CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 16, 2024 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“NEWSOM, HARRIS SUDDENLY BECOME POTENTIAL POST-BIDEN RIVALS”
For more than 25 years, as they climbed the political ladder
of politics in California and the nation, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President
Kamala Harris have acted like friendly colleagues, assiduously avoiding
conflict.
They shared a mentor in former San Francisco Mayor and state
Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. They shared campaign consultants. They’ve never
butted heads, each always running for offices the other was either willing to
bypass or ineligible to hold (Harris was San Francisco district attorney; as a
non-lawyer, Newsom could never do that).
Now the cognitive problems of President Biden are pushing
them toward a possible rivalry.
As pressure mounts for Biden to step away from the Democratic
Party nomination for President, Harris and Newsom are on most short lists to
replace him.
Harris has survived several close calls, including a
razor-thin victory in her first run for California attorney general, and she's
never been an overwhelming vote-getter. Witness her early withdrawal from the
2020 Democratic primaries.
Newsom has had no trouble getting elected, winning all his
runs by wide margins: twice for San Francisco mayor, lieutenant governor twice,
governor twice and easily beating back the 2021 Republican-sponsored recall
attempt.
Both are among the most vocal advocates for Biden even after
his June 27 debate debacle, in which he appeared sometimes to lose focus and
failed to call out any of ex-President Donald Trump’s outright lies with
specific information. One example came when Trump repeatedly claimed
Democrat-dominated states allow not just late-term abortions, but also killing
of babies after they’re born.
No state allows this. It is murder everywhere. But Biden did
not say that. It was his best chance to show 50 million viewers just how
blatant Trump's lies can be. It was a blown opportunity.
This is one cause of the pressure now mounting on the
incumbent to bow out and let delegates to the August Democratic National
Convention choose someone else. Such pressure cannot get much stronger than the
firm call from the New York Times to step down.
It will be much harder for Biden to survive that call than
for Trump to survive a similar demand from the Philadelphia Inquirer that he
step down because of his incessant stream of falsehoods.
If they were not from the same state, even the same city,
Newsom and Harris might team up as a possible replacement ticket for today’s
Biden-Harris.
But they can’t be on the ticket together. In American
history, there has never been a same-state ticket; many scholars believe it
would be unconstitutional. This is one thing making Trump hesitate to pick
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his running mate, with Trump’s official residence
also in Florida.
Who else could Democrats tap aside from Newsom or Harris,
both now performing credibly in speaking for Biden after his debate problems?
Harris sticks up for him, while also conceding that was “not his finest
moment.”
Newsom, already Biden’s leading surrogate, was strategically
present in the “spin room” after that debate, repeatedly denying interest in
replacing Biden.
But there was no General Sherman-like statement of “if
nominated, I will not run” or “if elected, I will not serve.”
Yes, Democrats could tap someone like Illinois Gov. J.B.
Pritzker or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, both popular in their states. But
no Democrat besides Newsom and Harris actually has national debate experience,
Newsom having taken on Florida’s conservative Gov. Ron DeSantis last fall while
neither was actively seeking office.
Newsom is also the only Democrat to use his own campaign
money for TV commercials backing Democrats and excoriating Republicans in red
states like Alabama and Florida. Plus, Newsom has campaigned not only for
Biden, but many other Democrats.
Harshly criticized by the California GOP for recording and
distributing his state of the state speech, rather than doing it live, Newsom
may have had an instinct, since that speech could serve as a Democratic
manifesto by maintaining progressive values are the best antidote for excesses
of the far right represented by Trump.
All of which means that more than perhaps anyone else, both
Harris and Newsom are prepped and ready to step in if Biden drops out.
-30-
Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough:
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.
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