Like many People who watched the presidential debate on Thursday evening, I knew when it was over that there was no approach 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 talk, 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 along with his disastrous debate efficiency is for him to bow out with honor and endorse his younger, vigorous and gifted vice chairman to face in his stead.
I do know, I do know. You assume I simply fell out of a coconut tree. Didn’t Harris flame out within the final Democratic presidential main, leaving simply in time to keep away from an embarrassing loss in her house state, California? Sure. However to win a main you will need to thread the needle of introducing your self to the bottom of the social gathering whereas burnishing the case to your concepts and dissing the abilities of your rivals, all whereas conserving 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 the presidential main race appear particularly tough to navigate.
These dynamics would play out very in a different way 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 to a governor or fellow lawmaker. She will use her true superpower: She will probably be a relentless prosecutor of the very clear political case towards Donald John Trump, a felon, a person discovered answerable for sexual abuse, an inveterate liar, a demagogue, a menace to our democracy and to our Structure.
I believe I communicate for lots of ladies, most likely probably the most decisive voting bloc on this election, after I say that I’d like to see Harris reduce Trump all the way down to dimension. And in contrast to the blow she landed on Biden in the course of the 2020 main 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 probably be unable to assist himself and deal with her with menacing disrespect. In contrast to 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 reasonable voters when directed at a mature Black lady.
Within the wake of Thursday evening’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, along 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 in the course of the first Trump administration she drew blood along with her robust, 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 battle for his or her reproductive rights, a problem on which Harris has been particularly — and passionately — outspoken and Biden, a religious Catholic, has been muted. I disagree along with her insurance policies on the border, however there is no such thing as a query Harris has been robust and compelling on immigration. She has been a well-liked surrogate on the marketing campaign path, and whereas she could not assist that a lot with Black and Latino males, who in any case are much less constant voters, I consider she might energize Black ladies and younger folks.
A marketing campaign shouldn’t be a debate, and there’s a lengthy highway forward. However the job is to evoke the nation out of an alternate universe wherein the Trump presidency was truly not that unhealthy. I believe she will make that case higher than nearly anybody within the Democratic Celebration.
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. In contrast to a drafted candidate, she would begin with low expectations she might fairly simply exceed. In a world stuffed 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 operating mate, she might win this.
If Harris had been to turn out to be the primary lady president by this unusual and intensely unlikely sequence of occasions, it might even be an ideal illustration of what it normally takes for girls to get an opportunity to steer: A person makes a hash of an essential job, and a lady 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 might lastly break that hardest and highest glass ceiling. I hope that the subsequent lady president might come to workplace underneath extra auspicious circumstances.
Giving the nod to Harris would have one other profit. It will permit 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 operating 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 gifted 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.
