The solemnity of the Queen’s Coronation being thus ended
The Inthroning
The Exhortation being ended, all the Princes and Peers then present shall do their Fealty and Homage publicly and solemnly unto the Queen: and the Queen shall deliver her Sceptre with the Cross and the Rod with the Dove, to some one near to the Blood Royal, or to the Lords that carried them in the procession, or to any other that she pleaseth to assign, to hold them by her, till the Homage be ended.
Coronation of the British Monarch
Against the self interests of scores of politicians, against the possible self interest of the party itself, the Crimson robe has been removed and the anointing gown has been donned.
Kamala Harris has been endorsed by those that matter on the technical level - all 50 states’ party chairs - and by the high level power broker - Nancy Pelosi.
Every One of her Possible rivals are now backing her, all that’s left to consolidate is - strangely - Barack Obama.
Obama, who it can be said, likes Harris seems to be the last Democrat who understands the perils of a Coronation.
Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted
There is a dirty secret about Kamala which Axios sort of brings up (in comparing her to Biden)
Harris […] who worked her way up in the much larger state of California, where political races often are won by how much money you can raise.
She has not yet had a major electoral challenge. California can barely count as an electoral victory (her senate race was against a fellow Democrat) and of course she didn’t win the 2020 primary.
This doesn’t mean she can’t; if you’re from California, you run in California but she has not yet proven that she can capture the votes of the American people, the party would do well to test her in the little time that’s left.
American politics is full of examples of candidates who seemed good on paper but were missing the elusive “it factor”.
There is another issue; the visual of party leaders pulling out the rug under their “Leader’s” feet and then replacing him with a handpicked choice in one fell swoop, is tough.
They must make some kind of effort to give this process the appearance of legitimacy, Pelosi has to find someone who can run an exceptionally civil race against her and then “unite the party” after her inevitable win.
A lesson in leverage
I of course, was wrong.
I thought all the politicians who poll better than her (some of whom have proven themselves electable statewide in battleground states) would jump at this once in a lifetime opportunity.
It is worth examining possible reasons they did not.
The gains to be had from running for president when your chances are slim (TV time, basically) might not apply here: The time is too short and crucially, there is no vote so you cannot point at a group of voters and say; “I have a power base, they love me”
The Veep stakes: the Schelling point dynamic created a situation where it was almost Common Knowledge1 that she would be the nominee. This quickly forced everyone to start auditioning for the next best role(s). The Harris campaign played this beautifully, quickly leaking shortlists of possible Veeps to keep them clamoring for her attention.
As the obvious default, she was allowed to announce her candidacy immediately. It would be impolitic for a Governor, say, to jump into the race the moment the President stepped down.2 She used her time advantage wisely. Axios reports:
she spent more than 10 hours Sunday placing calls to over 100 party leaders, Members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, and leaders of advocacy and civil rights organizations
This is the most speculative reason: maybe a lot of them see this election as a lost cause and rather wait to beat J.D. Vance
By everyone but me, apparently
This take is from a friend of mine, I think it’s good though!