Gavin Newson and Gretchen Whitmer: The Democrats' winning ticket is sitting on the bench
Following President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the presidential debate on June 27, 2024 and his failure to ease doubts in his interview on ABC with George Stephanopoulos on July 5, Democratic panic over Biden’s candidacy for the presidency has only grown.
Democratic leaders have voiced grave concern in private, but hidden behind the oft-repeated mantra that it is up to Joe Biden to decide whether to withdraw from the race.
That is like saying that a drunken steamboat captain who is steering the boat towards a waterfall has the sole power of decision over whether he should yield the ship’s wheel to the first mate or someone else who is sober. Instead, the passengers, whose deaths become more probable each minute as the steamboat approaches the waterfall, need to rush the captain and wrest the ship’s wheel from his drunken grasp.
We in America face a similar moment, as Joe Biden threatens to take the steamboat of America over the waterfall that leads to a Trump victory in November, and the triumph of the fascist movement led by Trump and the pro-Russian Republican Party that believe in neither democracy nor the rule of law.
Democrats, like the the passengers on the steamboat, need to rush President Biden and seize the Democratic ticket from the death grip of a vain and stubborn old man with diminishing mental faculties.
One obstacle holding them back has been widespread uncertainty about who could replace Biden and Kamala Harris on the ticket.
The answer has been sitting on the bench and hiding in plain sight,
Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, two governors of large and important states, would make up a powerful Democratic ticket that could blow Trump put of the water, and along with him Republican candidates for the House and the Senate.
Newsom and Whitmer could lead the Democrats to a landslide in the presidential election, retention of and even gains in the Senate, and a large majority in the House.
Gavin Newsom (b. 1967) has served as governor of California since 2019, Previously, he was Lieutenant Governor from 2011 to 2019, and Mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
Newsom is handsome, charming, hihgly intelligent, and extremely well-spoken. He is governor of a state with 39 million people and the fifth largest exonomy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 36th most populous nation in the world. He also has international experience of the kind that is sorely needed in thecWhite House.
Gretchen Whitmer (b. 1971) has served as governor of Michigan since 2019. She served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006 and in the Michigan Senate from 2006 to 2015.
She won reelection as governor in 2022 by a margin of some 11 points. With Michigan and Wisconsin being among the seven swing states that will be critical in the Noveber, 2024 elections, she would add significant electoral strengh to the Democratic ticket.
Will the Democrats rush the drunken steamboat captain and wrest control of the ship’s wheel from his stubborn and determined grasp? Will they nominate Newsom and Whitmer to be their candidates on the Democratic ticket? This would be a powerful ticket that could lead to a Democratic sweep in 3024.
The future of democracy in America and of a civilization based on the U.N. Charter-based international legal order may depend on the answers to these questions.
James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities. He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021. What We Knew and When We Knew It (forthcoming in August, 2024).
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