Like many People who watched the presidential debate on Thursday night time, I knew when it was over that there was no means I used to be going to sleep. So I did one thing I nearly by no means do: tuned in to the pundit commentary on cable information. I’m glad I did. Not lengthy after the controversy, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper. Watching her calmly and methodically reply to a battering ram of questions from Cooper, it occurred to me: The plain, logical path out of the mess President Biden created together with his disastrous debate efficiency is for him to bow out with honor and endorse his younger, vigorous and proficient vp to face in his stead.
I do know, I do know. You suppose I simply fell out of a coconut tree. Didn’t Harris flame out within the final Democratic presidential major, leaving simply in time to keep away from an embarrassing loss in her residence state, California? Sure. However to win a major you should thread the needle of introducing your self to the bottom of the get together whereas burnishing the case in your concepts and dissing the abilities of your rivals, all whereas protecting your choices open, as a result of your opponents are additionally your future surrogates and allies. For girls — and for Black ladies specifically — the gender and racial dynamics of a presidential major race appear particularly tough to navigate.
These dynamics would play out very otherwise on a nationwide stage shared with Donald Trump. There, Harris wouldn’t be hectoring a fellow Democrat over comparatively small variations in coverage or trying to shine her personal file compared with that of a governor or fellow lawmaker. She will be able to use her true superpower: She will likely be a relentless prosecutor of the very clear political case towards Donald John Trump, a felon, a person discovered responsible for sexual abuse, an inveterate liar, a demagogue, a menace to our democracy and to our Structure.
I feel I converse for lots of girls, most likely probably the most decisive voting bloc on this election, once I say that I’d like to see Harris lower Trump right down to measurement. And in contrast to the blow she landed on Biden through the 2020 major debate — “That little woman was me,” in response to Biden’s horrible reply about faculty busing coverage — she could be in a hoop with an precise bully who will likely be unable to assist himself and can deal with her with menacing disrespect. Not like Trump’s earlier feminine debate rival, Hillary Clinton, nary a whiff of scandal has besmirched Harris. All Trump would have is private assaults, which might solely additional reinforce his picture as a bully. That would play particularly poorly with average voters when directed at a mature Black lady.
Within the wake of Thursday night time’s debate, it’s simple to miss how weak Trump is. He gave a dismal efficiency. He served up a platter of falsehoods and insults that really turned off some voters, in accordance with interviews I noticed with debate viewers on tv. However a rambling, sputtering Biden totally didn’t counter him.
Harris, together with her killer instincts and poise, might have wiped the ground with Trump on the problems that matter most to voters. We neglect that she was very profitable not simply as a prosecutor but additionally as a candidate for statewide workplace in California. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee through the first Trump administration she drew blood together with her powerful, calm and deliberate questions, managing to attain viral moments with out seeming like a theatrical showboater.
It will have been satisfying to look at her face off towards Trump on Thursday, not only for progressives but additionally for suburban ladies who needed to see a full-throated struggle for his or her reproductive rights, a difficulty on which Harris has been particularly — and passionately — outspoken and Biden, a religious Catholic, has been extra muted. I disagree together with her insurance policies on the border, however there isn’t any query Harris has been powerful and compelling on immigration. She has been a preferred surrogate on the marketing campaign path, and whereas she might not assist that a lot with Black and Latino males, who in any case are much less constant voters, I imagine she might energize Black ladies and younger individuals.
A marketing campaign shouldn’t be a debate, and there’s a lengthy street forward. However the job is to awaken the nation out of another universe wherein the Trump presidency was really not that dangerous. I feel she will make that case higher than nearly anybody else within the Democratic Occasion.
Her polling earlier than this debate was not nice — her favorables are as dismal as Biden’s — however current polls in swing states have proven she might acquire belief with voters ought to she step in for the president. Not like a drafted candidate, she would begin with low expectations she might fairly simply exceed. In a world crammed with peril, she has been concerned in main nationwide safety points, not relegated to ribbon cuttings. Paired with, say, a robust, centrist governor like Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Andy Beshear of Kentucky as her working mate, she might win this.
If Harris had been to grow to be the primary lady elected president via this unusual and very unlikely sequence of occasions, it will even be an ideal illustration of what it often takes for girls to get an opportunity to steer: A person makes a hash of an necessary job, and a girl should roll up her sleeves and clear it up. It will not be the identical form of triumphant second that introduced us our first Black president. However it will lastly break that hardest and highest glass ceiling. I hope that the following lady president might come to workplace underneath extra auspicious circumstances.
Giving the nod to Harris would have one other profit. It will enable Biden to finish his lengthy profession in public service with dignity and honor. He’ll go down in historical past as the person who stopped Trump in 2020. No matter expediency led Biden to decide on Harris as his working mate, and it’s clear that she was not a pure alternative for him, she was finally his alternative of successor ought to he be unable to serve. Making a mad scramble to discover a alternative whereas passing over the proficient politician he already selected would merely be one other instance of Biden blowing it. Bowing out permits him to be a patriot and let the pure order of succession as he envisioned it unfold, preserving his legacy and sense of company. That’s not a small factor. Harris 2024: It has a fairly good ring to it.
