After the NATO Summit in Washington on July 9-11, where Biden-watching essentially became the main focus, and the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump while campaigning in Pennsylvania on July 13, the world was given a few days to catch its breath as U.S. political life slowly re-focused on presidential campaigning and the new hot concern, presidential campaign security.
Then on July 17, President Joe Biden abruptly cancelled his Nevada campaign program while in Las Vegas to return to Delaware and isolate/recover from a light Covid-19 infection, nevertheless seen seriously due to President Biden’s age (81). This event set up an unfortunate contrast between the angry Pennsylvania shooting survivor – “fight” candidate Trump – and the apparently frail and infirm President Biden, despite their minimal age difference. The Covid infection gave the Democratic party’s then-sizeable but not overwhelming “dump Biden” legislators and senior leaders a second wind just as Biden’s key supporters were freezing their progress.
Details are gradually emerging about how and exactly why President Biden took the decision to withdraw from the campaign over the July 20-21 weekend at his Delaware summer home in Rehoboth. It appears he was briefed by key campaign advisers on July 19 or 20 that new polling data from battleground states during the Republican Party’s Milwaukee Convention July 15-18 indicated that all previously charted paths to an election victory in November had evaporated. One can only imagine the panic that information would produce among those Democratic leaders with access to the polling results.
The President’s campaign resignation letter sent out via X on July 21 took the world and 99 percent of Biden’s campaign apparatus by storm, and it is critical to note that Biden’s self-produced letter did not mention a successor. It took a few minutes for the people around the President to get him to send out a short endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Because the Democratic Party establishment was largely caught off guard on a Sunday afternoon, it took a few hours before the Harris endorsements began to roll in, as well as donations. And roll in they did.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
The speed at which Harris gathered endorsements and fresh campaign donations over that dramatic day (reportedly USD 100 million over July 21-22 since Biden resigned from the campaign with many first time donors signing up) seems to indicate some form of prior organization, so as to preclude potential political rivals from making any attempt to challenge her position. This will come out in the wash over time, as will her campaign’s contacts with the Biden primary election state delegates to the Democratic National Convention set for Chicago on August 19-22. To be clear, most in the Democratic Party are stressing the need for unity as the November election is less than four months away, and the Biden campaign machine is currently being re-configured to support Harris, while also refocusing the campaign’s “get out the vote” efforts.
But unity at what price? Let us not forget, Kamala Harris was an unsuccessful contender for President Biden’s job in the 2020 campaign, dropped out before the 2020 primary season got fully underway, and was totally forgettable in the one multi-candidate debate she participated in before withdrawing from the race. As Vice President a number of foreign interlocutors have already called her “invisible,” particularly in Europe. And nobody should forget that Harris has only gotten on-the-job training in the key areas an American President should know particularly well: national security/international affairs, economic policy/job creation, and sustainability/climate change. Her starting positions should be carbon copies taken from the Biden briefing books, but what is needed is mastery of these topics, real vision, and the determination to keep minor domestic and social issues from draining presidential time and energy away from key global and strategic concerns. It is clear to all that President Biden had invested zero energy into grooming Harris to replace him, likely a by-product of Biden’s own self confidence at the start of this year.
She will be particularly vulnerable in the area of immigration policy, where she had been given lead responsibility for addressing the root causes of the problem on the southern border by President Biden; some called that task “mission impossible.”
Harris is sharp and as a practiced prosecutor should give Donald Trump a run for his money (if he actually has any) in any debate and on the campaign trail. And she meets and actually surpasses every diversity and inclusiveness requirement the Democratic Party is so deeply obsessed with. But the American people deserve a choice. And by rushing to lock up most Biden delegates weeks before the Chicago convention, they are effectively denied one.
The Democratic National Committee has promised there will be an open and transparent process at the Convention, but even today, this looks like mere window dressing as plans are moving forward for a “virtual roll call” for Harris well before Chicago. By rushing toward a “coronation” in Chicago, the DNC will be actualizing one Trump campaign talking point which is already highlighting that American voters who chose Biden in the primaries are being disenfranchised by Harris’ actions, accusing her campaign of “steamrolling democracy.” The last thing America needs is a lesson in “democracy” from Donald Trump, currently a convicted felon; at least his team hasn’t resorted to calling the Harris succession a “Gen-X coup” or the like.
Having lost the vital benefits of incumbency with President Biden’s campaign withdrawal, history will show whether the Democratic Party is about to repeat the mistakes of the 2016 campaign by focusing on social issues to mobilize voter support instead of working to propel the party’s best candidate forward to challenge an almost unstoppable Trump campaign juggernaut. It may work out, but it seems to us that Americans deserve a real choice, as the entire world has a critical stake in America’s path forward. This should matter to the Democratic Party “kingmakers” or in this case “queenmakers” who appear to believe otherwise.
