Listen To This Story

Shortly after the disastrous Biden-Trump debate, I was one of a relative few to call, right then and there, for Biden to get out. I even wrote his speech for him. I got flack from some people I know — and from plenty I don’t — but here we are: with Biden dropping out today. 

Now, I’ll take another “call me crazy” step: declare that Harris has to bow out, too — or at least be seriously challenged for the nomination. 

Let’s not mince words: Kamala Harris is weak overall, with very high negatives: Among registered voters, 52 percent disapprove of her job performance (USA Today/Suffolk University); of likely voters, 52 percent find her unfavorable (Politico); of US adults surveyed, 44 percent rated her unfavorable (Statista Research Department); of likely voters in Texas, 56 percent rated her unfavorable (University of Houston/Texas Southern).

Furthermore, despite the assumption that bypassing her will further alienate Black voters who are disenchanted with Biden, some polls have shown her support, even within that constituency, to be anemic.  

Many have never been too excited by her, and those who knew of her record as California attorney general must have found her selection as VP bewildering: Back in 2019, Lara Bazelon, a former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent, wrote a revealing editorial in The New York Times on Harris. Some highlights:

In 2015, she opposed a bill requiring her office to investigate shootings involving officers. And she refused to support statewide standards regulating the use of body-worn cameras by police officers. …

Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors. …

When a federal judge in Orange County ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional in 2014, Ms. Harris appealed. …

She also defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial. She relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office.

And then there’s Kevin Cooper, the death row inmate whose trial was infected by racism and corruption. He sought advanced DNA testing to prove his innocence, but Ms. Harris opposed it. (After The New York Times’s exposé of the case went viral, she reversed her position.) …

Of course, the full picture is more complicated. During her tenure as district attorney, Ms. Harris refused to seek the death penalty in a case involving the murder of a police officer. And she started a successful program that offered first-time nonviolent offenders a chance to have their charges dismissed if they completed a rigorous vocational training. As attorney general, she mandated implicit bias training and was awarded for her work in correcting a backlog in the testing of rape kits.

In both 2000 and 2002, Harris polled significantly worse among blacks than did Biden. Over the course of their term, Harris has pulled up to Biden, but despite insistence from some Black leaders that she must be the nominee if Biden drops out, she doesn’t show more strength than he did with this essential constituency. 

In fact, she doesn’t seem to have a way to uncouple from the Biden Local to Nowhere. The revelations about the Secret Service screw-ups will tar both her and Biden. And the Trump people have been ready and waiting to attack Harris the moment she’s the candidate. Plus, performatively speaking, she’ll basically have to reinvent how she has presented all these years — to turn things around.

A Different Path

However, there is another way forward. 

For one thing, the delegates headed to the convention are not required to vote for Harris.

To be sure, the delegates are Biden-Harris loyalists, and so getting them to respond courageously to the new reality will not be easy — though it now will be much easier.

As for party leaders, they understand that they’re supposed to go with Harris. But, just as they have with Biden, they also need to be realistic about Harris’s prospects and the enormous stakes for all. 

We need to hear, right now, about people like Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Those two Democratic governors have demonstrated they can win even in Republican states. 

Let’s focus on Roy Cooper first: A vigorous, attractive 67-year-old, with a kind face and straightforward manner. One senses there is nothing manipulative about him. Though personable, he seems to be all about the job. He is also refreshingly civil and actually listens when others speak. Paradoxically, it is this civility that makes him so formidable in these so very uncivil times.

Here he is on Meet the Press, making a case for what Democrats have done for ordinary Americans, as opposed to the harms done by the GOP cutting taxes for the wealthiest. (One especially interesting example concerned how Democratic governors try to fund the police, and how GOP policies actually interfere with this.)  Among his many accomplishments: On March 27, 2023, after 10 years of Republican opposition, Cooper signed into law legislation expanding Medicaid, what he called “working families bill of the decade.”  

(On Saturday, a day before Biden dropped out, Cooper’s longtime, fiercely loyal chief of staff suddenly resigned just months before the end of Cooper’s final term as governor to “go into the private sector.” Or is that so she is free to explore Cooper’s prospects?) 

***

Andy Beshear, 46, good looking, idealistic, and, like Cooper, very bright, academically and practically. He seems to have good instincts. He is pro-choice, pro-union, pro-funding the police, pro-legalization of medical cannabis. His policies have resulted in a dramatic decline in drug overdose deaths

To get a feel for his perspective, listen to his 2023 victory speech. I especially liked the part about “not moving to the right or to the left — but to move forward for every single family.”

But to get a feel for the man himself, listen to his spontaneous, emotional reaction to the death of a close friend.

Both are pragmatic, engaging, and proven effective leaders who inspire confidence among voters. They play well with others, including Republicans and even conservatives. They are talented debaters and could be expected to at least match and quite likely best Trump in a TV matchup. Even if Trump were to dodge debates, their skill would still become apparent as they made media appearances to call out Trump as a coward for failing to accept the challenge.

Either of them can reassure Biden supporters, inspire unregistered young voters, and appeal to the critical groups of suburban women in swing states.

The Democratic Party actually does have a deep bench, but without the increased visibility of these potential candidates no one realizes it. Once they have the opportunity to become better known to the delegates and the American public over the next few weeks, it would not take long for public opinion to recognize that the Democratic Party has some real talent. 

I think that either of them would reassure every past Joe Biden supporter, inspire young people who weren’t planning to vote, and appeal to the critical groups of suburban women in swing states. 

During his acceptance speech, JD Vance did not inspire excitement among the delegates, he was clearly acting out a heavily choreographed performance created for him by GOP handlers; he completely failed to deliver any kind of galvanizing VP speech, and incitement is the GOP’s entire raison d’etre. He lacked charisma and said nothing new or inspiring, aside from cynically ignoring his own declaration that Trump is “America’s Hitler.” 

It’s true that Cooper and Beshear aren’t very well known outside their states, at the moment.  But they are well-versed public speakers, they know how to prepare and articulate positions, and they know how to win. 

Obviously, even after four years in the White House, Trump has no clue about or interest in policy. And Vance’s entire political experience is 1.5 years in the Senate, with a flip-flopping in opinions and values that stands out as spinelessness even among his lickspittle GOP rivals.  

***

The American people are tired of the same old, same old. They may be tired of the awful surprises that have come one after another, but they do like completely unexpected pleasant surprises that save the day both in their movies and in real life. Heroes emerging out of nowhere. 

If, as most polls and experts agree, neither of the two Democrats who hold power can beat their opponents, it is not really “risky” to try something else. 

Put almost anyone on the ticket besides Harris, give them a few weeks to make their case, and Democrats could actually have a shot — a fair shot — at victory. We know that there is plenty of ill will toward Trump, there just isn’t much goodwill toward the incumbents. It will be difficult to change that since most people have already made up their minds about the key players.  

Those who fear that “starting over” will make it impossible to generate sufficient funding are underestimating the relief of circumventing issues like physical frailty and diminished cognitive acuity. 

A new candidate has a better chance of inspiring the voters and donors. I believe that an exciting, re-energized media campaign could produce a torrent of cash, almost overnight. If the Trump-Biden debate and the shooting of Trump did so, there’s no reason a quickly reinvigorated Democratic team couldn’t similarly galvanize resources. 

Either Cooper or Beshear, perhaps with a woman VP, such as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of swing-state Michigan, would be a body blow to the idea that the “wounded hero Trump” is now unstoppable. 

They are fresh-faced success stories, one of whom, Whitmer, survived a quasi-coup d’etat and kidnapping and, unlike Harris, they are from “acceptable” heartland states, not the perpetually GOP-reviled California. (By the way, I do know that Whitmer has already “said no” — but in politics, “no” often means “yes when circumstances are right,” and she said that when Biden was still in the race.) 

With a clean slate, Trump’s tired trash talk about the legacy of woke, lame-duck Sleepy Joe and his fellow traveler mini-me California Kamala and the rest of his inflammatory dog whistles to the MAGA hard-liners will be rendered irrelevant. Sober, rational heartland candidates will effectively challenge the GOP ticket.

And for the average voter, who at this point is desperate for even a small measure of competence, common sense, and vigor, this is the solution.

As importantly, the mere fact that neither Biden nor Harris would be on the ticket erases all those polls showing Trump ahead, and therefore vanquishes the threat of another false claim that the election was stolen. 

Of course, it would be great to have a woman president, or at least a woman vice president again. Those who insist on Harris, and believe that, somehow, she may miraculously turn into a suddenly strong and motivating figure, will be heartened to learn that one-time Democratic presidential aspirant Howard Dean, still admired by the party’s liberal wing, the other day proposed a ticket of… Harris with Cooper as her VP. 

However, a totally clean slate seems to be what the doctor ordered. And now. Clock’s ticking. 

The cartoon above was created by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy from these images: desert (Sammy Six / Flickr – CC BY 2.0 DEED), Unity Center (Brule Laker / Wikimedia – CC BY 2.0 DEED), logo (Democratic National Convention Committee / Wikimedia), woman (Brady Knoll / Pexels), camel (Mehdibelhaj / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED), footprints (Wendy Wei / Pexels), rays (Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay), sign (WORT News / Wikimedia – CC BY 2.0 DEED), sign ( Lorie Shaull / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED), billboard (Allen Gathman / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED), and palms (Enrique / Pixabay).

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