The Democratic Party has a number of very impressive politicians and potential candidates within its ranks. That said, most Republicans, some Democrats and arguably millions of Americans don’t believe Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are two of them.
It didn’t have to be this way. The Democratic National Committee as well as the Democratic powerbrokers behind the scenes could have engineered a much stronger and much more electable ticket. They simply chose not to. Why? In part, because they were afraid of the optics and the potential blowback.
I wrote on this site multiple times over the past 18 months that President Biden would not be the Democratic nominee come November 2024 — something that seemed painfully obvious to those not in the tank for Biden or the Democratic machine. Behind the scenes, quite a few people undoubtably agreed with that assessment. But for Democrats, it was a reality littered with political tripwires.
One of the main tripwires was that, for political and survival reasons, they didn’t want to give any oxygen to the Republicans or Trump staff pushing that same scenario. Better to deny the obvious for as long as possible, so as not to give Team Trump an issue to exploit.