As to what is the value of the VP? Ask Truman and Johnson if they were alive. Or Bush and Nixon who both became President via election and not death. I’m not claiming that Harris is like any of them, but as VP there are certain perks, such as assuming the Presidency on death or perhaps disability. In any event, you haven’t really disputed my fundamental point about Democratic views of Biden running with Harris. Anyone with half a brain (even most Democrats) understood that at a minimum there was a good chance Biden could not finish a second term. Her replacement is not inconsistent with her role as the VP running for re-election on the Biden Harris ticket. That is why Democrats have rallied so strongly around her. This never would be occurring if she was not viewed by Democrats as the natural replacement for Biden. She has raised over $200 million in primarily small dollar donations in less than a week. Polls have dramatically tightened as Democrats have endorsed her candidacy. This is a sign of grassroots approval not corruption.
I haven't disputed your fundamental point? Only if you want to ignore that part of my comment where I did dispute your fundamental point.
However, I will reiterate: If the VP selection is at best minimally impactful on electoral outcomes then it is simply absurd to suggest that there is an implicit bargain whereby a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris.
As you do not contest the impactfulness of the VP selection on the electoral outcome, you cannot stand by that point.
As for Truman and Johnson's contribution to the Democratic ticket, Truman was an 11th hour replacement in 1944 and Johnson was a strategic choice in 1960 that JFK was considering dropping in 1964. Neither speaks much to the contribution of the VP selection in securing an electoral win in a Presidential election, and so your examples do more to discredit your thesis that a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris than they do to prove it.
The notion that VP Harris assuming the top spot on the ticket is "inconsistent" is simply a red herring. If Joe Biden had passed away, we would not be having this discussion. Death has a wonderful leveling effect that way. If Biden were likewise incapacitated vis-a-vis the 25th Amendment, the only reason we might be having the "coup" discussion at all would be if there was an intimation of a personal political agenda behind invoking the 25th Amendment.
However, we have far more indication that there is a political agenda behind Harris NOT invoking the 25th Amendment.
As for "grass roots" approval, Kamala Harris still has worse likability numbers than Donald Trump, and more than half the country still has an unfavorable opinion of her, according to the RCP poll aggregates.
Joe Biden, for all his faults, had 14 million primary votes to become the Democratic nominee in 2024. Kamala Harris, for all her strengths, had ZERO primary votes. Yet Biden is out and Kamala Harris is presumably in.
That's political corruption by definition, and it is the sort of political corruption from which the Democrats wanted to move away following the 1968 and 1972 elections.
A return to Tammany Hall is not a good look for the Democratic Party.
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 arbitrary and capricious nature of this entire process is really annoying as Hell. If one of the sycophants tells me something I look at is the color blue when in actual fact the color I view is black I'm supposed to believe the word of the sycophants because they believe they alone hold the keys to success when they are simply so full of flatulence that their expulsions of methane could power the machinery of a metropolitan area for a long period. I could expound on the views but I'll take the view of one of my drill sergeants at Fort Benning now Fort Moore. F*** them all.
See kids what happens when you believe and conflate narratives with principles? You end up in a web of deceit of your own doing. This is a classic story of maintaining power for its own sake without regard to anything else but power itself.
Don't know about Jonah, but I have long advocated for a repeal of the 17th Amendment.
The point of having Senators selected by state legislatures was to have the several states represented and not just the people en masse. This was also why the Senate was deemed the proper court for impeachments, and why the Senate was given ratification power over treaties and confirmation power over officers of the Executive Branch.
Direct election of Senators shifts power away from state capitals towards Washington DC, and that is not a shift that has worked well for the American people.
I also seem to remember part of it was so that the senators wouldn’t saddle the states with bills they couldn’t afford. Got an out of control senator? State executes a recall and appoints someone more attuned with the state’s outlook.
In a true federal system the national government has a limited and defined set of powers granted it by the member states of the federation, under the supervision of the member states.
The United States government has never been truly a "federal" system as the word is traditionally apprehended, but in the aftermath of the 17th Amendment, it is even less so.
As to what is the value of the VP? Ask Truman and Johnson if they were alive. Or Bush and Nixon who both became President via election and not death. I’m not claiming that Harris is like any of them, but as VP there are certain perks, such as assuming the Presidency on death or perhaps disability. In any event, you haven’t really disputed my fundamental point about Democratic views of Biden running with Harris. Anyone with half a brain (even most Democrats) understood that at a minimum there was a good chance Biden could not finish a second term. Her replacement is not inconsistent with her role as the VP running for re-election on the Biden Harris ticket. That is why Democrats have rallied so strongly around her. This never would be occurring if she was not viewed by Democrats as the natural replacement for Biden. She has raised over $200 million in primarily small dollar donations in less than a week. Polls have dramatically tightened as Democrats have endorsed her candidacy. This is a sign of grassroots approval not corruption.
I haven't disputed your fundamental point? Only if you want to ignore that part of my comment where I did dispute your fundamental point.
However, I will reiterate: If the VP selection is at best minimally impactful on electoral outcomes then it is simply absurd to suggest that there is an implicit bargain whereby a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris.
As you do not contest the impactfulness of the VP selection on the electoral outcome, you cannot stand by that point.
As for Truman and Johnson's contribution to the Democratic ticket, Truman was an 11th hour replacement in 1944 and Johnson was a strategic choice in 1960 that JFK was considering dropping in 1964. Neither speaks much to the contribution of the VP selection in securing an electoral win in a Presidential election, and so your examples do more to discredit your thesis that a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris than they do to prove it.
The notion that VP Harris assuming the top spot on the ticket is "inconsistent" is simply a red herring. If Joe Biden had passed away, we would not be having this discussion. Death has a wonderful leveling effect that way. If Biden were likewise incapacitated vis-a-vis the 25th Amendment, the only reason we might be having the "coup" discussion at all would be if there was an intimation of a personal political agenda behind invoking the 25th Amendment.
However, we have far more indication that there is a political agenda behind Harris NOT invoking the 25th Amendment.
As for "grass roots" approval, Kamala Harris still has worse likability numbers than Donald Trump, and more than half the country still has an unfavorable opinion of her, according to the RCP poll aggregates.
Joe Biden, for all his faults, had 14 million primary votes to become the Democratic nominee in 2024. Kamala Harris, for all her strengths, had ZERO primary votes. Yet Biden is out and Kamala Harris is presumably in.
That's political corruption by definition, and it is the sort of political corruption from which the Democrats wanted to move away following the 1968 and 1972 elections.
A return to Tammany Hall is not a good look for the Democratic Party.
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.
Thanks for the share!
So many things from Civics classes many have forgotten or never learned.
I'm glad you find my work helpful! Thanks!
The arbitrary and capricious nature of this entire process is really annoying as Hell. If one of the sycophants tells me something I look at is the color blue when in actual fact the color I view is black I'm supposed to believe the word of the sycophants because they believe they alone hold the keys to success when they are simply so full of flatulence that their expulsions of methane could power the machinery of a metropolitan area for a long period. I could expound on the views but I'll take the view of one of my drill sergeants at Fort Benning now Fort Moore. F*** them all.
Very timely and useful article. I am impressed that this is not a knee jerk reaction, but you go into the history and detail.
Thanks!
See kids what happens when you believe and conflate narratives with principles? You end up in a web of deceit of your own doing. This is a classic story of maintaining power for its own sake without regard to anything else but power itself.
"We but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague their inventor."
Perhaps the most vital lesson of all in Shakespeare's "Macbeth".
Amazing how they can't or won't heed this basic axiom of human nature as it relates to power.
What goes around comes around. Problem is they're too stupid and arrogant to see it when it does.
Seriously, Peter, you should be on the Supreme Court with this masterpiece of a reasoning brain you have. Just excellent work!
Maybe Jonah would support going back to when state legislatures picked their senators for the upper house vs popular vote as well.
Don't know about Jonah, but I have long advocated for a repeal of the 17th Amendment.
The point of having Senators selected by state legislatures was to have the several states represented and not just the people en masse. This was also why the Senate was deemed the proper court for impeachments, and why the Senate was given ratification power over treaties and confirmation power over officers of the Executive Branch.
Direct election of Senators shifts power away from state capitals towards Washington DC, and that is not a shift that has worked well for the American people.
I also seem to remember part of it was so that the senators wouldn’t saddle the states with bills they couldn’t afford. Got an out of control senator? State executes a recall and appoints someone more attuned with the state’s outlook.
In a true federal system the national government has a limited and defined set of powers granted it by the member states of the federation, under the supervision of the member states.
The United States government has never been truly a "federal" system as the word is traditionally apprehended, but in the aftermath of the 17th Amendment, it is even less so.