(AFP) – US President Joe Biden will deliver a bittersweet farewell address at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday, passing the torch to Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee for November’s election. Less than a month after his stunning withdrawal and Harris’s ascent, Biden can expect a hero’s send-off from many of the same people who helped push him out due to concerns about his age.
The 81-year-old will tout Harris — America’s first female, Black and South Asian vice president — as the best person to finish the job he started of protecting American democracy from Republican challenger Donald Trump. Democrats are united behind Harris, who will appear briefly on stage with Biden and give her own hugely anticipated speech Thursday. But amid the jubilation, there are nerves that major protests in Chicago against Biden’s support for Israel in its war on Hamas in Gaza will expose painful party divisions and badly overshadow the Harris coronation. Tens of thousands of demonstrators were expected to mass just outside the ring of heavy security shielding the convention center.
Biden said on Sunday he felt “good, real good” about his upcoming speech, which in addition to boosting Harris will give him an opportunity to frame his five-decades-long political legacy. “I think you will see a very proud president,” Cedric Richmond, co-chair of the Harris-Walz campaign, said. Democrats will see Biden the “statesman,” while embracing Harris as ready to “carry the torch forward.”
Now a lame-duck, single-term president, Biden will be all too aware that his legacy hinges on whether Harris can go on to beat 78-year-old Trump — and that if she doesn’t, many will blame him for clinging on so long. First Lady Jill Biden, a staunch defender of her husband who was with him throughout the final stages of his fateful decision to drop out on July 21, will also take to the stage in Chicago.
There will undoubtedly be mixed emotions for the aging president, who has watched Harris chase down Trump in the polls and enthuse voters in a way that he never managed during his time as candidate. And, underlining his changed status, Biden won’t stay on at the convention after his speech, instead heading off immediately to start a six-day holiday in California.
“I’m nostalgic,” said LaurieBeth Hager, a state representative from North Dakota in Chicago for the convention, hailing Biden as a “great president.” Biden is still remembered fondly by his party as the man who beat Trump in 2020, then guided America out of the trauma of the January 6, 2021, pro-Trump Capitol assault and the Covid pandemic. And while Biden’s initial determination to stay in the race despite a disastrous debate performance against Trump in June smacked of pride, there is widespread gratitude for his eventual sacrifice.
“I’ll have Kleenexes packed along with me tomorrow, but I also am amazed at the courage, political courage, it took for him to make this decision,” Hager said. Harris, 59, has managed to turn the White House race on its head since Biden stepped aside, reaching out especially to young, female and Black voters who had switched off from a battle between two elderly men.
Former president Trump, meanwhile, has been sent into a tailspin by what he calls the “coup” by Democrats. Just over a month ago he seemed to be cruising to victory after escaping an assassination attempt, and then making a triumphant, ear-bandaged appearance at the Republican convention in Milwaukee. But he has struggled to recalibrate his campaign to deal with Harris, falling back instead on personal insults and rambling speeches, despite appeals from top Republicans to focus.
While Democrats meet in Chicago, Trump will be crisscrossing the country, with rallies scheduled in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Arizona through the week. In another attempt to shift attention from Harris, Republicans in the House of Representatives lodged a formal impeachment report against Biden. The report accuses Biden of corruption linked to his son Hunter’s foreign business affairs, but brings up no new evidence in a long-running inquiry that has failed to find any smoking gun.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
