Who Will Democrats Turn To in 2024?

Prominent Democrats have already made it clear that they do not want any part of a Joe Biden 2024 re-election campaign. His vice president, Kamala Harris, is even more unpopular, a rather stunning accomplishment in ten months. Where, then, will Democrats find a 2024 presidential candidate that can help move them away from the Biden train wreck while maintaining the delicate progressive-centrist common ground supposedly embodied by his administration?

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released Nov. 7 found Biden’s favorability rating cratering to 37.8%. Amazingly, this laps the rating of his hapless VP; Harris is languishing at a 27.8% favorability number.

With once-influential Democratic senator Chris Dodd openly speculating that Biden will not run again in 2024 and widespread acknowledgment of Harris’ dismal performance to date, chatter is growing as to whom the party, already bracing for a crushing accounting in the 2022 midterm elections, will turn in the next presidential election.

Speculating on Slim Pickings

Democrat-friendly news outlet Politico went ahead and dug up the 2020 retreads:

“Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the point person on implementing much of the popular bipartisan infrastructure deal. This fall, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) boosted the mayor of Manchester, N.H., during her recent reelection campaign and is keeping in touch with allies in the critical primary state, according to people familiar with the calls. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is on a book tour and campaigned in Virginia for [eventual losing gubernatorial candidate] Terry McAuliffe. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) endorsed left-wing and progressive candidates outside of Massachusetts this past year.”

What a line-up. It’s every bit as exciting as the limp 2020 primary campaign this listless crew subjected the American people to two years ago. It almost sounds like Politico is trying to convince itself of the political merits of a band that was so totally lacking in stature in early 2020 that Democrats were forced to embrace a doddering Biden as its nominee.

The implausible fact that he became president some Democrats consider even more of a catastrophe for the party than if Biden had gone down in flames in the general election.

If the party is going to run away from the Biden mess in 2024, why on earth would it tap one of the 2020 primary candidates who proved so mediocre that it made him necessary in the first place?

It can be argued that the roster of future Democratic stars is even thinner beyond D.C. Just think back to one year ago at this time. The coronavirus had made “stars,” at least in blue minds, out of the likes of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Many Democrats openly fantasized both as prime presidential timber.

One year later, Cuomo has resigned in disgrace and faces possible prison time for serial sexual harassment charges, and Whitmer is seen as the poster child for hypocritical COVID social curb politicians who harshly lock down their constituents while ignoring the rules they devised in their own personal lives.

It’s Not About the Best Candidate

So what is the likely scenario for 2024? A lot depends on how bad 2022 is for Democrats, but the most significant clue comes from Biden himself.

Biden in 2020 was the epitome of the party boss-selected nominee, and his manifestly unpopular presidency is not likely to make Democrat establishment insiders the least bit leery of manipulating things again. Service to the powers behind the throne, then, is what is most valued. In this regard, there is one person who has shone time and again.

Kamala Harris does what she is told. In November 2019, when Harris’ presidential campaign was running on fumes, Liberty Nation pointed out the seeming oddity of her trip to Virginia to publicly embrace a state representative who had gained national infamy for arguing that abortion should be allowed up to the moment of birth:

“So why did she do it? Why did yet another 2020 Democratic presidential candidate choose to make a very public gesture that can only harm her own personal chances of winning the White House? The only explanation that makes sense is that the real forces driving this 2020 Dem primary compelled her to do so.”

That same article pointed out how Harris had introduced progressive globalist billionaire George Soros at a 2017 conference for Democracy Alliance, “a well-heeled progressive group that receives major funding from Soros.” This month, she was at it again. On Nov. 9, Harris pre-recorded an address to Democracy Alliance while en route to France to attend the Paris Peace Forum.

Oh, by the way, any guess as to who is one of the top funders of the Paris Peace Forum?

According to the event’s 2019 annual report, "Strategic Partners" donated "between €500,000 and €700,000." There were four Strategic Partners for the 2021 forum that Harris traveled to in her official role as vice president of the United States: Microsoft, the European Commission, powerful business consulting firm the Brunswick Group -- and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

That’s right. Harris recorded a speech for a Soros-backed political group while she was on the way to attend a Soros-backed international conference.

Yes, she is deeply unpopular with the American people. But Harris remains the Golden Girl to the moneyed interests that run Democrat machine politics today. Forget the favorability numbers. Her obedience still makes her the current favorite for the 2024 party nomination.

~ Read more from Joe Schaeffer.