Biden dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday. The first snarky question I heard was “How did they get Jill to agree to that?” Right now, some people are getting up in arms at the suggestion that the woman in the equation is against that simply because she wants to live in the White House for another four years and that she truly dislikes Harris. I’d argue that the question assumes Jill is in charge. Aren’t strong, feminists supposed to be in charge? Of course a question like that also assumes that given Biden’s obvious problems, which many of us have seen for four freaking years, Jill has no regard for the health and well-being of her husband. Anyway, I digress. This announcement significantly changes the tenor and character of the 2024 race. And I don’t just mean because there’s going to be a new Democratic candidate.
Sitting here on Monday, it seems that Kamala Harris will become the Democratic candidate. HOWEVER, there is still a convention to get through and those delegates may not want to put a woman who couldn’t make to the actual voting part of the 2020 primaries on the ballot. That’s one thing. Another thing is if the Powers-That-Be in the Democratic Party (e.g. Obama, Pelosi, Clinton, Schumer et al) engage in the classic smoke-filled back rooms, we may very well see delegates versus party elites. We may also see riots (again) in the streets of Chicago when the far-left edge of the Democratic Party makes its feelings known.
Harris went up to Delaware today to the main campaign headquarters, now re-branded as “Harris for President.” But just because that happened, does not mean that she is the official nominee for the Democrats. As I said, they still have to have a convention and there’s a better than even chance that others will throw their hat in the ring at that point.
There are advantages for the Democrats in having Harris as their candidate. She’s a woman (obvi), not white, is currently VP, and has access to the $230 million in the Biden-Harris campaign war chest.
However (and it’s a big “however”), Harris has a lot of baggage trundling along with her. To begin with, she is not a coherent speaker. Seriously. Go listen to unedited speeches and pressers with her. The term “word salad” doesn’t even begin to cover the unending sentences of nothingness that come out of her mouth. Secondly, she failed miserably the last time she ran. When Democrats saw her against other Democrats, they made it clear they would vote for anybody but Harris (and they went with Biden, so go figure). In addition to all that, the woman really isn’t all that smart. I said in an earlier post that just because she went to law school and passed the bar exam, doesn’t mean she’s smart. It means she figured out how to approach questions and arrive at the answers that her professors and the bar exam were seeking. And as I said, there are a lot of intelligent lawyers out there. They’re the ones who are successful in their fields.
Even Harris’ late “mentor” (however you want to define that term here), Willie Brown, the very powerful former California Assembly leader, and later mayor of San Francisco, said he regretted helping her win the positions of DA for San Francisco and later AG for California. He actually acknowledged that she’s not really all that smart. And if you’ve been paying attention over the last four years, you’ll have noticed that Team Biden never really gave her anything of note to do. No projects, not very many summits to attend, and those she did attend she managed to look and sound extremely awkward, all culminating in that braying laugh she has.
In addition, Harris has a record of doing a 180 on many of her positions. She presented as a tough on crime, lock-em-up candidate when she ran for (and won) DA in San Francisco. In fact, there’s a mosaic of Harris made up of photographs of all the black men she kept in prison well beyond the length of their prison terms. Now she’s changed to the “they’re all just misunderstood” end of the criminal justice spectrum. I wonder which one we’ll get in the campaign. Now, don’t get me wrong, everybody is entitled to change their position on any given issue when they get new information. Do I believe that Harris has gotten new information? No. Based on my observations, her positions have changed depending on her audience. That is not a well thought out policy position. That is pandering.
Not only have her policy positions changed radically, her own self-descriptions have changed as well. She first described herself as mixed Southeast Asian and African heritage (her mother is Indian and her father from Jamaica). Now she describes herself as a black woman. Why does this matter, you ask? Please pay attention. Her descriptions change based on her audience and which description she believes will give her the most traction. And those of Southeast Asian descent are not as welcome on the left as those of African descent. Remember when Jesse Jackson claimed that Barack Obama was “not really black?” He did so (go look it up) because Obamas mother was white and his father Kenyan. Obama’s black heritage is not from the descendants of slaves in the U.S. That matters to a lot of people. The same goes for Kamala.
Believe me, this will come up and it will come up from some on the left-hand side of the political spectrum.
Finally, I have two words for you: Presidential debates. Any candidate the Dems put forward now will have to take part in the usual presidential debates hosted by the Presidential Debate Commission. I know they announced that they had told the college campuses that were supposed to host them to stand down, but I’m willing to bet that they’ve now quietly gone back to those campuses and asked them to get ready. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in terms of the Commission. In terms of the debate, it will be a nail in the coffin of Harris if she becomes the candidate and refuses to debate Trump. Failing to debate Trump will harm any candidate the Dems put forward.
So, we’re buying popcorn and popcorn futures and I plan on sitting down and watching as much of the Democratic convention as I can stomach. I just hope the residents of Chicago and Chicago PD are fully aware of what they’re heading into. Now I’m seriously thinking we’re going to see a repeat of 1968.
Having said all this, I am not discounting the fact that the Democratic Party machine will do everything they think they can get away with to push Harris (or whoever they designate at the convention) to keep Trump from returning to the White House. That’s their main goal. That and getting the entire country to become the cluster-f*ck that is California. And that includes massive fraud and other illegal activities. They’ve already subverted their own nomination process and slapped down their own party voters. The overall system is next (those bits that weren’t corrupted in the 2020 election – unlike say, Georgia where they found over half a million fraudulent names on the voter rolls. Half. A. Million.)
If you’re a conservative, don’t get cocky. This is not over by any means. If you’re a Democrat, and a blue dog Democrat at that (you’d vote for a blue dog before you’d vote for a Republican), I’d pay attention to how you’re losing power, voice, and autonomy in your party (really, how you’ve already lost it). Additionally, in your position, I’d question your automatic support for all things Democrat. Try doing your own research and spending some energy on truly understanding what it is you’re supporting.
None of us can afford to stick our heads in the sand in any way shape or form right now and for the next few years. NONE of us have the luxury of ignoring national politics any longer. This is on all of us.
Note: Started this on Monday, finished on Tuesday.
