As I watched Kamala Harris's great speech tonight, I pondered the serendipity of the moment, the incredible chain of accident and surprise and coincidence and luck that brought her to that stage:
First, in 2020 Biden had picked her for VP, so she achieved a national profile and, eventually,
hired an excellent staff.
Then, in 2023, Biden decided to seek another term, so the Democratic primaries last spring were not contested by democrats with much more political credibility and experience -- I suspect dems like Pete, Whitmer, Newsom, Booker, Warnnock, Beto, and Kelly, even AOC, might well have beaten Harris in primary voting last spring; she wasn't recognized as much of a campaigner and anyway she would have been stuck in Washington for Senate votes.
Then, the Republicans were so successful with their "he's old" smear / whisper campaign -- too successful, because it doomed Biden's reelection chances.
Then, Biden did himself no favours either. He was either so pigheaded or so poorly advised that he stretched himself too thin over the last year -
agreeing to the Hur interview last Oct 8, when it looked like the Middle East would go to war, and to the June debate with Trump, even though he was sick, and exhausted from two overseas trips, So ultimately, by July, Biden was losing so badly that even a slam-bang press conference couldn't save him, even though millions watched. So fnally
Pelosi and, I think, Obama were able to persuade him to withdraw.
And the last serendipitous event: when Biden called Harris that Sunday, she was ready. She had obviously prepared for it to happen, she had set up her team, decided on her plan, and jumped into it so quickly, making hundreds of phone calls that very day,
lining up endorsements and taking advantage of Zoom organizing sessions, with such verve and panache that no one else could catch up.
And in the weeks since, she hasn't made an error or a flub.
The result was this magnificent speech:
