US: Democrats clear the runway for Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris

Barring an unexpected turn of events in a season of unexpected turns of events, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the next Democratic nominee for president. “I think it’s almost inevitable that Kamala Harris will end up being the nominee,” Robert Shrum, Director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California and a veteran of a half century of Democratic campaigns, told me.

President Joe Biden’s departure from the race on Sunday was one man’s extraordinary decision. But it was a sum of the efforts of thousands. The Democratic Party was not uniformly in favor of jettisoning Biden. But its center of gravity had shifted against him.

There are two points that are especially notable about that fact, and both are highly relevant to the weeks ahead. First, the Democratic Party has a center of gravity and that center found itself. Second, that gravitational mass just completed an unprecedented work of collective action, involving both party elites and rank and file, with the work taking place both publicly and privately. It was an uncanny feat in a party representing tens of millions of individuals.

Democrats accomplished the political equivalent of soaring off the high dive into a bucket of water. Now, some are demanding that the party recreate the act, only this time with a few added somersaults and twists. A wide-open convention in Chicago? A televised traveling circus with Bill Clinton andBarack Obama interviewing aspirants for the nation’s highest office? Oprah something something?

No.

The Democratic National Committee’s convention rules committee met virtually on Friday and reaffirmed that the party’s virtual roll call vote, nominating the party’s candidates for president and vice president, would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7. There are hard deadlines that the party must meet for the nominees to be on state ballots. Harris should be looking to sew up support quickly, and be the consensus choice by the first week of August. The party convention should be used to remind the nation who Donald Trump is. Likely Republican lawsuits to prevent Biden from withdrawing from the ballot, or the party from choosing a replacement, present an opportunity to remind voters that Jan. 6 is a state of mind in MAGA land, and that free elections are at risk if Republicans succeed.

Biden’s departure will surely whet the appetites of ambitious Democrats who would like to be president. But no credible challenger countered Biden’s reelection campaign in part because no one wanted to risk the blame for, or reality of, a second Trump presidency and its attendant assault on democratic institutions and practices. That political deterrent, which governed party behavior from 2022 to the present, should continue to check some ambitions between now and the first week of August.

Fortunately for the party, the obvious contenders are mostly young and can afford to wait for another chance. The three words that risk party fratricide – “now or never” – don’t apply to 52-year-old Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer or 42-year-old Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or even 56-year-old California Governor Gavin Newsom. Both Whitmer and Newsom, the most viable challengers, have said they will not run against Harris, 59. Their restraint will make an already difficult challenge slightly more daunting for any second-tier candidates contemplating a run. A veteran Democratic consultant with no particular affinity for Harris told me that it was difficult to conceive of a rationale for a campaign against her.

Consensus began building for Harris within minutes. As Georgetown University political scientist Jonathan Ladd wrote on social media, the party appears to be making its decision “in fast forward.”

That leaves Harris in the dominant position. Biden endorsed her, which will help influence his most fervent supporters. Her task in the days ahead is to ward off potential challengers, consolidate support and contemplate running mates. The vice-presidential nomination should prove extremely attractive: a less than four-month campaign for the White House with virtually no chance of being blamed for a defeat.

With democracy on the line, the incentive toward another round of partywide collective action is strong. Harris is not fully trusted as a top-tier candidate. She occasionally fumbles. She might lose a few White votes that Biden might have claimed. But she brings genuine strengths. She may excite some of the young voters – especially young women – who turned away from Biden.

She may inspire new energy among Black voters. She gives women a different stake in the race than they had the day before Biden dropped out. Most important, she can effectively prosecute the moral, intellectual and political case against Trump, which is her primary mission. She has a lot to work with. It would be best for Democrats if she got to work quickly.

Credit: Bloomberg