Joe’s uncertainties about his running mate, Biden’s clumsy departure, and additional analysis
Reporter: Joe’s Doubts on His Veep
“President Biden hesitated to drop his re-election campaign in part because he and his senior advisers worried that Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t up to taking on Donald Trump,” reports Axios’ Alex Thompson. Aides say Biden’s “private anxieties reflect broader questions among some Democratic leaders about Harris as their nominee this November.” Her time as veep has been “defined in part by large staff turnover [and] retreating from politically risky responsibilities.” And “White House aides sometimes felt Harris wasn’t a team player and stayed away from any task with risk.” Plus, she’s “been cautious and reluctant to participate in events that weren’t tightly controlled,” and tends to be “focused on critical coverage of her in ways aides have found unhelpful.”
Culture critic: Biden’s Ungraceful Exit
“Within minutes of Joe Biden announcing that he was dropping out of the presidential race, his sycophants were gushing over his ‘grace,’ ” grumbles Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill. Despite what the Biden “propaganda machine” tells us, “his anointing of Kamala Harris as his rightful successor speaks not to the integrity of his administration but to its chaos and corruption.” The truth is “Biden has not elegantly bowed out — he’s been forced out by Democrat big dogs and donors.” It’s only now that “the Democrat elites accept that he’s knackered and CNN confesses that ‘Biden’s mental fitness could have been better covered [by the media].’ ” His fall “tells us that a technocratic elite that lacks any true connection to the people will do anything to hold on to power.” And worse: “These people won’t ‘save democracy’ — they’ll wreck it.”
Election watch: Harris’ Steep Hill
Assuming Kamala Harris ends up “as the name at the top of the ticket, can she beat [Donald] Trump?” wonders Eli Lake at The Free Press. As veep, she has name recognition, but she’ll need to “tackle” three critical issues: “Avoid the taint of a cover-up” of Biden’s mental decline. “Unify the party behind her.” And “shore up Pennsylvania.” Beyond that, “one of her biggest weaknesses is that she doesn’t seem to have any principles.” And her record as veep “is not good.” “The women who succeed as presidents and prime ministers have shown they are tough and strong because it’s a tough job,” says Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “Kamala Harris has not done that yet. Margaret Thatcher didn’t cackle or giggle.”
From the right: Unhappy Dems in Pennsylvania
“While elected Democrats, including Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, spent the day sending out full support for [Kamala] Harris, Democrats here in Pennsylvania worry about her appeal in the state, especially in Western Pennsylvania where hydraulic fracking has been an economic game changer — something Harris adamantly opposes,” observes the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. Sen. John Fetterman “said he was unimpressed with the members of his own party who pushed Biden out, who then praised him extravagantly only after he withdrew,” while former state Dem chairman T.J. Rooney flagged “her world view” as uncongenial to the state’s voters.
Conservative: Did They Trade Up Enough?
After special counsel Robert Hur described President Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” Veep Kamala Harris slimed Hur’s report as “wrong on the facts and, clearly, politically motivated — gratuitous.” Yet, snarks National Review’s Jim Geraghty, “the transcript of the Hur interview suggests otherwise. Harris lied. Everyone around Biden lied.” His decline’s been clear “since at least the Afghanistan debacle,” as he’s been unable to “perform his duties like a normal president would.” Now, “in moving from Biden to Harris, Democrats have traded a nominee with catastrophic problems for one with merely bad ones.” “Some Democrats intermittently insist that the public hasn’t seen ‘the real Kamala Harris,’ which raises the questions of where this real Kamala Harris is” and “who’s not letting the public see the real Kamala Harris.” Fact is: “The similarities between her and the fictional vice president Selina Meyer from Veep are unnervingly funny.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
