While there’s mixed reporting on how it went down exactly, I 100% believe that the Democrats organizing the effort to push President Biden out of the race had zero plans for what would happen next if they were successful, with a little over 100 days before the election. This was one of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s big issues too: if you force out President Biden, what’s the plan, how will the party coalesce in such a short amount of time? I strongly believe that once President Biden made the decision to step aside, he only did so if he could endorse Kamala Harris on his own terms and signal to the party that VP Harris is his heiress, that she inherits his entire campaign apparatus, that he was always a bridge to an eventual President Kamala Harris. That was never what the Dem ratf–kers wanted, as we quickly witnessed in real time.
Speaking of ratf–kers, even before President Biden dropped out of the race, former speaker Nancy Pelosi made comments to other California Democrats that if and when Biden dropped out, there should be a “competitive process” in an open primary… in July and August. Like, that was Pelosi’s big political instinct at work, that Dems should be in disarray for weeks ahead of the DNC and likely during the whole convention. Pres. Biden announced his withdrawal on Sunday (with Pelosi’s knife still in his back) and in the same breath, he endorsed VP Harris. Pelosi didn’t expect that. Her first statement on Biden’s withdrawal did not offer any endorsement for VP Harris or anyone else. Then, 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal, suddenly Pelosi no longer favors a “competitive process.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday endorsed Kamala Harris to replace President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, calling her “brilliantly astute” and saying that she is the best person to defeat former President Donald J. Trump in the fall.
“It is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States,” Ms. Pelosi wrote in a statement. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for president is official, personal and political.”
The statement by Ms. Pelosi, who had earlier said she would favor a competitive process rather than a coronation of Ms. Harris, was the most significant in a rapidly growing number of high-profile endorsements as Ms. Harris moved swiftly to cement her position as the new face of her party. Ms. Pelosi urged her colleagues to get behind Ms. Harris, saying “we must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump.”
Ms. Harris’s campaign announced on Monday that it had raised $81 million in her first 24 hours as a presidential candidate. And she made her first public appearance since Mr. Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed her, praising Mr. Biden’s “deep love of our country” during a morning event at the White House.
She has so far scooped up endorsements from would-be challengers, including Governors JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Tony Evers of Wisconsin. Several of them have been talked about as possible running mates.
It sounds like Pelosi has been doing a lot of math lately. She must have realized that the ratf–king coalition left her holding the bag (a bag with a bloody knife in it) and that her legacy was on the line as well. This is something Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and the Obama staffers/podbros didn’t understand: that it means a lot to Democrats that Biden threw his full support to VP Harris, and that she is the one chosen as Biden’s heiress. The fact that a steady stream of would-be Democratic presidential candidates actually said “no, we’re supporting Kamala Harris” ruined the ratf–king fantasy of an “open primary” in July and August. That being said, as of this writing, Obama, Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries still have not endorsed VP Harris. Almost every other elected Democrat has though, including almost every Dem governor in the country? She’ll likely choose one of those Dem governors as her running mate.
With immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future, I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States. I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.
-NP pic.twitter.com/vBwv602GuR
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) July 22, 2024
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.