A Washington Post columnist thinks President Biden would ease concerns about his advanced age by kicking unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris off the ticket and replacing her with Hillary Clinton.
Kathleen Parker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who weighs in on politics and culture for The Washington Post, said that the 76-year-old former secretary of state who lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump would extricate the US from its “old-White-men dilemma.”
“No one has mentioned her as a possible running mate for Biden far as I know, but why not replace Harris with Clinton?” Parker wrote in her most recent column.
Parker cited the 81-year-old Biden’s “steady decline the past few years” which have been made more apparent through “his stumbles, his search for words, his occasional blank stare” — all of which are now “impossible to ignore.”
She wrote that neither Biden or Trump would be eligible to run for Congress in North Dakota after that state’s legislature passed a measure that establishes an upper age limit for candidates.
Parker argued that having Harris on the ticket would deter already-skeptical voters due to the vice president’s “competency, or lack thereof.”
Having Clinton on the ticket instead of Harris would instead reassure voters that if the need arises she would be able to step in for Biden during his second term, according to Parker.
“At 76, she might want no part of it, but it’s hard to retire when you feel your job isn’t done,” the columnist wrote.
“If Biden needs to step down, even those who didn’t vote for Clinton would have confidence in her ability to keep the country on track.”
Parker added that “it’s just a thought, but worse ideas have met with regrettable success.”
She wrote that replacing Harris could be “risky” given that it may “jeopardize Black votes” but that “Democrats…want to win elections” and that their voters would back candidates “presumably to advance a worldview consistent with their values.”
Parker suggested that Harris be named attorney general in a second Biden administration in exchange for her agreeing to bow out from the ticket.
She noted that Clinton was “inserting herself into the news cycle” by endorsing Westchester County Executive George Latimer in his race to unseat Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Polls show Latimer well ahead of Bowman — a member of the progressive “Squad” of Democratic lawmakers that includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar.
Public opinion polls show that Trump is poised to defeat Biden this November.
The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll of 632 likely voters in Iowa shows Trump leading Biden 50% to 32%. The survey included third-party candidates, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 9%.
Pollster Frank Lutz said the numbers are “bad news” for Biden, particularly because it indicates he could lose competitive Midwestern states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.
The Post has sought comment from the Biden campaign, Harris and Clinton.
