I’m going to make “liberal” Fair Use of Jonathon Last’s article in today in The Bulwark because it’s so damn good.
Kamala Harris: The Future Is Now
“What was true three weeks ago is true today:
Joe Biden’s position is not tenable.
It is the Democratic party that will decide whether or not he steps aside.
Evidence continues to suggest that the party has decided”.
- I do believe the decision has been made, and President Biden will announce within the next few days that he has decided to pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. He will announce that he is releasing his delegates and strongly endorse Kamala Harris as our nominee for President of our United States of America. I will not rejoice at President Biden decision to not seek reelection because joe Biden is such a good, honest, and decent man. I wish the very best for Joe and Jill, and I know they will enjoy the free time to enjoy being with their family. Thank you for your 50+ years of service, sir, and especially for the last 3 ½ years as my President.
However, I will rejoice in his endorsement of Kamala Harris, as I firmly believe she is our best opportunity to defeat soundly Trump-Vance, retain the Senate, and win the House.
But back to Jonathon Last:
“Successful campaigns have deceptively simple rationales:
Reagan 1984: It’s morning in America.
Clinton 1992: Change versus more of the same.
Obama 2008: Hope.
The only Democrat who has a compelling rationale—right now—is Kamala Harris. What is it?
Kamala Harris: The future is now.
The Harris campaign should be insurgent, not incumbent. She should run against everything from the recent past: Against the fractions, broken promises, and lingering hatreds of the Obama years.
Kamala Harris is the candidate who can say, “We are tired of fighting about vaccines and the insurrection and Trump’s crimes. Together, we will make a clean break from all of that and start a wholly new era.”
Harris is a credible messenger for this pitch because she is a black woman who is a generation younger than Trump and Biden. She embodies change from the status quo. But simultaneously, she has enough experience to play as tested. She’s been a senator and a vice president. Her candidacy does not ask voters to take a chance on a young, untested quantity.
Properly positioned, Harris doesn’t ask voters to merely vote against Trump, because she frames all of Trump’s problems both as dangers and as emerging from the bowels of history. Trump becomes both a danger and the incumbent from a despised period in the past”.
- Take a look at Larry Sabato’s Hypothetical Crystal Ball Electoral Map:
Sabato does state clearly: “To be clear, these are not our official ratings, so this is just a hypothetical Democratic Doomsday map. But it also shows the kinds of rating changes we probably would make, or at least those we would have to seriously consider making, in the near future if Joe Biden remains the Democratic nominee and cannot improve his standing.
Trump: 312 Electoral Votes; Biden: 196; Tossups: 30.
Ouch! Just looking at that hypothetical electoral map hurts! But we can change things, by uniting behind and fighting like hell for President Kamala Harris!
Let’s stop moaning about how unfair all of this has been to Joe Biden. It has been unfair, but we can’t change the past. But we sure as hell can change the future, because the Future is Now!