The Summer of 2024 was a political maëlstrom. It included a near-miss assassination attempt and a withdrawal of a sitting president of the United States from his re-election campaign, almost at the last possible moment.
We still do not know much about Trump’s would-be assassin on that roof in Butler, Pennsylvania. Nor does there seem much media interest in that still mysterious criminal episode. But we are learning more about Joe Biden’s stepping down from the campaign, and Kamala Harris’s taking the reins of the Democratic ticket.
Most recently, from a insider-exposé just out by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House (Apri 1, 2025), we learn that Barack Obama, former president and key Democratic Party insider, not only pressured Biden to step down (along with Nancy Pelosi), but he also opposed Kamala Harris’s hasty top-of-the-ticket switcheroo. Strongly. For five days. Then he gave his endorsement.*
It’s widely reported that the Bidens dislike Kamala Harris. It’s also well known that Obama is not exactly Joe Biden’s biggest fan — the Obama/Biden pairing was political, making the match perhaps the most fraught since Kennedy/LBJ.
We learn from co-author Jonathan Allen that Obama refused to endorse Ms. Harris on that infamous first day, after Biden’s endorsement,* and that Obama was pitching for an open convention.
Obama’s political instincts are unmatched within the Democratic Party. That his advice was resisted says a lot about where the party was headed.
And where it’s at now.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* If you, like me, are looking for why Biden, so soon after stepping down, publicly endorsed Kamala Harris, the sample on Amazon won’t tell you. But Ms. Harris entreated Biden immediately upon his resignation: “You need to endorse me,” she said, according to co-author Amie Parnes. Pressure was applied.
Illustration created with Krea and Firefly
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3 replies on “The 2024 Switcheroo”
The endorsement of Harris was vengeance by someone in the Biden camp against the Democratic leadership that had pushed Biden out.
Had Biden not endorsed Harris, Michelle Obama would have been nominated by acclimation.
How is the stock market doing? Still believe in Trump? Lose any money today? I told you he is a lunatic!
Pam, you dishonestly continue to pretend that Paul “believe[s] in” Trump.
Moreover Trump’s policy of imposing tariffs is no more germane to Paul’s entry than is Roosevelt’s policy of racial discrimination. If you want to discuss tariffs, you need to go to entries (by Paul or by others) about tariffs, or just to start your own ‘blog.