Election 2024: What's Next?

The Democratic Party establishment is mostly lining up for a coronation of Kamala Harris as replacement presidential nominee ... but there ARE noticeable exceptions, the two biggest likely being Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi (at least as of last night).

In my opinion, nominating Harris really only sends one message:

"The Democratic Party is writing off this presidential election."

OK, maybe a subsidiary, less loudly spoken, message as well:

"Let's get Harris out of the way this year so we don't have to worry about her running in 2028."

But mostly, and most loudly, the first message.

I'm not saying there's no way she could win, but it seems incredibly unlikely, even with the Biden campaign war chest (one of the selling points for nominating her that I've heard thrown around).

She's an empty pantsuit, a party apparatchik who's climbed the organizational ladder as the establishment primary pick and in non-competitive general elections (except as a slight drag on the Biden 2020 campaign) without having to demonstrate actual political chops. Her constant word salad seizures make Biden at his worst look sound like Cicero in his prime.

In theory, this is an open race -- Biden can release his delegates to vote for whomever they like; he can't bind them to his preferred alternative.

In practice, the Democratic National Committee (like the RNC and LNC) does whatever it damn well pleases and could just rig the process to force a Harris nomination.

But if that doesn't happen -- if a more credible candidate stands up and manages to reach/persuade delegates despite the ongoing DNC-backed effort to wrap this thing up and present it to Harris with a bow on top -- the race could get interesting again. Or, rather, remain interesting in the same bizarre way it's been interesting the whole time.