Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Commentary by Susan Crabtree originally published by RealClearPolitics and RealClearWire
Vice President Kamala Harris nodded awkwardly along as the crowd at a campaign event in Las Vegas Tuesday greeted her with an exuberant chant of “Four more years! Four more years!”
In normal times, such a refrain from a room full of supporters while a vice president stumps for a second term would simply come with the territory. Yet, with Joe Biden’s presidency hanging in the balance since his woeful June 27 debate performance, the words took on curious new meaning: Four more years for whom?
Hours before, more than 2,000 miles away back in Washington, divided House Democrats were conducting a rancorous meeting about Biden’s future. Though Biden’s critics inside the party have been unable to convince the president to step aside, one development did come into focus: If Biden relinquishes his hold on the presidency, or decides not to stand for reelection, the baton should be handed to Kamala Harris.
There were other signs of Harris’ newfound power and shifting allegiances within the Democratic Party. The press pack trailing Harris, usually quite small, has swelled to dozens, and far more cameras clicked away as she delivered a preview of some of the strengths she would bring to the role of campaigner-in-chief.
“The past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy,” Harris said, an oblique reference to the national debate over Biden’s fitness for office. She then used her platform at the event promoting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities to lay into Donald Trump’s frequent criticism of illegal immigrants.
“Someone who vilifies immigrants, promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone and the seal of the president of the United States,” she said.
Although Harris began her remarks with a jittery nervousness, she found her comfort zone, warning that Trump would sign a national ban on abortion if given the chance.
“We’re not going to let that happen because we trust women,” she intoned. “When Congress passes a law that restores the reproductive freedom of Roe, our President Joe Biden will sign it.”
As a messenger for the Democratic Party, it was a far smoother and stronger performance than many of Biden’s recent public appearances – even those over the last week aimed at quelling calls for him to give up the nomination for the good of the party and the nation.
Questions are still swirling nearly two weeks after the June 27 debate despite Biden’s and his top allies’ attempts to stomp them out. As more Democrats call for the president to step aside each day, some high-profile Democrats are coalescing around the 59-year-old Harris as the rightful candidate to replace him – much more so than governors waiting in the wings, including Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Illinois’ JB Pritzker – along with an ambitious fellow Californian.
Over the last few days, surrogate Gavin Newsom’s spotlight has been fading just as Harris’ is shining brighter. Until the June 27 debate and the new focus on Kamala Harris, Newsom was widely considered Biden’s top surrogate and perhaps the Democratic Party’s star-in-waiting.
Read the entire commentary here.
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Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
