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Conservatives: Be Quiet, Be Nice to Kamala (for 26 Days)
It would be a salutary event for our Democratic friends to nominate an unpopular buffoon with appallingly bad campaigning skills. Let’s not interfere with that. Here is a scary thought from the estimable Byron York:
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin on Aug. 19. That’s 27 days away. Remember how much has changed in just the 10 days since July 13 — the Trump attempted assassination, the Republican National Convention, Biden’s withdrawal, and the Democratic embrace of Harris. Is there any reason to believe that things will settle down now?
More specifically, there is plenty of time for Democrats to rethink their rush to Harris. How will she do on the campaign trail? What will the polls show once enough time has passed for a reliable measurement of public opinion? How will Harris wear on voters? By the time Democrats meet in Chicago, there might be great happiness with Harris. On the other hand, there might be growing doubts.
The point is, there is time for change between now and the convention. On Tuesday, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio released a memo predicting a media-driven “Harris honeymoon” over the next few weeks. But couldn’t the opposite occur, too — that after an initial mindless euphoria, some Democrats could develop a Harris hangover?
I would like to go on record that as a Republican, I am completely terrified of a juggernaut like Ms. Harris getting the nod. She is a virtual shoo-in, an unstoppable force and, I fear, the strongest possible Democratic candidate. Like you Democrats, I am unpersuaded by all the fake videos that take her remarks out of context. Please don’t nominate her, Democrats.
Published in Election 2024
Can someone please explain to me how Democrats got this candidate without going through any debates?
Racist.
I’m losing count, but it appears WaPo has 10 stories on Kamala today, although only three in the Style section. We should certainly applaud our MSM betters for setting the record straight in such timely fashion.
OurDemocracy(TM) selects the best choices and policies for us so that we don’t have to bear the risk of voting under the pernicious influence of disinformation. If it is clear that the best choice will be affirmed in a carefully structured election of some kind, then by all means let the people applaud what has been selected for them. Open elections often involve “free speech” which is just code for hate. In OurDemocracy(TM) we no longer have to endure that.
“We have to vote for Kamala, so You can see what She’s capable of.”
FWIW Jim Geraghty does a decent job of explaining why Harris has the most legitimate claim: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/you-cant-have-a-competition-if-no-other-candidate-shows-up/
Does this work?: Ms. Harris is the finest candidate the Democrat Party could nominate. She represents a generational shift in Democratic Party fortunes. Because of her, this election will be a turning point in American history. For an early draft of her speeches, see https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/full-transcript-sen-barack-obamas-victory-speech/story?id=6181477
You know the answer to this one, I imagine.
So Harris was in the primaries on the same ticket as President Biden, running essentially unopposed, as sitting Presidents often do. They easily locked up the nomination.
Then Biden’s mental condition became a major issue. My own impression is that it was somewhat bad before, but got worse over the last few months, which is not surprising for someone who is 81 years old. Biden had a disastrous debate performance, and it got a bit worse from there, so he withdrew.
There is not enough time to run another round of primaries. I think that this is obvious. So the Democratic Party had to pick another nominee.
Unsurprisingly, having lost the sitting President as a candidate, they picked the sitting Vice President.
The circumstances are unusual, but I see nothing strange here. I expect that the Republicans would have done something similar, had the circumstances been reversed.
Had the Republicans done the same, it would be equally strange. The bottom line is that we now have a Presidential candidate who has never received a single vote in a primary and who did not even get past Iowa in 2020. We have oligarchs within a party selecting someone who may be the next President. That is the definition of “strange.”
FWIW in North Carolina the names on the ballots were “Donald J. Trump” (GOP ballot) and “Joseph R Biden” (Dem ballot). Any VP candidate was not listed, in accordance with the practice of the POTUS nominee picking his VP candidate. Kamala Harris was not on the NC ballot.
Please no, not that Briar Patch.
According to this AP story today, the Democrats are going to choose their nominee by a “virtual roll call” process, which will be complete by August 7.
Do those committed to voting against Trump give a rip?
Time to start documenting the Never-Kamalas.
Are any NTs are also NKs?
Is this the time for David French to launch another campaign for President?
How secure will the process be? Better than those used in the 2020 General Election?
I understand the desire to hammer the Dems for their hypocrisy in all this. It’s entertaining to watch and fun to do. It also undermines the whole, “Trump is a threat to democracy!” claptrap.
That said, I’m not too worked up about it. The nomination of party candidates was historically similar to the Electoral College. The party in each state appointed electors, based on a certain process, who would go to the national convention and decide on the candidate. This morphed over the decades into a more “democratic” form, where the electors were more-or-less bound to vote according to the outcome the state primaries or caucuses.
In this very unusual year, that process won’t work. It’s not surprising that they’re falling back to something more akin to the original process. It’s all they can do, really.
Neither am I.
Not a big fan of the primaries to begin with. A) The nomination is not an elective office, it is a party function. B) Choosing a general election matchup 10 to 11 months out is silly. C) If smoke filled rooms of party bosses was a problem, handing the process over to the donors wasn’t the answer.
And it is the donor’s game. Trump sewed up the nomination after one caucus and two primaries because DeSantis and Haley were looking at the money flow, not the votes of the party of as a whole.
If the assassin’s bullet had been one inch closer to Donald Trump’s brain, the Republican Party would be in a very similar situation. The primaries are all done and the voters’ choices is no longer available. It would be up to the party and the delegates to choose someone new. What would be the alternative? Have 50 state primaries all over again on very short notice?
The primary point here is not the process per se—although that certainly matters. It’s that a very small number of party insiders have determined who the presidential candidate will be.
Biden’s infirmities have been known for quite some time, and in plenty of time to resolve this democratically. But a decision was made to not move him out until the “last minute.” This issue was created by the same people who are now using it as an excuse to crown their chosen candidate.
But not illegal, so it is now up to the voters to express their disapproval at the polls. Don’t hold your breath.
Those names are only there to represent what you are actually vote for which are the slates of Electors chosen by the parties, so no real skullduggery here.
So what you are saying is that the insiders did not trust the primary voters?
The Obamas, Pelosis, and Schumers of the world no doubt took notice of the fact that Harris didn’t even survive Iowa four years ago.
No. But you could have an open convention and not pre-wire the choice from on high.
Apparently, I am behind in the news. Has the Democratic National Committee announced that the delegates will not get to vote at the convention, or that Kamala Harris will be the only name that may appear on any ballot?
Not to my knowledge. But I’d say the relevant question is whether, after the staged hagiography of the last two days and the endorsements of the powerful, one should conclude that the fix is already in and the convention is a sham. It seems to me that the message has come out loud and clear that no one should dare challenge Harris.
I think they should. Just as the 22nd and 25th amendments were afterthoughts to our Constitution, I think we need to think this through. I have been concerned about this for a year.
What happens if a candidate is incapacitated or dies between the convention that confirms his or her nomination and the actual election? There is no process that I know of in either party for that possibility. There should be.
I think that, yes, the party should start all over again through a second primary nomination process.
Although it is true that how the candidate is nominated is relegated to the private political parties, which candidate is recognized as officially the party’s candidate is a power given to the states and is a matter of law. So there’s an intersection there.
They will vote virtually in advance without meeting–as the Biden team had originally planned to shut down any hint or opportunity for dissent. The party leaders (sans Obama) have all endorsed her in lockstep.
Much like democracy itself, an open convention might be messy and bring even about results that OurDemocracy(TM) had not already selected. In the old days, state delegations sometimes nominated a “favorite son” usually a governor who was not really a candidate. This kept them ostensibly neutral and awaiting bids from different camps. But even neutrality could be construed as treason in Our Democracy(TM).
By wiring the nomination process and thus keeping out viable alternatives to Joe (which candidates would have had some delegates and some residual campaign organization even if Joe won), the party has no ingredients for a natural selection process in place.
Postscript to my comment 27:
Actually, the least expensive way to do this would be for primary voters and convention delegates to elect an alternate at the same time they nominate the top person.
The advantage to this is the information it would give to the parties as to whose views on the issues are closest to the party platforms.
One purpose or outcome of elections is to provide information on the mind of the electorate. Having voters pick an alternate would give a lot of information to the political parties.
There is. Via the Brookings Institute:
GOP
Democrat
Death between the Electoral College vote and January 20th?
Section 3 of the 20th Amendment reads: