Dems’ New Civil War
Democrats’ civil war isn’t over: Grab the popcorn for some chaotic days ahead. President Biden may have anointed Veep Kamala Harris as his successor, but the delegates will have to agree, and it’s not yet clear whether party leadership (let alone the donors) are united.
Before Joe dropped, ex-Prez Barack Obama and others were said to favor some kind of “mini primary” ahead of the Aug. 19 convention. Obama pointedly failed to endorse Harris, or even mention her name Sunday.
That suggests a clear lack of faith in Harris — and understandably so. Top donors had called for a truly open convention, too.
Tellingly, not all party leaders who jumped in to thank Biden for his service on Sunday joined in the Harris coronation. The Clintons did; Obama and Chuck Schumer did not.
Maybe there is no consensus yet, or perhaps the leaders don’t want to look like they’ve already plotted out the entire transition. After all, while polls show most Democratic voters wanted a younger candidate, plenty of grassroots activist Dems have furiously slammed the leaders for suddenly pushing to set aside the actual primary vote.
And don’t discount the ambition of some top contenders, their donors and their consultants — who’ll see this as their guy’s (or gal’s) big chance. No single faction can stop anyone from declaring.
Sadly, we can’t trust any public statements at this point: After all, virtually all these folks have been utterly two-faced for the last month at least. Most of them (and much of the media) were on the “cheap fake’” bandwagon against The Post and others flagging Biden’s drastic decline — until that fateful debate. And some of them, even after.
As a rule, we despise conspiracy theories. We think all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that pushed Biden out was individuals privately conferring about what was best for the party and acting on their own, albeit in quasi-concert: Facing the fact that Biden would plainly lead the party to disaster in November, what choice did they have?
But that doesn’t mean they agree on what’s best for the party, or the nation, moving ahead — nor even on what they can pull off. Is the goal now to find a nominee who really could win, or just one who can somehow reunite the party and not lose too badly? Plan another four years of “resistance” and aim to take back the White House in 2028?
Say you think Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) is the best bet to beat Trump-Vance: Can you really convince the delegates to embrace a guy who’s well to their right? E.G.: Shapiro is open to educational choice — anathema to the teacher unions who provide a third or more of the delegates to any modern Democratic convention.
And if you can muscle the delegates into holding their noses to nominate him, aren’t you making a mockery of democracy, supposedly what Dems are trying to preserve against the Trump threat?
Just going with Harris (elected veep twice, already on the ticket) might be the most democratic thing. Or maybe it’s having the convention draft Hillary Clinton, the party’s last nominee before Biden? Or perhaps it’s the Obama “mini primary” scheme . . .
Everyone knows Harris will likely be roughly as terrible as Biden: She’s stuck with his record, her primary campaign for the 2020 nomination was a humiliation — and she’s nearly as bad at off-the-cuff public speaking as Biden’s been after his decline.
Frankly: If the party had an alternative clearly superior to Biden, everyone wouldn’t have conspired so long to hide his true state.
That is, they had consensus on Plan A: Stick with Joe through November. When they saw that was a disaster, everyone rushed to push him out — a delicate task that wound up taking weeks.
(And left Biden furious at what he sees as a back-stabbing betrayal: You to wonder if anointing Harris was just his revenge.)
It looks to us like party leaders didn’t have a chance to agree on a Plan B — and only have weeks to try. Now they’re really scrambling.