the existing process.
Again, I think the convention needs to be very buttoned up because outside are going to be quite a few protesters. They need to keep the circus under control.
Clyburn has heavyweight clout with Black constituents and has been pretty clear on the fact that he’s behind Harris if Biden drops — and he seems to be warming to that idea. He did say he thought there could be a “mini-primary” but I’d guess that he’s just saying that to not appear to be putting his thumb too hard on the scale for her. She’s obviously his choice.
They say that some “party elders” think replacing Biden would electrify the Democratic base and that may be right. I don’t know. But it would probably stop the bleeding. And as the tiresome Village elder Jonathan Martin tweeted out today, Trump’s inevitable racist and sexist attacks on Harris might very well turn off some of those swing voters, especially women so there is that grotesque up side.
And:
Top Democrats tell us that after a possibly contentious public fight, they’d end with a ticket featuring two faces much younger than Trump (78), probably a man and a woman, getting massive free public attention — then a surge of donations.
One would hope.
The math is simple for a new ticket to win: Both parties agree the winner will be decided by a few hundred thousand voters in seven states — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
Trump enjoys a small lead in most. So the new ticket would merely need to keep Biden’s vote, plus pick up a few undecided voters or current Trump-leaning “double haters” — voters who dislike both, but will hold their nose and pick one. Do this, Democrats win.
Given the amount of convention and post-convention free media — the world would be transfixed by this spectacle — the new ticket would simply need enough money to flood those seven states for 10-ish weeks. That’s a lifetime in politics.
Is this for real? Who knows? It’s risky either way. But with the Biden chum in the water the media sharks aren’t going to let up . The right’s been fairly quiet but the minute they see that Biden’s staying in they will unleash hell. I worry. A lot.