Autocracy Watch
Some Friendly Purple Advice for the Blues
Keep your eye on the ball: a ticket that can beat MAGA in PA,MI,WI and GA (the Big Four)
Stating my bias up front: the ideal blue ticket is Michelle Obama with red state KY governor Andy Beshear as understudy. Unless Mrs. O has just been playing hard to get, it really doesn’t look like she’s interested, sadly. That leaves options B,C,D/etc…
There are three sure ways that the Democrats can screw the pooch:
- stick with Biden (please, Jill, don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory … Joe can go down as a hero or a goat … up to you)
- nominate Kamala Harris on racial faction/nosotros succession grounds (cf. Jim Clyburn and Van Jones)
- nominate Hillary
I don’t hate any of those three. Not a huge fan of either Clinton, but Biden and Harris are a couple of the most moderate national leaders we have. In fact, as I have pointed out here before, my highlight as a political prognosticator came in 2018 when I predicted just that blue ticket for 2020, before either’s hat was in the ring.
At the time it seemed highly improbable. I based the call on simple Electoral College math, looking for a ticket that could flip the tiny silver thread Trump snaked through the six purple states (with some deliberate KGB and Cambridge Analytica assist … and the accidental kind from Hillary and Jim Comey, of course).
Biden as a moderate Irish Catholic son of blue collar Pennsylvania was the Dems’ best nominee for the B1G Ten half of the Big Six. As a senior citizen, also a solid nominee for AZ. To keep its intersectional base of black women enthused, to tap into California money, and to help with Georgia, Kamala made VP running mate sense.
As a mediocrity in the Pence/Quayle/Agnew/Humphrey tradition, she was also a helpful life insurance policy for Grandpa Joe, as the old joke goes.
I hasten to add that Harry Truman was also in that tradition before he turned out, surprisingly, to be a pretty good POTUS. Kamala could be, likewise. Who knows. Having watched her rise through the California and DC cursus honorum, I wouldn’t put money on it, however.
(And if you think my lack of enthusiasm for Kamala is some sort of anti-Indian prejudice, I’d be all for Nikki Haley in the White House. In fact, my absolute pipe-dream for 2024 is that after the blues have come to their senses, the polls will swing so wildly that the reds will as well and run, say, Haley and Hogan against Obama and Beshear. But back to reality.)
The likelihood of Kamala being up to the job at the Resolute desk is also beside the point. What matters is whether she can keep the Big Four blue versus Trump and whoever his data science people (both here and abroad) pick for his Veep. So as much as the black grandees of the party and their affiliated mouthpieces and pundits are trying to close the debate, I urge caution. Keep polling. Keep crunching.
As for the Clinton claque Hillary trial balloonists, that’s about the only matchup less inspiring for us purples than Biden v. Trump. Sure, poll away. But don’t get distracted by national numbers. It’s possible the Clinton brand still sells in the Big Four. Count me skeptical. And what the blues really need is a clean contrast, age-wise: a nominee who won’t be over 80 when the term ends.
My take as a neutral is that I’d have more enthusiasm for Newsom, Whitmer or Beshear in the Oval Office than for either Harris or Clinton. (I don’t know enough about the other governors being touted to have an informed opinion.) Against any other candidate, in any other year, and with some home team bias, I’d say Gavin would be the strongest. But I doubt he’d help much with the Big Four in 2024.
Whitmer would almost certainly put MI in the bag, and maybe WI as well. Paired with a candidate who resonates with the blue base, if she polls well head-to-head against Spanko tha Felon, that’s probably the Dems’ best option B.
Unlikely that Kamala would accept staying on the undercard, which means the powers that be might need to offer her a deal like Hillary’s in 2008: make her SecState in exchange for playing ball and letting, say, Corey Booker or Wes Moore take second chair.
Final bit of free advice to the blues: if you’re counting on Spanko or the red brain trust to lose their discipline and keep showing their true hand for what a second MAGA term would entail, tune your hearing aid. The two issues that are Never Trump grade deal-breakers for suburban purples are abortion (and everything that represents for theocracy rolling back the clock) and threats to democracy (= Project 2025). Trump tacking back toward moderation on both should worry you.
As should his silence since the debate. To paraphrase Napoleon:
Never interfere with your enemy when he’s self-destructing.
Trump may know the principle, if not the source, and his courtier-lackey-handlers probably praise him for inventing it, the very stable genius that he is. Roy Cohn knew better … and so too Vladimir Putin.
