DailyKos member NotSoNew has a fantastic diary that I endorse from top to bottom. I recommend a read: www.dailykos.com/…
I also became a big fan of Biden over the course of his first term. I was honestly surprised at the liberal policies getting signed into law. At the time I was going to be happy with any Democrat in the office, but we ended up getting a lot of icing with that cake. And I’m more than ready to vote for Biden again in November.
I now suspect that won’t be an option as it seems that he’s lost Pelosi and Obama. For good or ill, I think he’s going to drop out. And everyone calling for unity has it exactly right—the only way we move forward with a new candidate this late in the game is if we are all on board right out of the gate. And as far as I can see, that can only happen with one person: Vice President Kamala Harris.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of Harris in 2019. I had a strong preference for Elizabeth Warren (although in hindsight I see her as far more effective in the Senate than she would be in the WH). One reason is that Harris has a trait that I also didn’t like about Hillary— they talk like lawyers. Actually, this was a problem with Gore as well—it wasn’t until well after his race we learned that he had the ability to deliver barnburners. And, rightly or wrongly, this matters, because speaking in a careful, policy-centric way makes it more difficult for voters to connect with the candidates as people. I do think this remains a Harris handicap.
On the other hand, I agree with NotSoNew that Harris is probably much more of a pugilist than Biden, and that’s also important. And I doubt there’s a Democrat anywhere who wouldn’t agree that Harris is entirely qualified and ready for the job. And she has almost no baggage. Sure, the GOP would immediately go into attack mode, but they’d be starting from scratch. And I also agree that this momentous change would dominate several news cycles and possibly even drive extra eyeballs to the DNC convention.
Unlike NotSoNew and many others here, I do not think that Biden bowing out at this point would be some kind of disaster. The only way it would be is if the dems fracture into different warring camps like we did in 2007 and 2015. And yeah, that’s a possibility. But there is one thing that can glue us together behind a Harris candidacy—a shared terror of a second Trump term and the implementation of Project 2025. And if Harris get’s Biden’s endorsement, then she needs to immediately begin building a vision for the country. And if those things can all happen, I’ve no doubt that Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as President of the United States in January 2025.