Since 1972, no president running for reelection has cast aside his running-mate before the election. Yet, that hasn’t stopped those of us in the ink trade from playing the seemingly endless election-year game of “Who will replace the current vice president?”
Today’s game is more important since the forty-sixth president, Joe Biden, is potentially suffering age-related cognitive decline, and his chosen number two, Kamala Harris, leaves much to be desired—despite being half Biden’s age, just like Biden, Harris is unable to string together a cogent sentence most of the time.
What’s more, Harris has yet to achieve anything substantive as the vice president of the United States. She was given a policy portfolio by Biden after the two had assumed office.
Kamala Harris the Unaccomplished
As I have long said, the policy portfolio was a bit of a poison pill portfolio, chock full of issues that Harris was either unqualified to manage; such as U.S. space policy; or unable to deal with, such as the broken southwestern border, which the Democrats are comfortable with leaving open in perpetuity; or incapable of handling, such as resolving the Russo-Ukraine War.
Harris does bring the gender and racial identity politics that have come to define the modern Democratic Party to the forefront of the conversation, though.
In fact, Harris’s entire reason for being given the number two slot under Biden was precisely because her gender and race were useful to the Biden Campaign in 2020.
Those two factors are again useful for the Biden reelection bid in 2024. After all, despite appearing to be mostly incoherent in public, as well as not having a single major policy victory under her belt, Kamala Harris does well whenever she addresses issues about race relations or gender politics in America today.
Who Else Could Replace Kamala Harris?
Since the Biden Campaign clearly wants to make both gender and race a key element of the reelection campaign in 2024 against whoever will be the GOP nominee – likely former President Donald Trump, just based on current polling data about the Republican Party Primary – Harris remains the best choice.
Some have speculated that he should replace Harris with Michigan’s lockdown-crazy Governor Gretchen Whitmer. But her problem is that she is too vanilla for what Biden needs in a vice president. Gina Raimondo has also been floated as a possible replacement.
Presently serving as Biden’s Secretary of Commerce, Raimondo was previously the governor of Rhode Island under the Democratic party. In that capacity, Raimondo had the unfortunate honor of being ranked as the least popular governor of all governors in the United States. So, putting Raimondo in a position where she would need to attract national voters – as well as voters from her home state – to an already ailing Biden ticket would not be the best move for the Democrats in 2024.
Besides, the last thing that the Biden Campaign wants to contend with is the constant stories about how both the Biden Campaign and the Democratic Party would be in chaos in 2024, with the sudden change to Biden’s running-mate.
On top of the already dubious distinction that Biden has as being the oldest man to run for reelection in America’s history, as the economy collapses under the weight of the fantasies that fuel Bidenomics, the last thing President Biden needs is to have stories claiming that his campaign is in disarray flying around, all while the Republican candidate badgers him on a host of issues.
Better the Incompetent Devil You Know …
The Biden Campaign would rather stick with a woman who has failed to deliver on any of her promises because doing anything else would be far more detrimental in the news cycle.
The only way the country will be rid of the restoration of the Harris vice-presidency … or, God forbid, a Harris presidency, is if Joe Biden bows out of the race due to ill health or his son’s increasing legal troubles, and hands it off to someone other than Harris, such as former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Of course, that is a long shot.
In all, expect Democrats to be saddled with the mentally compromised octogenarian, Joe Biden, and his running-mate, the barely cogent, ineffectual Kamala Harris.
Let’s just hope the Republicans don’t nominate candidates that the public views as less desirable than either Biden or Harris in 2024!
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
