(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) A one-way switcheroo between Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris?
That’s the bold plan advanced by a Los Angeles Times columnist to help the Democrats with their electoral and geriatric dilemma.
Longtime political journalist George Skelton, a Feinstein fan, acknowledged that he got the problem-solving and “great” idea from a reader.
Sen. Feinstein, 90, is ailing and is barely functioning in her federal lawmaker role. And Harris, Joe Biden’s vice president, is “a burden — a drag on his reelection prospects,” Skelton asserted.
The remedy: “Feinstein could resign from the Senate and Gov. Gavin Newsom could appoint Harris to replace her. Biden then could find a more popular running mate, one more acceptable to voters as a potential successor.”
Feinstein is not seeking reelection in 2024, nor is she stepping down before her term ends, at least for the moment.
“Feinstein isn’t moving anywhere without a strong shove,” Skelton declared about the retiring senator.
Skelton admitted that the proposed scenario is also unlikely to play out because Joe Biden perhaps lacks the ability or the inclination to convince Feinstein to step down — or Harris to take one for the team by going back to the U.S. Senate, where she served from 2017 until she took office as VP.
The journalist conceded that Harris is staying put — unless she gets “dumped — because she knows she could become leader of the free world by default if the cognitively challenged Biden is no longer able to continue.
“Harris will never give up the vice presidency voluntarily. She’s one step — the proverbial heartbeat — from the top job, serving an 80-year-old president. Eight of our previous 45 presidents have died in office,” he wrote.
The incumbent POTUS “would need to admit that he erred in choosing Harris in the first place,” Skelton opined, which is another reason why the musical chairs probably won’t happen.
“She’d probably be better off back in her old Senate job,” he insisted about Harris, however.
Skelton somehow concluded that far-left Congresswoman Karen Bass, now the mayor of crime-infested Los Angeles, would have been a better choice as Biden’s running mate.
Harris was one of Biden’s rivals for the 2020 presidential nomination, but she wound up dropping out even before Iowa Caucuses voting amidst dismal polling, but not before implying that Biden, her future boss, was racist.
With regard to more recent polling data, a separate Los Angeles Times article earlier this month pegged Harris’s unfavorability rating among registered votes at 53%.
Kamala Harris is primarily known for cackling, word salad, misinformation and a failed mostly ceremonial stint as Biden’s border czar.
An NBC poll earlier this summer suggested that Harris is the most unpopular vice president in U.S. history.
NBC POLL: VP Kamala Harris’ net-negative rating (-17) is the lowest for any vice president in the poll’s history.
VP (Positive/Negative)
• Cheney: 47/24 (net +23)
• Gore: 42/27 (+15)
• Biden: 34/33 (+1)
• Pence: 34/38 (-4)
• Harris: 32/49 (-17)https://t.co/Mwa3sCZ2rQ pic.twitter.com/T5jqxa9mRR— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) June 26, 2023
The Democrat establishment apparently would dearly love to substitute someone like Newsom for Biden as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.
Bypassing Harris for the top of the presidential ticket if Biden becomes sidelined means outraging the Democrats’ diversity-preoccupied constituency, however.
According to a Real Clear Politics aggregate of nine polls, apart from his VP woes, Biden’s own overall job disapproval currently clocks in 54%.
