(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The grim reality is that at some point, if some misfortune or scandal were to befall President Joe Biden in the final half of his presidential term, his successor is likely to be a far-left radical who came up through the ranks of San Francisco’s political ecosystem under the patronage of then-Mayor Willie Brown.
Who that person is, however, may hinge a lot on the election of a former University of Georgia football great in a runoff election on the other side of the country.
Several political watchers, including The Hill, floated a theory this week that a newly emboldened Biden might consider replacing embattled Vice President Kamala Harris, with whom he reportedly maintains an acrimonious relationship.
Instead, he would replace the former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general with the man who presided over her as the city’s mayor and state’s governor, respectively, prior to Harris’s arrival in the U.S. Senate.
According to former Reagan and Bush staffer Doug MacKinnon, Harris is too weak, polarizing and unpopular to carry the weight of the party’s future on her shoulders, despite being the first black woman elected to so high an office.
“What Tuesday’s voting demonstrated is that our country is still equally divided and deeply polarized, with no political healing on the horizon,” MacKinnon wrote.
“That reality speaks to the need for a proven vote-getter with lots of money and a logistical machine behind him,” he continued. “In Politics 101, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) meets—maybe even exceeds—those qualifications.”
Newsom already is believed to have been measuring the curtains in the White House during a July visit while Biden was traveling abroad, and he has sent other signals about his intention to run, including a spate of attacks on Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But as DeSantis braces for a bruising battle against former President Donald Trump, Newsom may be plotting to slip in through the back door, getting a head start on the presidency before the 2024 election and then running as an incumbent who may still be eligible for two terms of his own, according to the 25th Amendment.
One potential pratfall would be the Senate, where any future vice presidential nominee not elected to office would need to be confirmed.
In order for a new one to be nominated, not only would Harris need to be on board with the plan, but she also would need to step down from her post, eliminating the tie-breaking Senate vote in the event of an even split.
Republicans could then force Biden to pick a more moderate alternative—Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., perhaps—or to make do without a backup, which would put another Californian—GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy—next in line for the Oval Office.
The same holds true for any scenatio in which Biden himself was forced out and Harris ascended to the presidency.
But it only would apply if GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker succeeds in vanquishing incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in a Dec. 6 runoff election.
Walker would give Republicans their 50th vote, while Warnock would deliver Democrats their 51st, allowing them to bypass Manchin, who has been the lone backstop against the Left’s two-year-long fever dream of eliminating the filibuster and passing a raft of radical laws that would include so-called election reforms codifying their permanent majorities.
While some may think 10 years of the snake-oily Newsom is endurable (California is still standing, after all), the China-compromised Biden might potentially pick any number of alternatives who would be even more intolerable, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, who by next election will have aged into presidential eligibility.
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at truthsocial.com/@bensellers.
