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The problem is, that is a double-edged sword: give the masses the chance to see President Kamala (as she takes over from Biden and finishes out his term) and maybe we all see how badly she does when given power. See Ford versus Carter for how being the VP who took over as President wasn't any advantage.
But maybe she does okay, or at least can shuffle off any blame onto the first half of the term when Biden was still in power. Faced with Trump, maybe the Democrats rally behind her as "well, no point changing horses in midstream".
Or maybe there is enough of a run-in to let them have an open primary and choose a different candidate. How gruntled will Kamala be then? Will she get behind the new choice for the sake of the party, or will there be splits and rival camps?
The difference with Ford is that Ford succeeded (as Speaker of the House, not VP) from a disgraced Nixon admin. Kamala, succeeding a dead Biden, would not have been concerned with those disgraces. Witness St. Charles of Kirk; we still avoid speaking ill of the dead. Still moreso a dead president, still more a dead president who was mediocre but ultimately started no wars and kept unemployment under 4.5% for effectively his entire term. She would have basked in the twin glows of succeeding a martyred president, and being the first woman in the white house.
The dems could never choose a different candidate after they picked Kamala for VP. They picked Kamala to be a BLACK WOMAN, and they couldn't be seen to skip over a BLACK WOMAN.
Just to correct the record (reference not intended), Biden only committed to picking a woman, not necessarily a Black woman. Two of the four on the shortlist were white. I know it's a punchier line to say, but it's not true.
Beyond that, it's true that passing over Kamala as the replacement would be a bad look, but that would be (not equally, but mostly) also true even if she were not. Vice Presidents are quite literally successors. And Biden in particular had bad personal feelings about not getting Obama's full support in the primary for 2016, so it seems extra unlikely that Biden would actually backstab Kamala in the same way, even on just a purely personal level (even if he was tempted).
I don't know that they committed in advance that "it must be a Black Woman" but I do know that during the Summer of George they picked a Black Woman, and that they absolutely thought about her status as a Black Woman when doing so. I don't think it makes any difference. Passing over the Black Woman who was his natural successor would have been a bad look with significant IdPol portions of the Democratic base, in a way that passing over Joe Biden wasn't.
It wasn't really Joe's call to make, once he had dropped out. The Democratic party circa July of last year isn't beholden to him on this.
Stop saying “I don’t know that they committed in advance to a Black woman”. This is factually wrong. Biden did not. Pointing to being aware of her being Black after the fact is backwards logic.
“They” did not pick her either. This is also wrong. Picking a VP (for the 2020 campaign) is one of the few decisions that voters and party insiders have remarkably little influence in. Yes, they sometimes run little low key pressure campaigns, but ultimately it’s an individual and personal decision. There’s no election. The nominee picks someone, and the party sucks it up. At least this started to be the case especially after 1944 when FDR rejected the party choice, and this solidified in the two decades or so after. In one single case way back in 1972, McGovern’s pick was partially forced out because he had undergone electroshock therapy so there was concern about fitness. That’s it. That’s the whole modern history. Otherwise it’s a rubber stamp.
Regarding the Biden dropout, an event you seem to unnecessarily conflate, Biden could endorse someone, or he could call for a mini primary. Most people seem to agree those were his only two options, and endorsing anyone other than Kamala was basically unthinkable (as I’ve argued on more than a merely idpol basis), so it’s at most three options: endorse Harris, call for primary while pushing Harris, and call for primary while sitting it out. Remember that as sitting president, guy with his name on the PACs and war chests, and effectively party leader, Biden did have the leverage to enforce his decision on a practical basis.
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And pardoned Nixon, which was extremely unpopular at the time.
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If Biden had dropped dead, sure. But the more likely path for President Kamala would have been Biden having to step down, so he would still be around while she finished out the term. Much more difficult to navigate that; a dead Biden would have meant "don't speak ill of the dead" and would have won her more time to distance herself from any unpopular decisions, but if Joe is still alive and kicking (and the Bidens every bit as bitter about power being yanked out of his grasp as they were this time round) then trying to go "no, that unpopular policy belongs firmly in the lap of my predecessor" would evoke "oh yeah? funny how you said nothing against it at the time, traitor!" from them or loyal ex-staffers.
That was the point of the hypothetical.
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Ford was never Speaker (he had previously been the house minority leader) and he was indeed made VPOTUS after Spiro Agnew resigned.
You're correct, I had forgotten this fact.
I'm not really pulling back on the point though. Ford was appointed VP during the Watergate process, he was never really part of a functioning Nixon administration.
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