...politically this could be one of the most fascinating races in recent history and has a chance to be absolutely explosive...you could really see someone come out of nowhere in this race.
This is a multiple layer problem for the DNC.
Three more years of Biden/Harris at this trajectory propels Donald Trump back into some kind of contender situation. I didn't think that was remotely possible at the end of 2020 but here we are in a place no one believed was possible. So that's a problem for America right off the bat. This country doesn't need four more years of Donald Trump. No more aging over the top controversial lighting rods. The entire world is a target rich environment of nails and Trump believes he's the world's last hammer.
If the DNC pulls Kamala Harris for Gavin Newsom, that's a massive optical problem. You are pulling the potential for the first female black POTUS for a privileged smug white elitist that was soaked in Getty influence and money. Do you want me to say it? If I was running media optics for RNC HQ, the best way to tagline Newsom is keep calling him a human Ken Doll. It's a quick simple dirty image that smears him to the general public and will trigger low information voters. Newsom's problems are vast but the real sticker shock will come from sleeping with another one of his staffers. That's been almost wholly suppressed in the MSM but that won't last in a true POTUS run. That also means it could be a cascade of other "incidents" Newsom's EScores test very highly with middle age women. Basically, like Clinton, lots of suburban women might find him good looking. One cheating incident where he slept with the wife of his campaign manager in SF long ago is one thing, but a pattern of behavior will sink him to female voters. On the flip side, Harris has been outed with sleeping with Willie Brown to get ahead politically. Being seen and profiled out as a high profile calculating "side chick" is not going to help your already toxic political brand. One more dug up incident with a married man for Harris finishes her with female voters for good.
Newsom might be able to beat Donald Trump. The problem is your Party can't push intersectionality and claim racism around every corner and then pull the rug out from under Harris for the archetype of the condescending white establishment.
If you run Newsom in 2024 and he loses, then you've neutralized him for 2028. And by 2028, Nancy Pelosi might not live that long, so all that leverage behind Newsom disappears. But Newsom just barely survived recall so he has no incentive to try to stick around. If Pelosi passes away, he risks getting primaried at some point, which ends his POTUS potential. Right now DNC HQ is probably hoping Pelosi rediscovers Cross Fit and gets on Steve Nash's zero sugar diet and only gorges on Tom Brady's specially conceived avocado ice cream to live long enough to keep Newsom in play. If you neutralize Newsom and no one else emerges, the only one left with brand name value by 2028 is AOC. If your Party appartus keeps failing upwards until they accidentally make AOC a legitimate POTUS contender then the question emerges if you deserve to never win again for anything period.
Hence the other part of the problem. Getting a POTUS candidate in place takes time. It takes at minimum a full cycle but most of the time will take two cycles. The RNC already had their long term eyes on Nikki Haley back during Obama's reign. You need someone "brand name" because you need someone already established in the daily media cycle. Also big corporate interests and other special interests only care about driving big money into known quantities ( i.e. who they know can be controlled and who will push policy their way, no one wants a repeat of rebooting the political structure like dealing with JFK anymore )
If you know you are going to lose 2024 (i.e. facing Nikki Haley), then you have to send Kamala Harris up to be a human political punching bag. No point is getting someone with long term potential smeared as a "loser" in the eyes of the public. And you can still push intersectionality when she loses, and still claim the Republican party is full of nothing but hillbilly bigots and racists who use empty Cool Whip containers as fine dining china. But that would be conceding a loss to try to hold onto Big Blue strongholds that are faltering in the hopes that 2028 will be a better play.
No matter what happens, no matter what road is taken, America just plain loses here.
When your best option for a "win" is that Gavin Newsom is a walking human political sock puppet and a then 84 year old Nancy Pelosi will shadow run this country, I'm not sure I see any real upside.
We could all be sitting in Tulsi Gabbard's second term right now. No J6. No mean tweets. No Afghanistan. No Border Crisis. No impeachment hearings. No napping on a national stage. No cackling. Some of you will label her a DINO but she appears to be a functional rational leader, albeit with too much spin on the overrated servant based leadership model, despite being a grifter like all the rest of them. Gabbard looks like someone you would be OK with having as a neighbor and having a decent adult intelligent conversation with between two driveways. Instead we get codependent caricatures built mostly on egregious shock marketing.
I don't think there's time left to have someone "come out of nowhere" That would far better than what is likely to happen though.
If you look throughout all of recorded human history, America right now is at the point where if someone truly popular with the American people emerged and looked like a decent civil moderate intelligent contender who was also a rare non sociopath, they would likely be killed. It's gotten to the point where any hope for the average American would end in a bullet to the head. I thought this nation wouldn't get back there after the JFK/RFK hits. But here we are. Again.
I just see a few narrow roads where the average American loses no matter what.
