Democrats’ new plan (Part II)
In last week’s column I predicted that the Democrats, anxious over growing signs of Joe Biden’s enfeeblement, would persuade him to drop his re-election bid sometime between the last primary in June and their convention in August.
With their first electoral problem (cutting Biden loose) solved, they would then solve their second—how to bypass the highly unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris in a party defined by identity politics—by making a different Black woman their nominee.
That other Black woman would of course be the highly popular Michelle Obama.
Democrats will be able to carry out this complex maneuver because they care more about winning than do Republicans.
It is because Democrats care more about winning that they are better at politics; more specifically, better at identifying successful presidential candidates and devising better campaign strategies (with, of course, a persistent assist from sympathetic media). It isn’t an accident that they have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential contests.
In stark contrast, Republicans were presented this year with a host of able contenders (Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, and Asa Hutchinson, most conspicuously) that could have easily beaten Biden, Harris or any other Democrat, but they chose instead the only option who probably can’t. They would, in a stunning testament to electoral stupidity, rather lose with Donald Trump than win with anyone else.
Democrats don’t think that way at all.
For them, it really is that simple— the candidate whom they nominate in Chicago will be the one they feel gives them the best chance to win three months later.
Democrats were able to unite behind an uninspiring Biden four years ago to defeat Donald Trump, and they will unite again this year to keep Trump from returning. They apparently fear another Trump presidency more than Republicans fear four more years of a Democrat in the White House. Republicans would have behaved much differently in the past year and their primary race wouldn’t already be essentially over if this were untrue.
The desire to win (hold power) also spurs Democrats to use all the political weapons at their disposal (ballot harvesting, “Zuckerbucks,” creative interpretations of the 14th Amendment, criminal indictments, etc.) while Republicans cling to a weapon less likely to blow up the other side than himself.
Democrats are sufficiently serious about winning that they will eventually give the hook to an incumbent president; Republicans so unserious as to go back to the well with a former president responsible for three consecutive lost elections, each of which was eminently winnable if not for him.
Democrats might be woke loons in between electoral seasons, but they manage to get their act together and tailor their political positions in more palatable garb by the time ballots are cast (for example, scurrying away from “defund the police”).
Republicans can’t tailor their position on the issues even when the issues cut their way because they have to scramble to stand wherever Trump stands, even if it makes no sense and is the opposite of where they stood the day before.
Bottom line: Democrats will avoid both Biden and Harris and still preserve their identity-politics coalition by selecting Michelle Obama.
Insiders reportedly claim that the former first lady has no interest in running for office, but it is difficult to believe she couldn’t be persuaded, what with all the Democrat blather about “the end of democracy” if they lose. There will have been no drawn-out primary gauntlet requiring the sacrifice of her dignity, and the prospect of making history as the first woman president would be a powerful enticement.
Just as Biden could be appealed to in terms of good of party and country, defined as stopping Trump, so too could Michelle.
She could effectively promise a third Obama term, with a popular two-term president as her closest adviser and confidant. Such a “co-presidency” would nicely skirt the 22nd Amendment and the project of transforming America could be put back on track after the evil Trump and the inept Biden had derailed it.
While it will be true that she has never held public office, it was also true that Trump hadn’t either, until January 2017, and that however little she might know about public policy is almost certainly more than a fellow who brags about having never read a book knows (which is, despite having served for four years as president, and quite astonishingly, nothing).
It wouldn’t have to be much of a campaign, a reprise of Biden’s 2020 basement approach would do, since the primary strategy for any Democrat running against Trump is to simply stand back and allow him to flail about and behave like an ass on a daily basis. Her debate approach would be similar, letting Trump fulminate, huff and puff and spout nonsense.
The contrast between elegant and poised in one corner and boorish and wingnut in the other would surely be sufficient.
And the final element in the strategy would be to avoid a Biden and select a competent running mate, most likely California Gov. Gavin Newsom, which would allow her after a year or two as president to return to the private life the Obamas seem to be enjoying so much.