It’s hard to believe that it’s been only a week. I’ve been looking for the word to describe the feeling of the change that happened since Joe Biden suspended his campaign in favor of Kamala Harris. I found it today: amazement. You can’t look at the transformation of the Democratic Party and the presidential campaign in any other way than amazement.
There are stories being written now about how it happened, most recently by Michael Scherer and Tyler Pager in the Washington Post, “How Kamala Harris took control of the Democratic Party,” recounting the details, one by one, hour by hour. Not seemingly hour by hour, but in real time. It happened that way, and that fast – the phone calls, the social media posts, the flood of support by state party leaders, the flood of money that poured in without any serious push or organized solicitation.
The Post story describes how Biden’s decision was posted to his social media account. Biden had decided he was going to suspend his campaign on Saturday night, and “slept on it,” according to the Post. He called Vice President Harris early Sunday morning. The story doesn’t lay out in steps what Harris did or exactly whom she called in what order, but in a matter of hours, campaign and White House staff had arrived at the vice president’s house at the Naval Observatory and began making preparations. What the campaign called “the letter” went out on social media at 1:45 p.m. and then, as the Post describes it, “They gave Biden some time alone in the world, but not much. Twenty-seven minutes after that, Biden endorsed Harris on the same account.”
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That’s fast. So is what happened afterwards: Harris made 100 calls to party leaders on Sunday; the campaign had to flip 30 social media accounts from saying “Biden” to “Harris.” The Post names all the campaign and White House officials who sprang into action. Harris’ communications director was adamant that the veep appear on television on Monday, so........