It was supposed to go so smoothly.
On Sunday afternoon — as good patriotic Americans were doing literally anything else but following political drama out of Washington — President Joe Biden artfully dropped the news that he wasn’t going to be seeking a second term, after all.
A few hours later, he officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, seemingly precluding an ugly convention fight.
Except the two biggest names in Democratic politics not named Harris and Biden — former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — didn’t endorse Harris when they paid tribute to Biden’s decision to withdraw.
And then, hours later, news broke that retiring independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was so alarmed by the prospect of a Harris candidacy that he was considering rejoining the Democratic Party and challenging Kamala for the nomination.
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So, yeah — this is going just about as smoothly as literally everything else that’s led to this moment.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in the letter that seemingly was inevitably coming in the slow-motion car wreck that’s unfolded since the debate from hell on June 27.
“And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” he said.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
A half-hour later, Biden officially endorsed Harris to take his place atop the ticket.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he wrote.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
And while plenty of elected Democrats were ready to “do this” — inasmuch as to not “do this,” for them, would be tantamount to career suicide — both Obama and Pelosi, who are beyond having to care about their ambitions and legacies, declined to do so in their statements.
And then there was, bless his wonderful heart, Joe Manchin.
The retiring West Virginia stalwart was almost the first senator to call on Biden to step aside after the June 27 debate. The independent, who left the Democratic Party in May over its leftward lurch, had to be persuaded not to appear on the Sunday morning political chat shows days later and step aside, The New York Times noted.
Will Kamala Harris be our next president?
Manchin ended up formally calling on Biden to drop out just hours before the president did on Sunday.
“I came to the decision with a heavy heart that I think it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation,” Manchin told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I want him to be the president in the last five months of this presidency of his term, to do what he can do is unite our country, to calm down the rhetoric and be able to focus attention to peace in the world,” he said.
However, the quick shift to Harris was not exactly to his liking.
“Sources close to Sen Joe Manchin, independent of WV, say he’s considering re-registering as a Democrat and throwing his hat into the ring,” Tapper reported in a Sunday post on X.
Sources close to Sen Joe Manchin, independent of WV, say he’s considering re-registering as a Democrat and throwing his hat into the ring
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 21, 2024
Why would the senator do so? Well, for one, he told Tapper he was “very hopeful” that the nominee would be chosen via an “open process.”
“I think that we have a lot of talent on the bench, a lot of good people,” Manchin told Tapper.
“And I’m partial to governors, because a governor can’t afford to be partial. They can’t afford to be partisan strictly because that pothole or that bridge doesn’t have a D or an R on it.”
He also had his preferences.
“I’ve got two tremendous governors right next door to me, Andy Beshear in Kentucky and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, who are operating with legislatures either evenly split or completely opposite their party affiliation,” Manchin said.
“They haven’t divided their state. They haven’t made you pick a side and demonize the other side.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, Shapiro has already endorsed Harris. Beshear hadn’t made it clear where he stands as of Sunday night, but the Kentucky governor is being mentioned in Harris’ veepstakes, should she become the nominee. Getting into the race for the nomination would torpedo those ambitions.
And so, while Manchin isn’t a governor, he is a moderate and someone with a reputation as an infrastructure guru on Capitol Hill, often convincing Republicans to sign onto projects that, in all fairness, they probably shouldn’t have. (To be fair, he also has done a great deal to hold the line on spending when the Biden White House has tried to get him to go along with larded-up “infrastructure” deals that are little more than trillion-dollar boondoggles.)
Thus, again with no legacy left to prove, he could do what any sane person should: Make things as hard as possible for Kamala Harris to get the nomination.
Granted, Manchin’s role would likely be as a spoiler, not as a serious choice given the party’s lurch to the left.
However, faced with another likely faction at the convention making things difficult for whoever gets nominated to stay grounded in reality — the pro-Hamas activist leftists, who will, if they have their way, be partying like it’s 1968 in 2024 Chicago — a moderate revolt could be enough to sink Harris.
Whether that means they would end up with someone more to Manchin’s liking (or, improbably, Manchin himself) or it would simply push Harris or another progressive nominee further into the arms of the party’s far left remains to be seen.
However, anyone who thinks this drama is over has quite a few things coming, courtesy of one of the biggest flies in the Democrats’ ointment during the Biden administration’s spending sprees.
