Biden makes his move. In one sense he did the thing everyone was pretty sure he should do. In another sense he shakes up the race with a pick that manages to be both conventional and historic in the same moment.
J.V. Last at The Bullwark has some insightful things to say about the Kamala Harris pick (with an excellent football metaphor)--that all the second guessing aside, she is the pick that says more loudly than anything else, that they expect to win. Kamala isn't a stunt, isn't a pander, and isn't "making up for a weakness" of Joe Biden.
The Omnivore knows that some people will be disappointed their fave wasn't the pick. That's fine--you get to have a fave--and you get to be disappointed. The Omnivore knows that some of you will harbor actual misgivings about the Kamala choice because [ she was a cop, what she did at the debates, she's too light skinned--The Omnivore actually heard that one! ]. That's okay--everyone has a few irrational positions.
But the thing that most makes the case for Kamala Harris as the pick? The objective thing? How mad she makes enemies of the Biden campaign.
Yesterday "Rose Twitter" (far-left Twitter . . . don't ask) had an absolute melt down as Biden, yet again (as is usually the case, read italics as The Omnivore's voice dripping with contempt) spit in their faces by choosing someone who wasn't Bernie Sanders (or whoever else the "I'm not Voting For Biden NO MATTAH WAAATT!!" crowd thought he should pick).
On the right, phony Christian and anti-anti-Trump pundit Erick Erickson declared for at least the third time that "as bad as Trump is" Erickson, failson of Erick, will just havvv to do his absentee ballot for Trump. Aftah all, if Kamala is NEXT EN LINN for TEH PRESIDENCY then WAT ELSE CUD HE DO??? (read misspellings, especially in all caps, when speaking for someone, as The Omnivore's voice dripping with contempt for them and their ever-stupid positions and fake performative politics).
These results were, in fact, widespread across the spectrum of Biden-Campaign enemies--and, as such, you have a perfect sounding board to see how they really feel about the pick. Enemies of the Biden Campaign aren't, per se, scared by the Kamala pick--after all, the bottom of the ticket doesn't make that much of a difference in the best case.
In the worst case (Palin) it's just a massive distraction (the fact is that McCain was gonna lose, which is why he chose Palin--which didn't do anything but make him lose more. When you throw long unexpectedly, sometimes you throw an interception).
No: Kamala doesn't really rocket the campaign to victory in some special way--but she does do something almost equally upsetting: Biden picking her means, yet again, he stubbornly, relentlessly refuses to make strategic mistakes that, while easily avoidable on the large scale, are almost a given on the small scale.
Romney picking Clint Eastwood to talk to the chair was preventable (find out what his speech will be before he goes out!). Vetting Palin really would have helped (maybe there was another shake-it-up-baby candidate that could have been chosen when it turned out she "didn't know who won WWII"). And so on.
No, just as Biden refuses to come out of the basement, doesn't try to wrest the glaring lime-light from Trump (the more we see of him, the worse he looks), and isn't pulling off desperate stunts to try to grab a media cycle here and there, this pick, unlike your other fav, shows that Biden is just--to keep extending JV Last's football metaphor--keeps running the ball straight up the middle and, due to the shambolic nature of the Trump administration?
They can't seem to stop him.
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