The biggest challenge United States presidential candidate Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris face is to focus on the current election and not past and future presidential races.
The same holds for Democratic and independent voters and Republican voters who will vote for this ticket.
Although this may seem obvious, the truth is that many people within the party structure are going to try a replay of the 2016 race, and many voters, especially female voters, are going to be looking towards 2024 and Harris as the Democratic nominee.
Stop.
This is not August of 2016. Donald Trump is our president, and he may well win in November. Defeating him today will require a different strategy than was employed in 2016, starting with new candidates on the ballot. That much has been secured.
The Biden-Harris campaigners have their work cut out for them. They have a very tall order. They have to campaign against Trump-Pence without having the ability to campaign in any regular way: no town halls, no rallies, no baby-kissing and handshakes.
The presence of the pandemic itself radically changes this campaign and indeed all races. The battle over mail-in voting is huge.
This requires a set of top generals within the Biden-Harris campaign to out-fight the Trump-Pence campaign. The President is working many angles to deny citizens the right to vote by mail, including having already removed automated machines in post offices that make the process of delivering mail more effective. (The postmaster-general said he will stop this until after the election, but I will wait to see if that happens).
The Biden-Harris team and the Democratic leadership in Congress also need to get on the same page regarding the passage of another stimulus Bill and how funding for the US Postal Service may or may not be included in such a Bill. This is not a task for generals; this is a task for a team of conductors to orchestrate this incredibly complex process.
This is just the beginning of what is going to be the most challenging, intricate, bizarre final stretch of a presidential election in American history.
The Biden-Harris campaign must be sure not to put too much of its money on winning the traditional swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, because Trump could lose these states and win other states in their place and still win. Maybe this time it is not his Rust Belt victories but some other set of victories that yields a win, which this time might be a victory by three electoral votes.
At the same time, voters, organisations and Democratic writers must not talk too much about how Harris is being groomed for 2024.
The United States is in the midst of a massive crisis — one that meshes together a public health crisis, an economic crisis and a racial crisis.
The year 2024 is one hundred years away when you look at it that way. We need Biden and Harris to assume office in January 2021 and get to work hour one, and we need a Biden-Harris campaign to defeat the Trump-Pence campaign in a campaign climate that has no parallel in American history.
We have no idea how they would do in their four years in office, and thus we have no idea if Sen Harris will be a good presidential candidate in 2024. We need maximum attention on the moment: What can a Biden-Harris White House do for the American people? How can they sell themselves to the voters to win?
This is not a time to relitigate an old election or think about a new election. There is only one election that should be before the eyes of the Biden-Harris campaign, the Democratic Party and Democratic voters — and any independents and Republicans who do not wish to vote for Trump-Pence.
That is Election 2020. — The Baltimore Sun/TCA
- Dave Anderson taught ethics and politics at George Washington University for 12 years and is the editor of Leveraging (Springer, 2014).
Related Stories
Comments
I’m not sure why the Ministry of Propaganda (ODT) is publishing opinion pieces supporting the Biden/Harris Team for president? If you read the article, there is nothing of substance to support Biden/Harris. Biden has been in office for over 47 years and has nothing to shoe for it except If Biden has such great ideas, why hasn’t he done anything with those great ideas in the past 47 years? He has nothing to show except embarrassing blunders and illegal activity like Burisma. People want to see Biden and Trump debate, but Pelosi and the Democrats know that if the public see his medical condition the election is over. Harris has her own baggage. Another do nothing democrat who goes wherever the wind is blowing. Kiwis hate Trump and suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Kiwis don’t realize that the choice in this election is about America being America. Anderson can’t articulate a single reason why Biden/Harris is better than Trump/Pence except “Orange man bad”. Is America racist? Yep! But so is New Zealand! America acknowledges its racist issues while New Zealand ignores it. New Zealand needs to focus on its own problems before it starts pointing fingers at Trump and the US.
I found it !!! A defining truth !!!
"We have no idea how they would do in their four years in office, and thus we have no idea if Sen Harris will be a good presidential candidate in 2024. "
It's totally true that the Dems have no idea how they would achieve any of their crazy ideas and that their only focus is to depose Trump.
It's true that there is no point in them looking back because Biden's greatest achievement after over fourth years in office is what he calls The Biden Bill when "I did not have sex with that women" Bill was President.
What that bill is actually called in law is The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 1994 and it is the reason there are riots in the streets today.
A quote from Vox.com; "If you ask some criminal justice reform activists, the 1994 crime law passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, which was meant to reverse decades of rising crime, was one of the key contributors to mass incarceration in the 1990s. They say it led to more prison sentences, more prison cells, and more aggressive policing — especially hurting black and brown Americans, who are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated."
Biden is an old crony.