The Daily Item
July 28, 2024
Running the rapids: Making it up as we go
Our Senior Paddler is not as strong as he used to be. We have invited him to go overboard, and he has. His First Mate is now in charge as our craft noses into the rapids …
Joe Biden was hard to read at the end. On Thursday, I remarked to friends that it looked like a chess match where you don’t have checkmate yet, but you can see it coming. But he showed no signs of yielding, so I wrote on Saturday that he would “not go gentle into that good night” (Dylan Thomas). Then he went.
He endorsed Kamala Harris. Although an immediate coronation looks unlikely. The formal decision on the nomination will probably be made at the convention next month. She is well-positioned to be nominated. She can already act like she is the Democratic nominee. She has a month to the convention and a bit over three months to the election. Her task: To reinvent the campaign to enable it to defeat Donald Trump while guiding the raft through the daily rapids.
The most substantive part of that task begins with rethinking how to defend and explain the Biden-Harris record in a way that gets more people to appreciate it. Biden presided over the biggest package of progressive legislation since the Great Society, but many voters think only about inflation. She must also make the case that the Trump years were not as great as many people remember.
An even higher priority is to look ahead. Biden’s “finish the job” is utterly inadequate as a justification for another term. Harris needs to articulate a distinctive vision. That’s hard when you just found out that you’re running for president, when you have no time to work out the details. But she has to give people positive reasons for voting against Trump. Biden’s emphasis on Trump as a threat to democracy will not win over a majority of voters.
Beyond the substance of policy, there is strategy: How will you set up your forces to win the
election?
Harris starts in a stronger position than you might think. National polls show her doing at least as well as Biden against Trump. Though Trump has a devoted base, they are only a minority of the electorate. Trump is actually almost as unpopular as Biden. Even on the day of his withdrawal, Biden was only a few percentage points behind Trump nationally.
Harris has the potential, as a new, younger, strongly pro-choice candidate of Black and South Asian descent, to reach voters Biden was not reaching: Younger voters — especially women — Blacks and other people of color, the so-called “double haters” who disapprove of both Trump and Biden. She should be able to pull in a larger share of these populations than Biden was getting. That alone could be enough to pull her ahead of Trump nationally. Add in the predictable enthusiasm of Democrats who would have voted for Biden but would not have volunteered to help him.
Her candidacy has already turned the age issue into an asset for Democrats: Trump must now defend himself as the old man in the race. It will be much easier for her to get voters to focus on the signs of Trump’s decline and whether he can survive another term. JD Vance, as Trump’s running mate, reinforces the far-right and macho character of his campaign. Harris has been eloquent in defending reproductive rights; she should be able to pull in a substantial majority of women voters.
The election will be won in the Electoral College, and thus in a small number of swing states. Biden was behind in most of them. His hopes for victory depended on winning three old industrial states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Harris can be more competitive in those states. She can also put into play the southern and western swing states that have been out of Biden’s reach (Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada).
Finally, as a stronger presidential candidate, Harris can enhance the prospects of taking the House and holding the Senate.
She can get us through the rapids just fine.
John Peeler is a retired Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies at Bucknell.