Month: July 2024

Boom, it happened, everything since 1:45 p.m. Sunday, July 21.

Kamala Harris endorsed decidedly by the president.

$81 million raised in 24 hours, $100 million in 36 hours.

Sunday night, 44,000 women on one phone call (ever heard such a thing? No, I didn’t think so – the power of Black sororities you think?)

Next night, 40,000 Black men on another.

Everyone else mentioned for weeks as a candidate for president endorsed her within 24 hours.

Everyone else on the D side of the equation endorses her.

She makes a great stump appearance in Wilmington to bring in the Biden/Harris camapaign staff and make it the Harris campaign staff.

Most of us had never heard the stump speech so when we did it was and is a wow. Now we are wowed by the difference in who Democrats are sending out to battle the dragon.

The nomination secured Monday night by delegate count. The formal count to follow the first week of August.

That was the first 36 hours.

What happens next?

VP

Well start with the VP choice. Harris put former Attorney General Eric Holder in charge of vetting the choices.

Who are they? In all likelihood one of the four white men mentioned for the nomination.

It is received political understanding that the country is perhaps not ready for two women on the ticket, or a Black man VP candidate with a Black woman presidential candidate. Should it be so? No. Is it likely so in this country? The guess is yes. In politics, don’t guess if you don’t have to do it.

The four men are Governors Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who leaves office in January term limited; Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, in office just 18 months; Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, mid-way through his second term; and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who is a superbe choice for all the reasons first identified here in a piece posted July 4, (weeks ahead of the commentariat, a self-pat on the back).

Harris knows and likes Cooper from their days together as state attorneys general, a plus for him as well as being governor two terms in a red state. He would make a superb choice for attorney general of the United States of America.

If you don’t follow politics closely had you heard of him until just this week? No, I didn’t think so. Neither has the country outside his state and some of its immediate region like South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, southern Virginia — all red states or red state territory.

Shapiro is a new and dynamic figure in politics, and at age 51 he has time. He has a great future that should include a second term and then succeeding Sen. Robert Casey, 64, who will be reelected this year but should think about retirement in 2030 when he’ll be 70 years old.

There is and will be a new perspective on age in politics going forward militating against candidates over age 70 and certainly past age 80. This is a swan song run for dozens of them in Congress, including Nancy Pelosi, James Clymer and Stenny Hoyer. All of you witll have to go peacefully into the grace of that good night.

Then too about Shapiro, a left over from that bothersome question about what the nation is ready for – is it ready for a Jewish vice president? It’s there. Ignore the question. But it’s there as every American Jew knows. If she chooses Kelly and they win, then the first man and the second lady will be Jewish. They would not be elected, expect by their spouses, but it is a notable fact that will be noted.

Could Shapiro bring the vital key Keystone State into the Democratic column in November? He could help as her choice but he will anyway greatly help Harris win the state – decisively.

Beshear, 47, is in the middle of his second term, a Democrat who got reelected as governor of crimson red Kentucky. He isn’t going to bring its meager electoral vote with him. That is beyond any Democratic presidential candidate’s hope, reach or expectation.

He is a popular, admired, well-like moderate who in the circumstances of Kentucky was able to win it twice. Does that mean he adds much in other red states or rural red parts of contested states? No, and it doesn’t matter because they are red states and red parts of states.

He has shown with the name of another former governor of the state, his father, Steven who brought Obamacare based Kentuckycare to the state, that he, the popular son, could win the trust of a majority in Kentucky. But Kentucky is not the nation – or anything like it.

Beshear has shown he can win Kentucky. But neither he nor any other Democrat can win or help win South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North or South Dakota or the near far-west of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho.

Texas? It’s coming. Not this time but it’s coming on. However post this new Democratic presidential candidate energy there, is a true chance that Colin Allred will rid Texas of Tex Cruz.

Florida, now that is an interesting story for lots of reasons: abortion is on the ballot, sensible people, even some not sensible people are tired of having a really dumb guy as governor, DeSantis; and much disliked Sen. Rick Scott is up for election against a woman Democrat, Debbie Muscarell-Powsell, when – oh yes not -protecting abortion in the state constitution is on the ballot in Florida.

Remember that, abortion is on the Florida ballot. How do you think that will come out in a state of 27 million people who now have a DeSantis 6-week rule?

Florida is still red, but it is a lighter shade tinging purple in places. Put it this way. It is not in play but it is moving in the margins.

Back to VP possibilities then. Their states and to a lesser degree those in nearby states and political junkies have heard of the governors of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Kentucky. But has the country? It’s a rhetorical question.

But the guess is you’ve heard of Mark Kelly – age 60, just a year older than the presidential candidate. Americans have heard of him and know about him not because he is a senator necesssarily – but because he is a former astronaut (and combat pilot) and husband of Gabby Gifford.

Since 1961 when it first got them, the nation has loved its astronauts.

His wife’s tragic but triumphant story we know as we do his part in it with her. It makes the couple the leading gun control advocates in a nation that, outside the warp of constitutional stricture on U.S. Senate representation, wants it.

In the first and last analysis, Vice President Harris will choose who she is comfortable with and who she believes adds to her ticket so all this is so much speculation until she does.

Still, as of Tuesday morning at least one news report said her choice had narrowed to Kelly or Shapiro, which makes sense if she decides the governor has to be on the ticket to win Pennsylvania. But he doesn’t and there are several days to test that in private polls and focus groups.

When will she decide? Not long. Maybe Sunday, the perfect day for a major announcement to control the following three days of the news cycle. But certainly by the middle of next week. It can’t wait, it can’t fester, it can’t afford camps lining up. So within a week to 10 days is a good guess.

Then what?

Polls

Oh the polls.

New ones be sure have been in the field starting Monday morning with initial reports perhaps this Thursday and then running through the next week.

What will they show? Best guess is they will show a big bump shooting Harris into a 6-point national lead and a 3-to-7 point lead variously in the six contested state, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And – and signs from Ohio that the race is suddenly in play there where it seemed not at all possible to the political cognoscenti.

Why Ohio? They elected J.D. Vance by 6 points in 2022, an off-year but are just now actually finding out who he is and what he thinks. He thjinks like 40% of Ohio actually, not a majority of it.

Also in play in Ohio is that Sherrod Brown, an immensley popular U.S. Senator, is on the ballot and that state constitutional abortion rights won with 58% last year statewide.

Ah, but that was last year. True but now they know Vance is totally, unalterably against except abortion rights except when he waffles about abortion after rape or incest. He needs a new waffle iron for the times he has hemmed and haw hawed on that one.

Ohio? Unions, the infrastructure bill, and the Chip bill investment in reindustrialization are big, big things in the manufacturing state of Ohio.

The DNC

And then there is the Democratic National Convention convening Aug. 19, a television show yes but in this case the Harris/Who She Names show. It will be loud, raucous, celebratory, feature a standing ovation for Joe Biden to rival that of 12 minutes for Bobby Kennedy at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in his memorial for JFK.

It will be a doozy of a political show that will send the Democratic ticket rocketing. It’s the way these things go. It is being held late in August so that it does not compete with the Olympics.

Debates

The debates? There is supposed to be a VP debate between now and the Democratic convention. That could happen or be delayed but if you were J.D. Vance with his limited range would you want to go up against Mark Kelly’s knowledge in the Senate? Or an incisive truly articulate Gov. Shapiro? No, you don’t, you really don’t.

And the other one, the second Trump/Biden debate?

It is now the first Trump/Harris debate. Every Trump lie will be called out immediately and clearly, every stupid statement too, with sound Biuden accomplishments noted and plans for the future laid out by Harris. Any hint of physical intimidation like Hilary sufffered will be shattered.

Trump has to show up. If he doesn’t it looks worse than if he does. But if he shows up, and he will, she will slaughter him, at long last he will be flayed and laid bare for all to see.

So? So the forecast for Democrats is bright political sunshine up and down the ballot everywhere outside the dismally dark red states – the ones so ironically that also got Obamacare Medicaid expansion, and are getting federal infrastructure money, federal chip industrial investment, and whose voters especially depend on Medicare and Social Security. Red states are lost places where political appreciation, gratitude and who cares about you are unknown.

In the next four years they will, like the rest of us, get expanded child care and child tax credits, a continued emphasis on climate change law and regulation, a fairer tax code and furthr industrial reinvestment – all good stuff.

Because Boom, since Sunday it is at last where the nation is going.

Vice President Kamala Harris. Only Vice President Harris. She wasn’t ready four years ago. She is now – entirely.

Any Democrat who wants. to give her a food fight for the nomination would be/will be as selfish a fool as Biden had been to this moment.

Every one of the other Democrats being talked about for Pesident this week needs to say no I am not and will not run, I support the vice president – and no one else for president.

To do anything else or less would be as mindlessly selfish as the president was until the moment when the Detroit Free Press reported him down 7 points in Michigan, which could well have been what finally penetrated his wall of denial.

One thing the Democratic Party must do is to make it clear Harris is the candidate and cut the media off from its entirely stupid, empty speculation.

Then, the vice presidency?

The choice here remains Sen. Mark Kelly.

He is from a contested state, Arizona. he is married to and great partner of a victim of gun violence and with her, Gabby Gifford, a stirring voice for gun control.

He is a former military officer, combat pilot and astronaut – in sum a man, a hero if you will who the nation knows. He does not have to be introduced to the country.

We all know Mark Kelly. We like Mark Kelly.

He is a sensible, down the middle liberal and finally, juxtapose him with the the other, the fake – J.D.Vance. One has been in the Senate 18 months, the other for six years and twice elected after distinguished military and NASA service to the United States of America.

This space hopes its Kelly but is certain that whoever it is, VP Harris already knows and made up her mind weeks ago. She needs no one’s advice. It is her first decision as first Democrat and she will make a good one.

The only thing standing in the way of a massive Democratic Party victory is to have a nomination contest.

President Biden endorsed her within an hour of withdrawing.

The entire Democratic Party must and will in the days ahead – then watch the polls take off.

We already know he was 20.

They’ve told us his name. They will confirm that.

We just learned he was a registered Republican – got that, a 20-year-old Republican.

He was from Pennsylvania, a town called Bethel Park near Pittsburgh and about 35 miles from Butler, Pa., also near Pittsburgh.

In other words? In other words he committted his crime right at home in suburuban Western Pennyslvania.

What did you expect? A worldwide plot? Nope, a lost young guy alone with a gun.

We are going to find out that some 20 year olds get guns and kill 20 kids in a school.

We are going to find out this one easily got a gun and shot at a candidate.

From where? Where did he shoot?

From a rooftop 150 yards away that you could surveil with a Walmart drone or a dozen. But the Secret Service didn’t do that.

But then they didn’t surveil the Book Depository Window on Dealey Plaza in Dallas no Nov. 23, 19663. You’d think they’d figure that one out by now. They didn’t.

That is all they are going to find and they will conclude if he really knew how to use a sniper rifle he could not have missed from that distance.

They are not going to find anything more. Not a plot. Not a civil war.

Nope, just another sad, alienated 20-year old loser, a boy barely a man acting out and saying look at me, look at me.

Just another stupid, lost young, lonely, alienated mal-adjusted man showing off, barely a man, who easily got a gun no one should have had.

It changed nothing but it will change everything because the Republican Party will now go off on a crazy, repressive, tear of fear, hate and loathing, while the Democratic Party will let go its very real and necessary attempt to replace Mr. Biden.

Chances are? Chances are, heat, climate change, Trump, disorder and chaos.

In fact, this has absolutely nothing to do with anything except a deranged young man and a rooftop that should have been under bargain store drone suerveillance.

If you are expecting that the next four months or next ten year to tell us all something different, well it’s not.

But the media will do it non-stop and so you will think it is so. It isn’t, it won’t be but…

It isn’t what it looked like. It never was but it will become whatever anyone wants it to look like.

In this country that makes for total chaos.

We and the French, forever united by the Marquis de Lafayette.

At the age of 24 he joined George Washington in the field and became one of the American leader’s youngest and most outstanding officers and strategists (strategy not being a long suit of Washington).

In mid-1781, Washington granted Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton’s wish to command in combat at Yorktown. There served under Continental Army General Lafayette while a French fleet blockaded the English (as Benjamin Franklin had worked assiduously and succesfully to charm the French in Paris to secure their arms, military and naval participation, and money.)

Arriving in France 150 years later, it was only fitting that Gen. John (Blackjack) Pershing declared, “Lafayette we are here.” We were “over there” and we would have to come again.

The French and Americans forever have had this love-hate relationship as we were again so rightfully reminded June 6 this year.

But where are we now? Where is France now? Now in this pregnant moment in history, this moment when both nations are in danger of slipping off the edge, of cascading into sordid eras of militant, mindless, ignorance; slipping into eras when mindless nativism and native Fascists rise ruthlessly in both

Understand, Fascists do not govern, they rule and they ruin. If Donald Trump, American Fuhrer, Duce, Cuadillo – call him what you will, and they all mean leader – becomes president he will not govern. Others will for him. He will rule. They will wreck.

Be assured as you read this that he knows nothing, knows none of the little of American history in this piece. Let us not forget then when president he said, he actually exclaimed, “Lincoln was a Republican, who knew?”

Trump is an ignorant, deranged beast, inellectually savage, incapable of knowing or caring about what is true, and interested only in his photo ops, adulatory mobs, fake physical appearance and others’ physical appearances for the camera.

No, Trump will not govern, he will rule, as the Supreme Court has declared, turning 1787 on its head – as a king. So much for original intent, which the founders abundantly and definitievely said meant and should never again mean a king.

He may not have a plan, he never has a plan. But those around him do. We have seen the plan, they’ve published it. It is the 20/25 plan and their latest innovation is a call to resume nuclear testing. Imagine that.

It is a plan to dismantle the American government, to repress all who disagree or dare to disagree and, worse, to pummel and punish them.

“It can’t happen here?” Oh really, you think so?

It has been happening here for years as Trump and his henchmen and women have, like alien creatures, invaded, taken over and, being the political and social cannibals they are, eaten from inside out the body of an American pollitical party that exists now in name only. It is happening. If Trump wins, it will have happened.

Until now wherever France’s politics have taken the French, a majority of them have known one thing. They do not want again to live under or in Vichy France.

They or at least a majority of the French have understood that Le Pen – and before her, her father and their party -represent that and far worse – represent the worst of and in France, represent the Velodrome deportations by the gendarmes for the Germans in 1942, represent the traitor Petain and the quisling Lavalle in Vichy.

To elect Trump here is to elect Vichy or worse than Vichy here in American terms. To elect Penn and her Party is to elect Vichy in France and worse than Vichy.

A real example where we might be going? Among recent columns in the New York Times along with many about the Biden debate debacle, Gaza, Ukraine, and all that, is a piece about diet and retail food choices.

It reports what other nations are doing to regulate food and drink packaging messaging to indicate risks to health they contain in sugars and other additive substances.

The piece promotes federal health and food regulation to establish clearer health messaging on packaged comestilbles.

It should have been revised to note the impact of the ruling by the mob of six on the U.S. Supreme Court when on Friday they upended the 1984 high court judicial Chevron doctrine.

Until Friday, that jurisprudence had been adhered to for 40 years by federal courts giving deference to regulatory agency expertise and informed, educated ability with judicial respect for Stare Decisis.

It is why you can look at the back of a food package and learn its percentage of sodium, sugar and the like. It is why we have rules and regulations on clear air. Regulation is why Boeing has to explain its door problem, why it even has a flying door problem.

Under the court’s new rule the food industry will be able to stop any further such information being given to the public. And be sure it do that as will every other industry seek to rip apart necessary public regulation. You do not have to have been a public regulator as I was to understand that most basic fact in a nation of 340 million people.

These justices, six of them at least, do not know the law or the Constitution. Then how can they know everything? AI is busy learning everything and even it can’t.

A law may say a public agency must maintain order on a train and the appropriate agency shall adopt regulations to govern such order. The agency not the law, will say that means you can’t spit or urinate or smear feces in a rail car. That is called regulation.

This is but one example of what is to come. And it will come to pass as will the jails of the mind, but also of the body. So will the camps.

Oh but you say, we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights?

Ha -ha and ha again. Those elected from and those put on the courts from Trump world will as the court did Friday, ride roughshod across them. How do we know? Listen to what they say, what Trump says. Read what they say they will do, what they say in writing they will have him do. Look at Judge Cannon, look at Alito giving his American impression of Roland Friesler.

Hitler and his party achieved their highest, pre-chancellorship election result in June 1933 at 37%. In December that year he slipped to 32%. He became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1934.

Three months later his party scored its highest election result, still with all power and his left opponents banned from the election, just 42%. After that it was too late. He didn’t have to defeat his opponents in elections. He had them locked them up in the camps. Germany had no more elections.

But is this all so much arcane German history or is there a present American anology? And one for the French? Why go into all that? Because it is in its way a prelude.

Our presidential elecitons are governed by an 18th Century white male oligarchy’s mechanism, the Electoral College. They put it in their Constitution, a political deal in that moment in late 1787, to insulate government,their government, from the public. It has done that three times so far in this century. Three times since 2020 the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote but lost the presidency in the Electoral College.

Germany in 1933? France now? What’s the link to us, to the U.S. today? Simple, it’s democracy. You keep it or you lose it and if you lose it you are lost with it.

First projections from France, which are always right on the mark, indicate the Fascists preliminary win at about 34% of the vote Sunday June 30,but not a majority in the National Assembly. The allied left received 28% of the vote, and Macron’s right-center fell to 21%.

There are 577 National Assembly districts in Metropolitan and overseas France. Candidates are selected in and from each district.The final decision will be made tomorrow, July 7, 2024 in a second round. A candidate must have 12% to go forward to the second round – not 12% of the first round district vote turnout, but 12% of the registered voters in the district.

But they don’t have to go forward.They can withdraw to help another candidate. A Macron candidate in third place could withdraw to help one on the left, or vice versa.

The big if is whether the center and left factions can agree to back their strongest candidates, withdraw their weakest ones and prevail in unity against the Facists.

Macron’s center right is malleable. The issue is the left alliance because based on past performance it will likely resist amalgamation. We will know the final result Sunday.

Will that result tell us it can’t happen here or will it tell us it is going to happen here as well?

Make no mistake, this election, our election Nov. 4, is the one in which finally we will find out whether Sinclair Lewis was a prophet? Or if we need to announce to France, to Lafayette, that we have succumbed, forget us, we are not coming ever again.

We and the French, bound in history, driven by the same devils, together in the present.

We all know what that is, what it can be, how it can change a race, guarantee the outcome of a race, in this case the wrong race, the one for president.

So short, sweet and to the point.

What if an October surprise is a stroke for the president or a similar medical emergency?

Then what? Then we lose, we lose up and down the ballot.

Can he tell you that won’t happen? Can’t happen?

No, he cannot and no doctor can either.

Can we chance that?

Under no circumstances. None.

Leave now Mr. President, pick up your winnings in Gaza that look like they are on the verge.

Above all, don’t do to VP Harris what Obama did to you and discard her at the very most wrong time.

Leave with a ringing endorsement for her, head off any other candidates for president, and let us hope she sees why her best choice, her only choice for VP is Sen. Mark Kelly.

We cannot sit for 4 months waiting and waiting for worse.

There is no time for it.

October is too long a bet.

If you understand it as D-day as in D for debate, President Biden’s withdrawl has to come about D plus 6, 7 or 8. That is the middle of next week.

Biden has about that little time to come to the only sensible, smart conclusion – that he has to leave the race to preserve a chance for a Democrat to retain the White House and avoid a down ballot debacle.

He has to do that next week. He doesn’t have time to burn. Democrats do not have time to indulge him clinging to the shred of a notion he can win. He can’t.

On the face of it he can still garner hesitant support as he did after meeting with Democratic governors. He’s the president. It is hard to say no to presidents.

After the meeting the governors sent out a delegation of Tim Walz of Minnestoa, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Kathy Hochul of New York.

They said we have to win and he is leading us. But they left space. They did. After all, they are politicians. They know how to say what they need to but leave space for more being said another time, saying for now this and that and that and this and the other thing too.

Ah but Jill Biden is all in, she is his key advisor and she is an immovable object. So they say. So we are told.

Jill Biden’s immitation of Marie Antoinette, unfortunately coinciding with her appearance on the cover of Voge wearing a $5,000 designer outfit, kind of discordantly underscoring the point.

Hunter Biden counseling his father at Camp David? This has to stop. He’s the president’s son. If he want to help he will stay away from the presidency, not be an ever present reminder of himself around it.

Jill Biden sleeps with the president every night they are under the same roof, not the political cognoscenti, not the donors, not the editorial writers and not the voters.

The last person he talks to at night and the first one he sees in the morning is Jill Biden. He married her nearly 50 years ago. But no one ever voted for her, no one ever elected her. It is unfortunate the President’s family can be most discordant and not a help. He has never seen it or seemed to want to let himself see it.

The president’s base writes comments on NY Times stories and the like all the time. They are his base and they are almost universally insistent he must leave the race and equally determined to say that Jill Biden needs to butt out.

Listen to your base Mr. President.

If you recall reading a post here immediately the night of the debate, it predicted the next spate of public polls would show the president falling behind by 6 points to 8 points when they came out several days into the following week – which is now.

Today, five polling days after the debate, the New York Times/Sienna survey shows Biden trailing Trump by 6, Trump at 49, his highest polling score ever.

What will happen? That is up to Joe Biden and to a degree, too large a degree, Jill Biden.

But let’s hypothesize and say he does do what has to be done and quits the race next week, then who.

Leading the pack are of course Vice President Harris. Then there are the governors of whom the most often mentioned are Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Kramer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and perhaps Wes Moore of Maryland.

Gov. Kramer said just this week she does not want to run and will not. Gov. Shapiro is a damn good savvy governor but has only been in that job for 18 months and has no national profile. Gov. Moore also has been on the job for all of 18 months. He is Black. It should not matter because he is a really good governor and a super communicator, but this country is not ready for an all-Black top ticket. Like Shapiro, Moore is little known in the nation.

Some have mentioned Hakeem Jeffries, a consumate man of the House. His ambition is to be Speaker. That is a very different kind of political ambition from the presidency. His focus this year, every two years will be on the Speakership. He will be a good one but he won’t be president.

Gov. Newsom is from California and so from the standpoint of people not from California, wildly liberal. He has a substantial national profile but it is sharply divisive.

Would sane Democrats stop or try to stop the first Black woman vice president with a white opponent, especially a white man? And that in a year when there is a small but reportable crack in the solidity of the Black vote for the Democratic President? Good luck with that. It would be political harikiri.

Then there is Kamala Harris, the vice president. Well as a presidential candidate, let’s face it, she bombed. In a game of musical chairs to choose a Black woman running mate, which circumstances and Biden had locked himself into in 2020, she was ultimately the likely if not necessarily most wanted choice. Things did not improve in her first year and some months as Veep.

Then they got better and now they are much better. Biden and his people coached her and finally began to let her do real things, here and in Europe and on the world stage.

She has stepped forward as a powerful, focused camapaigner, especially on women’s rights and choice. If two years ago she got a C-, today she gets an A. It is that stark an improvement and, in making it, she has demonstrated she can learn and grow in capacity and vision.

So – so if the president withdraws it has to be Harris because she has grown immensley and has seen the presidency from inside – she can step into all his administration has been doing without missing a step, here or abroad.

The campaign is sitting on $227 million. Legally it was given to and belongs to the Biden-Harris campaign. If Biden steps aside then it belongs to her and no one else. Who else can raise that in a month or less, who would want to run the fool’s errand of trying to divide major Democratic donors so late on the election calendar?

A contest pitting several candidates against her would be a food fight to and through the Convention in Chicago in late August, a congregation pointing toward a political conflagration just two months before the election.

It would be a convention with no idea what to do to choose a candidate from among serveral. It was not convened for that purpose. It was convened to coronate, not to choose.

The coverage of a contested convention? Well, if you are old enough to remember the 1968 Democratic National Convention you know it would be ugly and all the more so for taking place 56 years later in the same city, Chicago.

Such a week will be replete with TV clips from 1968, savage Fox lies, on-line distortions, and could very possibly feature Pro-Palestinian actors taking up the role of the Yuppies.

Big food fights leave a mess. The mess of such a Democratic National Convention would be impossible to clean up this year, next year, for how many years?

The only way to head it off? If not Biden it can only be Harris.

Of course, if she wins she will run in 2028 as an incumbent. But that is years off and this political D-Day is upon Democrats.

If Harris becomes the presidential nominee, she’ll need someone to take her spot. Who then would she choose to run with? No one particularly has looked at that. It’s time now.

Trump could very well have been ghosting everyone with his final three. It was and is entirely possible he’ll choose someone else. Why? Because he’s crazy and likes to do crazy thing for the shock and ratings values. He as much as said so, this first week in July with a Trump convention starting July 15, that his choice is on hold while the Dems are in this fix.

It should be observed that every day they are caught up in this drama is a day miserable deranged orange colored Trump gets a free pass.

We do know that Harris or if not Harris, someone else has to be at the vice presidential debate with someone to be nominated by Trump for vice president. That is supposed to happen in late July. But aleady it is July isn’t it? Oh dear!

What someone we don’t know yet should debate what other someone we don’t know yet in about three weeks? Think of it like that because, well that’s where it is. Some year.

Then who should Harris choose if she gets to choose?

• A white man. Has to be if a Black woman goes to the top of the ticket.
• Someone from one of the six or seven contested states.
• Someone with a meaningful national profile because it is late to start introducing someone on the national stage.
• Message to Newsom, constitutionally it can’t be someone from California
• Someone who is not and didn’t want to be in mix for president after Biden but now has to answer this national call to service.
• Someone who does not raises hackles,who is perceived as a good guy, a liberal moderate who does not say bad words in public because he is a civil man with manners.
• Someone with meaningful federal political and governmental experience.

Question: So who? Who is the someone no one has mentioned but they better start thinking about, the someone who fits all of the above criteria?

Answer: Sen. Mark Kelly, who happens to hold the Arizona senate seat once held by John McCain – which would be noticed in a big, good way should he be the Veep candidate.

Arizona is in play. He is in the first third of a first full term and if Harris/Kelly were to win then a Democratic governor would name a Democratic successor to Kelly in the Senate but if they lost he would still be a senator for at least four years.

He is, and we all know it, a former astronaut.

Everyone likes astronauts. Outside of and never mind politics, astronauts are known – and liked.

Everyone mostly knows about his wife, Gabby Giffords, and how their story speaks to love, loyalty, compassion, and strength that all add up to one word – character. He has it, they have it together. It is another reason and another way the country knows Sen. Kelly and their work together for gun control.

From what we know about him, he’d resist. He doesn’t want the presidency or the vice presidency and all that stuff. But he has always answered the nation’s call. He answered it to be a combat pilot, answered it becoming an astronaut, and when a bullet ended his wife’s political career he stepped forward to service in the Senate.

If Harris issues a call to him to seek the vice presidency will he answer it? I am certain he will.

So, if Harris gets to lead her ticket it will be common, political, and decent right sense to prevail on Mark Kelly to join her. He is the best choice. He is, far and away, the only choice.