The biggest challenge presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris face is to focus on the current election and not past and future presidential races. The same holds for Democratic and independent voters and Republican voters who will vote for this ticket.
Although this may seem obvious, the truth is that many people within the party structure are going to try a replay of the 2016 race, and many voters, especially female voters, are going to be looking toward 2024 and Harris as the Democratic nominee.
Stop.
This is not August of 2016. Donald Trump is our president, and he may well win in November. Defeating him today will require a different strategy than was employed in 2016, starting with new candidates on the ballot. That much has been secured.
The Biden-Harris campaign has their work cut out for them. They have a very tall order. They have to campaign against Trump-Pence without having the ability to campaign in any regular way: no town halls, no rallies, no baby kissing and handshakes.
The presence of the pandemic itself radically changes this campaign and indeed all races. The battle over mail-in-voting is huge. This requires a set of top generals within the Biden-Harris campaign to out fight the Trump-Pence campaign. The president is working many angles to deny citizens the right to vote by mail, including having already removed automated machines in post offices that make the process of delivering mail more effective. (The postmaster general said he will stop this until after the election, but I will wait to see if that happens).
The Biden-Harris team and the Democratic leadership in Congress also need to get on the same page regarding the passage of another stimulus bill and how funding for the U.S. Postal Service may or may not be included in such a bill. This is not a task for generals; this is a task for a team of conductors to orchestrate this incredibly complex process.
This is just the beginning of what is going to be the most challenging, intricate, bizarre final stretch of a presidential election in American history.
The Biden-Harris campaign must be sure not to put too much of their money on winning the traditional swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, because Trump could lose these states and win other states in their place and still win. Maybe this time it is not his Rust Belt victories but some other set of victories that yields a win, which this time might be a victory by three electoral votes.
At the same time, voters, organizations and Democratic writers must not talk too much about how Harris is being groomed for 2024.
The United States is in the midst of massive crisis — one that meshes together a public health crisis, an economic crisis and a racial crisis. The year 2024 is one hundred years away when you look at it that way. We need Biden and Harris to assume office in January 2021 and get to work hour one, and we need a Biden-Harris campaign to defeat the Trump-Pence campaign in a campaign climate that has no parallel in American history.
We have no idea how they would do in their four years in office, and thus we have no idea if Sen. Harris will be a good presidential candidate in 2024. We need maximum attention on the moment: What can a Biden-Harris White House do for the American people? How can they sell themselves to the voters to win?
This is not a time to relitigate an old election or think about a new election. There is only one election that should be before the eyes of the Biden-Harris campaign, the Democratic Party and Democratic voters — and any independents and Republicans who do not wish to vote for Trump-Pence. That is Election 2020.
(Dave Anderson (dmamaryland@gmail.com) taught ethics and politics at George Washington University for 12 years)
