Democrats will regret ignoring democracy to nominate Kamala Harris
It’s Wednesday morning, Nov. 6. After a year of campaigns and chaos, the votes have been counted and Donald J. Trump won the presidency with a couple of battleground states to spare.
That day will bring tears from some, cheers from others and a few riots since that’s how we seem to do things these days. But by Thursday, there will be questions. A whole lot of questions.
According to most electoral vote prediction models, Trump has a slight edge over Vice President Kamala Harris, just as he did over Biden last week. The numbers are sure to bounce around as voters process the White House switcheroo.
But, as it stands today, a GOP victory remains the most likely outcome.
And if that happens, the Democrats’ finger-pointing and recriminations will make Hillary’s loss look like a Sunday brunch.
Democrats could've dumped Biden much earlier
The first question: Why didn’t Biden agree to serve only four years?
His 2020 campaign did everything but promise a single term, and evidence of his diminishing physical stamina and mental fitness had only ramped up over the past six months.
If the president wouldn’t willingly step aside, party leaders should have pushed him out after the 2022 midterms instead of four months before Election Day. (One particular opinion writer suggested so at the time.)
Last weekend proved that a unified DNC could have made the change at any time.
Instead, the DNC declared its full support for Biden in March 2023, despite 58% of its base preferring someone else. They rushed him through the primaries and tried shaming voters who preferred another candidate or left their ballots blank.
Power brokers at the DNC gave voters no chance
The party treated his nomination as a fait accompli, discouraging any major candidates from tossing in their names. When modest resistance presented itself, they refused to hold a single debate, a move also strongly opposed by voters.
This month, when Biden finally did show up for a debate with Trump, it was an utter disaster. It would have been nice to know that weakness several months ago. Politicians belatedly begged him to step aside and donations dried up, yet the president dug in his heels.
Reporters and celebrities shared a flurry of anecdotes about the president’s obvious infirmity, some going back months. Trial balloons about potential replacements lofted over Washington, D.C.
What is a conservative anymore? Few can define it
Today, those same politicians are being considered as running mates. The DNC would know which pick was most popular if it had encouraged them to run in the primary. How else can you determine who best connects with the electorate?
Instead, the powerbrokers anointed Vice President Harris as nominee, just as they had anointed Biden earlier. Voters were not allowed to have a say, which is ironic since the party is named after democracy itself.
Kamala Harris' nomination was hardly democratic
For her part, Harris has a poor track record with American voters.
As a candidate in 2020, Harris proved so unpopular that she was forced to drop out before a single vote was cast. Her current approval rating remains underwater by double digits, so any argument that she was chosen for popular appeal falls flat.
Perhaps Harris is the best nominee, but there’s no way of knowing. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Mark Kelly or some other candidate might have proven a party favorite. Presidents Clinton and Obama began their primary runs as outsiders only to win the White House.
Back in January, Biden asked, “Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? … That’s what the 2024 election is all about.”
It’s a question the DNC needs to ask itself, since their presidential nomination was the least democratic process in living memory.
Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @exjon.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Democrats are still poised to lose with Kamala Harris. What then?
