Well good golly. Things are happening so fast these days, this post will probably be outdated before it goes live!
President Biden has removed himself from consideration for the 2024 election. The poor guy got pressured from everybody to drop out, and he finally gave in before they made it really ugly for him. I can’t say I blame him, though I hope I will have retired at a much earlier age than him! What does this all mean for the 2024 Democratic ticket? At this point, it’s tough to say with certainty. Right now there’s a very large effort underway to portray Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.
Mind you, that doesn’t mean she’s the best candidate. President Biden endorsed her the day he dropped out of the race, and people rallied behind her very quickly. This is probably a mistake on the Democrats’ part. I acknowledge the short timeline between now and the election drives a desire to quickly coalesce behind someone, but I think Democrats would be better served by taking more time to figure out who that “someone” should be.
Democratic voters have been exceedingly anxious since the Biden/Trump debate, when their candidate’s “A Game” was discovered to be at best a C minus. In hindsight, folks are realizing a lot of people have been covering up President Biden’s decline for a long time now. By comparison, Harris looks young and vibrant, and Democratic voters were quick to rally to her side because they’re more or less excited to have anybody besides the President. Right now polls suggest things are very tight between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, but I expect there to be some changes to the polling as the Veep gets out in front of more cameras or people and starts giving unscripted interviews.
Kamala Harris isn’t known for her gravitas or political acumen. (If you want a few giggles, search YouTube for “Kamala Harris – What can be unburdened by what has been (compilation).”) If she’s named the Democratic nominee, it’s definitely not for her merit as a political heavyweight, and if it’s not for her merit, we’re likely to be consumed by a fresh round of identity politics between now and the election. If she ends up the nominee, she’s going to need someone on the ticket with her who can counterbalance some of her weaknesses. Whoever it is, look for them to be a strong public speaker with a sharp wit, probably from a swing state.
But I’m not yet convinced Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee this cycle. Although many high-level Democrats have endorsed her as their nominee, she still doesn’t have the endorsement of Barak Obama or Nancy Pelosi. If those two give her their blessing, it’s a done deal. Until then, nothing’s for certain. When Biden dropped out of the race it freed the delegates he won in primary elections to vote for whoever they’d like; even though enough of them have pledged their support to Harris to secure the nomination, that pledged support isn’t binding. We may not actually know who the nominee is until the last night of the Democratic National Convention next month. From a strategy perspective, the best thing to do would be to let the excitement over Harris die down a little, get some more accurate polling information from Independents as people get a better handle on who Kamala Harris is and whether they want her as President, and then based on that and whoever else is available, pick your best candidate to be the nominee in a theatrical and dramatic way at the convention. I expect there are two main factions in the Democratic Party right now: the portion very vocal about supporting Harris, and the very quiet portion who’s fully aware of her flaws and weaknesses and is looking for an alternative and a way to install him or her as the nominee without severely disrespecting Ms. Harris in front of the whole world. Something that could increase Harris’s chances would be if Joe leaves the Oval Office before the convention. It would destroy Democratic unity to have Harris be president for just a couple weeks before announcing someone else will run to succeed her.
The irony of all this, of course, is that for all the talk of Trump being a threat to democracy and the Constitution, the fact of the matter is that whoever the Democratic candidate for President ends up being will have become the nominee without winning any primary elections. No everyday citizens will have voted for him or her. Kinda shady to bypass the will of the people, don’t you think? I understand these are unusual circumstances, but the fact remains the next Democratic nominee could be chosen by a small group of powerful people in a dark, smoky room without the electorate’s approval. Realistically there’s not enough time to organize a new set of primary elections so this is largely unavoidable, but this will forever be an interesting little asterisk in the history of American Democracy.
Another question is “What now happens to the ballots which have Joe Biden’s name on them already?” With President Biden forcefully insisting for weeks he’d be staying in the race, and the Republican National Convention having concluded by nominating Donald Trump as its candidate, it’s easy to understand if election officials said “go ahead and print the 2024 ballots using the names Joe Biden and Donald Trump.” Well right now only one of those candidates remains in the race. A very simple question suddenly becomes very complicated: “What happens when people vote for Joe Biden on those ballots?”
It depends on the election laws of the state the citizen is voting in, and we’ve got more than 50 different electoral jurisdictions (states, territories, districts, etc.), each with their own laws. Common sense dictates they’d be counted for whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being, but it may not play out that way. The best thing to do would be to move heaven and earth to get new ballots printed with the right names, otherwise Trump may very well end up winning some traditionally blue states on a technicality. If that happens, you can expect another storming of the Capitol Building in DC, this time by Democratic protesters.
In the meantime, look for some countries to take advantage of the U.S. disarray. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all have something to gain when the U.S. is weak or having a bad day, so be on the lookout for one or more of them to make some kind of move before Inauguration Day.
As always, keep our nation in prayer; we never seem to be short on unrest. No matter who wins in November, half the country’s not going to be happy about it. President Biden is still in charge, so keep him in your prayers as well. And finally, just because your neighbor doesn’t agree with you politically, help ‘em out if they need a hand. After all, Americans should come together when things are tough.