The problem with this analysis is that voters in the Democratic primaries understood they were voting for Harris as part of the Biden ticket, so I don’t think the selection of Harris by the delegates is far enough outside of a vote for Biden to matter in these circumstances. A vote for Biden was a vote for the incumbent ticket. It would …
The problem with this analysis is that voters in the Democratic primaries understood they were voting for Harris as part of the Biden ticket, so I don’t think the selection of Harris by the delegates is far enough outside of a vote for Biden to matter in these circumstances. A vote for Biden was a vote for the incumbent ticket. It would be far more problematic if Harris was not the choice of the delegates.
As John Nance Garner so famously observed, “the vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm spit.”
Insofar as the Constitution is concerned, the Vice President has no specific duties other than to be the backup in case something happens to the President and to preside over the U.S. Senate.
This was why Joe Biden had to make a major announcement when he made Kamala Harris border czar in 2021.
While Joe Biden went to great lengths to label his administration the Biden-Harris Administration, the historical norm and thus the prevailing sentiment across the electorate is that an administration is a creature of the President and none other. While Presidential electoral history is replete with examples of tactical VP selections to secure specific states/regions/constituencies, the actual impact of such selections on final voting patterns is dubious at best.
Some political scientists argue that a VP selection can produce a minor "halo effect" on the candidate, but even when Biden selected Harris as his VP in 2020, there was a sense that, while Biden would get props for the pick, it was less dispositive on his electoral chances than his policies.
Constitutionally and practically, a Vice-President is not a co-President, and even Biden's efforts to portray Harris in that light do not alter that reality. Legally, a vote for Biden in the Democratic primary is not a vote for Harris. The two are not fungible and there is no automatic transfer of delegate votes to Harris upon Biden's withdrawal.
Constitutionally, legally, and substantively, a vote for Biden in the primary does not count and cannot be counted as a vote for Harris.
Nor can we overlook the fact that Harris as VP has levers such as the 25th Amendment to coerce Biden to step aside (and while the sources are unnamed and off the record, rumor central in Washington indicates that such coercion was applied to Biden). We should not allow the "naturalness" of her assuming the top spot on the ticket to obscure her potential role in whatever corrupt back-room dealings went on to pressure Joe Biden to step aside despite his repeated statements that he would not do so. The "palace coup" is perhaps the oldest form of coup d'etat known to man.
Bottom line: Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden. A vote for Joe Biden is not a vote for Kamala Harris. Not technically, not legally, and not even conceptually.
Which means we are left with a political reality where Joe Biden got 14 million Democratic primary votes, Kamala got none, and now Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee. That outcome stinks to high heaven of Tammany Hall and the sort of government graft and corruption the primary process was put in place to eliminate.
The problem with this analysis is that voters in the Democratic primaries understood they were voting for Harris as part of the Biden ticket, so I don’t think the selection of Harris by the delegates is far enough outside of a vote for Biden to matter in these circumstances. A vote for Biden was a vote for the incumbent ticket. It would be far more problematic if Harris was not the choice of the delegates.
As John Nance Garner so famously observed, “the vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm spit.”
Insofar as the Constitution is concerned, the Vice President has no specific duties other than to be the backup in case something happens to the President and to preside over the U.S. Senate.
This was why Joe Biden had to make a major announcement when he made Kamala Harris border czar in 2021.
While Joe Biden went to great lengths to label his administration the Biden-Harris Administration, the historical norm and thus the prevailing sentiment across the electorate is that an administration is a creature of the President and none other. While Presidential electoral history is replete with examples of tactical VP selections to secure specific states/regions/constituencies, the actual impact of such selections on final voting patterns is dubious at best.
Some political scientists argue that a VP selection can produce a minor "halo effect" on the candidate, but even when Biden selected Harris as his VP in 2020, there was a sense that, while Biden would get props for the pick, it was less dispositive on his electoral chances than his policies.
http://web.archive.org/web/20200817083616/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/24/do-vp-picks-matter
Constitutionally and practically, a Vice-President is not a co-President, and even Biden's efforts to portray Harris in that light do not alter that reality. Legally, a vote for Biden in the Democratic primary is not a vote for Harris. The two are not fungible and there is no automatic transfer of delegate votes to Harris upon Biden's withdrawal.
Constitutionally, legally, and substantively, a vote for Biden in the primary does not count and cannot be counted as a vote for Harris.
Nor can we overlook the fact that Harris as VP has levers such as the 25th Amendment to coerce Biden to step aside (and while the sources are unnamed and off the record, rumor central in Washington indicates that such coercion was applied to Biden). We should not allow the "naturalness" of her assuming the top spot on the ticket to obscure her potential role in whatever corrupt back-room dealings went on to pressure Joe Biden to step aside despite his repeated statements that he would not do so. The "palace coup" is perhaps the oldest form of coup d'etat known to man.
Bottom line: Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden. A vote for Joe Biden is not a vote for Kamala Harris. Not technically, not legally, and not even conceptually.
Which means we are left with a political reality where Joe Biden got 14 million Democratic primary votes, Kamala got none, and now Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee. That outcome stinks to high heaven of Tammany Hall and the sort of government graft and corruption the primary process was put in place to eliminate.