Is it time for a second look at Kamala Harris?
With Biden's polling worse than ever, the Kamala question deserves a serious answer.
Speaking at a fundraiser in Massachusetts last week, Joe Biden reportedly said that “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running, but we cannot let him win.”
This is probably just bluster. My strong suspicion is that even if Trump were to die unexpectedly of a heart attack tomorrow, throwing the GOP into chaos, Biden would still run for re-election. After all, the baseline rate of presidents running for re-election is really high. That said, it’s not universal. LBJ stepped aside after it became clear he would struggle in a contested primary in 1968, and Harry Truman, grandfathered in under the terms of the 22nd Amendment, was legally eligible to try for a third term. It’s certainly possible that Biden is genuinely reluctant to submit himself to the rigors of the campaign trail (and to expose himself to the potential humiliation of defeat) but feels a sincere obligation to his country and his party to run again.
And since his inauguration, I’ve agreed with the analysis that a second Biden run is the best path forward. Not because Joe Biden is uniquely capable of beating Trump, but because America’s weak party institutions mean that we can’t easily swap in a different leader.
In Germany, by contrast, Prime Minister Olaf Scholz has become toxically unpopular, while the most popular politician in the country is the fellow Social Democrat currently serving as his defense minister. Germany is not scheduled to have a federal election until the fall of 2025, but if a vote were happening next year, the solution would be quite clear: the SPD should swap leaders.
That doesn’t work in America, and a chaotic open primary would be worse for Democrats than doing their best with Biden.
Looming over this whole discussion has been the assumption that Kamala Harris would be an even weaker candidate than Biden, and so it wouldn’t be worth trying to orchestrate a clean handoff. But would she? At this point, I don’t think the answer is obvious. And it’s a sufficiently important question that it warrants more scrutiny.
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