A Small Coda to Today’s Backchannel

As I argued in today’s Backchannel, I believe Harris, win or lose, has run an almost flawless campaign. To the extent that is true, we had a preview of it in that cruelest month, July 2024. I do not think there was a single story published discussing murmurs from Harris world about whether Biden should drop out, what kind of race she might run, anything like that. It goes without saying that that kind of chatter would have been poisonous for the Democrats’ eventual chances. Despite some people’s illusions, Harris was always the only plausible replacement candidate. It doesn’t take a genius to know such chatter would be damaging. But as I argued in the last post, it comes down to execution. It’s not enough for the potential candidate not to be talking, or her top advisors. It’s a matter of controlling every random person who might claim to have insight into Harris’ thinking. That requires a total level of discipline that starts at the top. I suspect it’s only really possible if, as we’ve been told by the people in Biden world, Harris remained absolutely loyal to Biden until the moment he decided to step aside. I don’t want to rehearse that whole question again. But that is a very, very tough position to be in. It would be irresponsible not to be ready for the call to come. But even the hint of preparation for it would be disastrous. It was an accurate preview of the kind of campaign Harris would run.