Looks like I’m a minority of one. Nothing in politics works as smoothly or as fast without a lot of politicking going on behind the scenes. I think the timeline of events tells the story.
The NYTimes prides its reputation on getting the “inside” scoop. But this time, the Democratic Party shut out the media, then spoon-fed them obfuscation and confusion for a month.
Monday, June 15, the Republican Convention begins, and Trump announces his Vice-President. On Wednesday, the White House announces Biden has Covid. Thursday the Republican convention ends.
Late Sunday afternoon, Biden bypasses the media and uses social media to announce he is withdrawing. The NYTimes is embarrassed and in a romper-room tizzy, spits out this piece – “Inside the Weekend When Biden Decided to Withdraw President Biden did not tell most of his staff until a minute before making his announcement to the world on social media on Sunday. Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Mr. Biden went on to endorse, also learned of his decision on Sunday.”
Over the next 48 hours, Biden threw his support to Harris, grassroots Democrats hit the ground running (44,000 grassroots leaders on just one zoom call alone), Harris speaks at “her” campaign headquarters in Delaware, big name Democrats come out in support of Harris, Harris garners the delegates necessary to cinch the nomination, and her campaign records over $100-million in small donor donations.
It helps to remember that Republicans and Democrats function very differently.
Republicans are sheepherders. Trump is a one man show, but one good sheep dog can keep huge herds moving along together. Talk about dog whistles, sheepherder whistles take the cake. Watching a sheep dog turn a thousand sheep in the opposite direction is a sight to see.
Democrats have flocks of ducks. Since ducks have wings, and dogs don’t, you can’t herd ducks. Ducks follow ducks, so if you want all your flocks to go anywhere together, you have to line up your ducks.
And the Democrat Party has a whole lot of flocks to get lined up. After the debate, Biden bought himself time to get his party’s ducks in a row.
I suspect, all the Democrat’s leadership ducks wanted their little flock to lead all the other flocks. But Biden held the wild card and he played it; they could get behind Harris, or he would stay in the race.
For three weeks, the Democrat’s leadership ducks bickered and dickered amongst themselves. In the meantime, Biden laid out a plan. And you can bet your sweet bippy, Kamala Harris was working right beside Joe Biden all the way. When the leadership ducks finally agreed on Harris, Biden put his plan into action.
I think we just witnessed some serious politicking. And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris just outsmarted both, the NYTimes, Mr. X (aka Elon Musk). some very big ducks and one very old and very large sheepherder.
Reminds me of the night Obama slow roasted Trump in his own juice.
