Former President Barack Obama last week made his triumphant return to the White House. It was a moment for the corporate left-wing media to relive its glory days; the event was treated with fanfare similar to that of the end of World War II. Yet it was a humiliating event for the current White House occupant, Joe Biden.
While at the White House, Obama delivered a speech that was dismissive of his Democratic Party successor. At one point, he “jokingly” referred to Biden as “Vice President Biden.”
When the speech ended, it was time for an ebullient photo-op with sycophants and Democratic Party functionaries alike. Smiling and in press-the-flesh campaign mode, both Obama and Kamala Harris appeared to box out the current president. Meanwhile, Biden, looking more like a nursing home patient than president of the United States, looked about the room for someone to notice him.
Kamala Harris ’24?
Clearly, Obama was signaling to all that the future of the Democratic Party is in the hands of Harris. Biden was merely meant as a placeholder; a convenient cudgel to knock former President Trump out of the way in 2020 and then to be discarded callously once this purpose had been fulfilled.
But can Harris achieve the great victory she’d been tapped by the Obama cabal to accomplish for her party?
This is, after all, a woman who couldn’t win the primaries of her party even though she was the darling of all its kingmakers. The purported “future” of the Democratic Party ultimately needed Mr. Magoo, Joe Biden, to save her flailing political career as it was crashing and burning in 2020.
Today, Harris’ favorability rating is dangerously low for someone aspiring to be the next president. She has been tasked by the Biden team to handle some of the most difficult—insurmountable, from a Democrats’ point of view—issues. And from immigration to the current Ukraine crisis, Harris has handled none of them well. Arguably, she has exacerbated the crises by her mere presence. Her public appearances, at times, suggest she is even more incoherent than her reputedly senile boss!
And for all the talk about Democrats readying to push Biden out and to force Harris upon an unwitting (and otherwise unenthusiastic) American public, Harris’ abysmal ratings and poor showing as a leader over the last two years suggest that whatever the party grandees may want, Harris is not up to the task. Therefore, much like Joe Biden currently, if Harris were to replace Biden in the middle of his term, she could also serve as a placeholder for someone else preparing to supersede her.
Could it be someone whose cackle is even more legendary than that of Harris?
Enter Hillary
Given these clear weaknesses on the part of Harris, it is possible that former First Lady Hillary Clinton is readying to run once more.
Already, Clinton has been making the rounds on the major “news” networks to share her “wisdom” about the Russia-Ukraine crisis (which she helped to foster as Obama’s first secretary of state). Meanwhile, she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have restarted the controversial (and notoriously corrupt) Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). Founded after President Clinton he left office in 2000, CGI was designed for only two things: laundering foreign cash to the Clintons while laying the groundwork for Hillary’s “inevitable” presidency.
While Hillary Clinton has kept a relatively low-profile in public since her disastrous 2016 defeat, she has not given up the ghost entirely. Instead, Clinton has been working quietly to restore the network that was shattered by Trump’s presidential win. By 2024, enough pieces will have been put in place for her to announce her third run for the White House.
This is all but certain if Kamala Harris assumes the Oval Office after the expected disastrous midterm elections and predictably flounders. With little talent available to replace Harris as the frontrunner in 2024, Hillary will offer herself as the only one capable of running things; a steady hand to walk the country into the third decade of the 21st century.
This, of course, will cause fissures and much backbiting within the Democratic Party.
We’ve known since Edward Klein’s reporting years ago that the Clintons and Obamas don’t particularly care for one another. It was Hillary Clinton’s campaign, remember, that created the “birther” conspiracy in 2008 about Obama’s Kenyan lineage—a smear that, to this day, Republicans are wrongly accused of having crafted.
After the nasty 2008 Democratic Party presidential primary in which Obama defeated Clinton, it was Michelle Obama who insisted her husband not nominate Hillary as his vice president (for obvious reasons) but instead give it to Biden and make Clinton his secretary of state. And throughout the Obama Administration, the two powerful families never truly got along. They merely tolerated and used each other for their own Machiavellian purposes. The last thing that either family wants is to see the other rise to dominate the DNC.
From the moment she announced her run for president in 2020, Kamala Harris was the Obamas’ preferred pick. When she could not achieve victory, the Obamas shifted to Biden. But Biden’s presidency was never really the endgame for the Obamas. He was too old and too senile for them. Harris remained the bedrock of their strategy for the future of the Democratic Party.
The Clintons, however, likely have other plans. And with Harris’ awful showing, there is a chance not only to wrest the DNC away from Obama’s Chicago clique, but possibly to restore the Clintons primacy in the party. Yes, Hillary will be 77 by then but, sadly, these days being old is not a limiting factor for running—and becoming—president.
The Trump Factor
The only hitch for Hillary will be whether her old Republican nemesis, Donald Trump, opts to run for reelection. Just as in 2016, Hillary likely could beat any Republican nominee she goes up against—other than the gonzo real estate magnate-turned-reality-television-star-turned-president, that is. It is my belief that, unless the current spate of investigations into his finances and other accusations the Left has lobbed at the 45th president stick, Trump will absolutely run for a second term.
For those wishing for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to run, if Trump is running, he will not.
Trump has made it clear that, if 2016 was the political portrayal of his first bestselling book, The Art of the Deal, 2024 would be the real-world portrayal of his second book, The Art of the Comeback—and how fitting would it be for the billionaire to go up against his old rival, Clinton, once more?
Thus, 2024 could be a bizarre replay of America’s most interesting presidential election in modern history. Only this time, Trump will be angrier and out for even more revenge than he was in 2016.
Should Trump run again (which seems likely at this point), and should things continue deteriorating under the Democratic Party’s leadership as they presently are, then there is simply no way that Kamala Harris could make a serious run for president. At that point, lacking another viable, younger alternative, Clinton becomes the most likely Democratic Party nominee.
And both she and Trump have unfinished business.
Should Clinton run against Trump, it will be ratings gold and a made-to-order television spectacle. Yet, one can expect very similar results to 2016, if only because the Democrats will have so badly botched the previous four years. One thing is certain: 2024 is shaping up to be as wild of an election cycle as 2016 was.