Only a week ago, the Republicans were happy, united in their belief that God had spared Donald Trump for a higher purpose. Their convention looked like a wild, weird victory parade for an election that was already in the bag. And J. D. Vance, the newly announced vice-presidential candidate, was the party’s golden child.
Yeah, about that. Since Sunday, Joe Biden’s abrupt exit and the smooth coronation of Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ presumptive nominee have transformed the presidential race. Trump’s campaign is no longer playing on easy mode. Senior Democrats who spent the past month fending off questions about the president’s cognitive abilities are now getting airtime for phrases such as convicted felon, growing economy, and women’s right to make choices about their own body. In her first rally after the Biden news broke, Kamala Harris, although never renowned as a charismatic orator, effortlessly cleared the low bar of seeming energetic and coherent.
Biden’s departure allows the Democrats to turn their opponents’ best attack line back on them: Maybe old men whose sentences go off on weird tangents shouldn’t run for president? (If so, this is terrible news for Trump’s favorite stump-speech riffs about Hannibal Lecter and being eaten by a shark.) Moving Harris up to the top of the ticket also allows her to select a vice-presidential candidate to broaden the Democrats’ appeal, in both demographic and geographic terms.
Approved ~ FS
Bugs Marlowe