▲ Biden and Harris held their first joint campaign event yesterday in Maryland since the former was pressured by his party to hand over the baton in the presidential race to Donald Trump.Photo Ap

Jim Cason and David Brooks

Correspondents

The newspaper La Jornada
Friday, August 16, 2024, p. 25

Chicago. Just days before Democrats gather in Chicago for their national convention, Vice President Kamala Harris is seeking to escape the unpopular shadow of her still-boss Joe Biden, moderate her more progressive positions from her time as a senator and focus her message on the economy, all part of an urgent effort to define her presidential candidacy less than three months before the national elections.

Of course, the priority is a public image of unity. On Thursday, Biden and Harris held joint events for the first time since the president finally caved to pressure from party leadership and abandoned his increasingly shaky re-election effort.

But the fact that this first public meeting between the president and the vice president and now candidate has taken three weeks reflects the fact that Harris believes she needs to distance herself from the aging president who remains unpopular in many parts of the country.

Fifty-five percent of Americans disapprove of the way Biden is handling his presidency, only slightly higher than the 52 percent who disapprove of former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump, according to an average of national polls compiled by ABC News. Harris is more popular than both politicians.

Harris won’t say it directly in public, but her advisers say it privately: she wants to break with Bidenexplain political journalists Mike Allen and Jim Vanderheid of the Axios website.

Solutions to the family economy

Recognizing that the economy, particularly inflation and commodity prices, is a key issue for voters, Harris is seeking to pivot from Biden’s presidential message that emphasized the threat to democracy posed by Trump to one that focuses more on everyday economic issues for the majority.

The joint event on Thursday, by the way, focused on issues related to corporate abuse in raising prices on basic products, including pharmaceuticals.

But Harris does not plan to spend much time at public events with Biden. At the Democratic national convention, which runs for four days next week, Biden — the country’s president and therefore the supreme Democrat — is scheduled to speak to his party only on the first and always least important night of the political extravaganza. It is a less consequential hour than that offered to former President Barack Obama, who will speak on the second night, or Bill Clinton, who will take the microphone on Wednesday. The vice president and presidential candidate will be crowned on Thursday at the conclusion of the grand event.

In this country, it is not surprising that politicians in the middle of an election cycle would distance themselves from unpopular policies of their allies, but the speed with which the Democratic leadership appears to be abandoning Biden is astonishing the media and commentators and apparently even the president himself.

Biden has told his closest advisers and associates that he is accepting the reasons he dropped out of the race last month, but he remains frustrated with members of his own party who he believes pushed him out.Politico reported this week. Biden is reportedly particularly angry at former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not telling him openly that she was pushing for his end.

Although Pelosi denies that she called other leaders to remove him from the race, she acknowledged in an interview with The New Yorker who expressed to those who spoke to him that There has to be a change in leadershipAnd in several interviews over the past two weeks, Pelosi admitted that she had expressed that the president’s election team was not very competent: I was never very impressed with his political operation.

Sharp words from his coreligionist

Those are sharp words from the 84-year-old grande dame of the Democratic establishment about a president of her own party. Biden, when asked by one of his aides about Pelosi, replied that She did what she had to do to give Democrats the best chance to win in November, adding that Pelosi he cares about the game and not feelings, Politico reported.

Biden is also reported to have a grudge against former President Obama, his former boss when he was vice president, for apparently failing to defend him when others in the party began to promote his exit from the nomination.

The other top leader of the political institute, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, another who privately urged the White House chief to abandon his re-election effort, told Politico, in a classic expression of one politician stabbing another with nice words: “Biden is a patriot and set an example for all Americans by putting – once again – his country above everything else.” The king is dead, long live the king.