This moment...joyous, fast-moving, overwhelming, and, also, in some ways, sad and sobering...is 100% about the Democratic Party.
Our Party. Our Vision. Our Agenda. Our Base. Our Principles. Our Leaders. Our President. Our Vice President. Our Electeds. Our Bench. Our Future. Our Choice. Our Election.
In one moment, Joe Biden asked ALL of us Democrats a profound question by answering what was perhaps our biggest question of him.
President Biden is no longer our nominee. Biden’s delegates have 100% been released. Biden has endorsed, with love, respect, and meaningful support (turning over his funds and campaign office in toto), Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden’s question to all of us now is simple: what are we going to do about it?
And what we’ve done in the last 48 hours is stunning.
Rapidly, with conviction, and with a powerful unanimity (coupled with surging grass roots donations), we have rallied around Kamala Harris as our 2024 nominee.
Tonight, whatever the great practical challenges we face as a political party in this upcoming election, and they are massive (see below), we are united, energized, and, ready or not, 100% committed to a top-to-bottom battle, in every state and in every district, for the future of our nation.
It feels good.
It feels like a party.
But for this party to continue we must use this moment to lay the foundation for the Democratic Party to win in November 5th.
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First, what Joe Biden did was heroic and historic.
After a lifetime of service, President Biden came out of retirement to defeat Donald Trump and in the process (a process that included corny horn honking at drive ins, never forget that one!)...he brought our nation together.
President Biden negotiated legislative compromises that stand, in retrospect, as massive, and in no small part, progressive, Democratic victories.
There are millions of families who have (and will) benefit from the accomplishments that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have won in his one term in office. There are billions of humans yet born who may thank him for navigating a climate compromise that was, at least, a first step in the right direction.
And now, by limiting himself to that one term in office, Joe Biden has shown himself a true and rare American hero. There’s a reason that George Washington’s farewell address has been read and reread as a foundational document of our democracy.
This Sunday, Joe Biden released his own 2024 update to Washington’s sentiments.
His message is clear and in line with our first President: I trust you, our democracy, and our nation. Our republic holds more talent that any one leader can claim; and by letting go of the reins, Biden unleashed the power of our founding principles to guide us forward: deliberation, reason, and a fundamental respect for the will of the voters.
Like Washington, Biden might have been tempted to heed the will of his most ardent supporters, supporters who, with no small reason, pointed to his great accomplishments, his personal virtues, and his political victories. But, like George Washington (and, for all us nerds out there, Obi Wan Kenobi), Biden has now stepped aside.
The future of this party lies with us, and our new leader, Kamala Harris.
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Much will be written about Kamala Harris, her strengths, her leadership, and her identity.
She is, for one, a woman. And no woman has won the Presidency. She is bi-racial and a woman of color. No woman of color has won the Presidency.
She will face ugly Republican attacks.
But Kamala Harris has shown, throughout her career, and from the evening of Joe Biden’s debate stumble till now, that she is a leader ready for this moment. This is no coronation; this is a skilled leader who has paid her dues taking her rightful place.
And what we have shown, in these brief 48 hours, is that we have Kamala Harris’s back. Vice President Harris is now the unquestioned leader of the Democratic Party. We have rallied to her side, and, in every step she has taken, she has rewarded our trust.
Unlike the GOP, which at every State of the Union address presents itself as a massive wall of angry white males (broken up, admittedly, with a smattering of angry Boeberts and MTGs), the we of the Democratic Party is diverse.
Like Walt Whitman might have imagined and celebrated, we Democrats are a multitude.
Our standard bearers will and should reflect that multitude; and the ensuing quality of our leadership will be noted by historians.
We will never apologize for that. It is our strength and an expression our own core identity.
And that gets to my whole point.
Kamala Harris is now us.
Kamala Harris is the tip of the spear of the Democratic Party. She is our leader.
If someone hates her, or maligns her, or exhibits prejudice or misogyny towards her, they are hating all of us. That is both our strength, and our responsibility.
We owe it to every last Democrat, to every last constituent, to every last person counting on us, to get behind Kamala Harris and fight, donate and volunteer for the win, up and down the ticket. Everything we might do, and everything we hope to do, is now caught up in this motion.
This is our chance to write the next chapter in the bold, brave, and righteous, and, I might add, the largely unwritten, history of our political party.
What we’ve done so far is great. There will be many challenges to come.
What we do next, however, is crucial.
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I want to close with a sobering link.
The Cook Political Report publishes a straightforward and trustworthy (if not also depressing) list of the state of the race for Congress. Here is the House. And here is the Senate.
As of tonight, whatever happens in the presidential contest, the Cook Report has the House as likely to be 214 Dem and 221 Republican with all toss ups assigned. And the Senate comes down as 46 Dem to 50 Republican with 4 toss ups currently held by Democrats.
We aren’t just in a battle for the Presidency with Kamala Harris at the helm. (And the electoral college polling has never been great this cycle, friends.)
We are now in the political battle of our lives for the Presidency, Congress, and state houses across the United States.
However glad and relieved we might feel about how our Party has responded to Joe Biden’s noble action and Kamala Harris taking control: the challenge we are facing and the stakes of that contest are grim.
If Trump wins with a Republican Congress to back his agenda, the dogs of Project 2025 will be unleashed upon all 50 states.
And even if we win, we know full well that we can’t do everything we’d like to do even with a triple victory in 2024; we know the political limits that we face.
But we owe it to ourselves, to our ideals, and every member of our coalition that we link arms with in solidarity, to fight smart, to fight local, and to give our all to make the impossible, possible in 2024.
As a veteran of many, many tough election fights (and many tough losses to boot), I have to admit that I think this is the hardest one yet.
We need to do everything right.
But I believe that we can do it. And, in all fairness, looking at that Cook Report, there is a glimmer of hope that we can exceed current expectations. (Those CA and NY races on the GOP side in the House for one, how the polls have been predicting likely voters, for two, and the mere fact that we can get to 50 in the Senate if we do everything right, for three.)
This last 48 hours was just the beginning. It all hangs now on our collective action and on people who are willing to listen to our message. The outcome for our Party truly depends on us.
This election will come down to us Democrats and those we can yet reach.
It might be late, but we owe it to each other to wake up early, and to organize with everything we’ve got.
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