Why would any legitimate presidential prospect — outside Vice President Kamala Harris — consider jumping into the unprecedented chaos of 2024?
Right now, Govs. Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro — or whoever — can sit back for the next four years, bolster his or her credentials governing purple states, build national profiles, reach out to key constituencies and put together organizations in important states. Anyone who gets in now would be compelled to make a convincing case in a condensed time frame, relying on Joe Biden’s terrible campaign people, in what is likely the most tumultuous presidential election in more than a century.
For another thing, one would need to leapfrog the very first black/Asian American/woman vice president in history for the nomination. Is any white Democrat with a bright political future going to rely on a flash anarchic convention to sideline Harris?
I’ve never met the woman, but the vice president doesn’t seem to have a temperament that would take kindly to being shoved out of the picture. And, to be fair, her only real job is to step in for the president if he’s unable to perform his duties. Democrat voters, twice, picked her for that task.
Then, even if a potential candidate could pull it off, rather than brandishing some fresh and tested political message, that candidate would be thrust into the role of defending the administration’s unpopular record on the border or economy and so on. Does any politician who has built up credentials as an effective governor want to spend the next three months scaremongering about Project 2025 and the end of democracy?
Seems unlikely to me. But I guess you can never know.
If Democrats lose the White House this year, the Left’s revisionist history is going to blame the debate debacle for sinking Biden’s reelection efforts. And, indeed, the day the media’s gaslighting of the president’s decline was exposed, it changed the dynamics of the race. The president, though, was already struggling to get his message out and running behind Donald Trump on virtually every important issue. Biden almost certainly pushed for an early debate to reset the race.
Boy, that was a disastrous mistake. If he had waited, the media would have continued hiding his failing mental acuity until the campaign ran out the clock.
As far as Shapiro goes, it should be noted that the Democratic Party is not exactly a welcoming place for Jews right now. The party’s pro-Hamas faction, which Biden had been trying to mollify since Oct. 7, 2023, is still here. Navigating that issue won’t be easy. With the ejection of Hamas apologist Jamaal Bowman from Congress — and hopefully Cori Bush — the dynamics might change in 2028.
If Dems take a beating — and I’m not as sold on that prospect as others seem to be — perhaps Democrats will try to moderate the national ticket.
Sitting it out comes with some risk, of course. Perhaps Harris wins. I happen to believe she’s a weaker candidate than Biden right now. We never really know how the electorate is going to react. In most ways, though, waiting until 2028 makes a lot more sense for any accomplished Democrat.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author.
