In early June of 2022, the New York Times posed the nervous question that everybody's asking these days: “Should Biden Run in 2024?” When it came time for the inevitable handwringing about Biden alternatives, the article rounded up the usual suspects, but all of them were candidates who tried and failed miserably to gain any traction with their own presidential bids in 2020. At the top of the list is of course Kamala Harris, but her poll numbers are now so low that Tucker Carlson derisively endorsed her to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024. Kamala, God bless her, looks so good on paper, but she just doesn't seem able to generate any presidential mojo.
Two weeks after the Times article appeared, The Hill published their own nervous piece, headlined “Five under-the-radar Democrats who could run for president in 2024.” There were some cool, viable, and recognizable names on the list, like Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Stacey Abrams of Georgia. Of those three Gretchen is the most viable, IMHO, but she's a bit of a polarizing force in wingnut world. She incurred their wrath with her COVID mandates, and there was, of course, that stupid plot to kidnap her. Maybe the whole kidnapping thing will help increase her bona fides with voters who aren't bat-shit crazy. Gretchen is good, and a candidate from the critical state of Michigan would certainly make for a formidable opponent.
The Hill article mentioned one other guy in their under-the-radar list, a relatively unknown California representative named Ro Khanna. I'd heard of him, but I didn't know much about him, so I read his Wikipedia page and I liked what I saw. If you don't know anything about Ro, I encourage you to read up on him too. Ro's a guy who we should all keep a watch on, but let's address the giant elephant in the room: For reasons that are now painfully obvious to everyone with a brain and a uterus, the United States desperately needs the next President of the United States to be a woman. That's my segue to talk about another under-the-radar representative from California, Katie Porter. Like Ro she underperforms in only one area, and that's the name recognition department. And that's a damned shame, because Katie Porter is an amazing human being.
Here's the tl;dr version of her bio: Porter was first elected to Congress in 2018, in a California district where
no Democrat had ever won. She did it while raising three kids by herself. She
left her abusive husband in 2013, and she's been driving solo in her 2008 minivan ever since. She is the US Congress’
only single mom.
Porter was born in Iowa, a few months before Nixon resigned the presidency. She went to Yale, and she interned for Chuck Grassley, the conservative old curmudgeon of a Senator from Iowa who's been around for about 10 billion years. Katie graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she studied under Elizabeth Warren. She became a tenured law professor at Cal-Irvine at the ripe old age of 37, which any tenured professor will tell you ain't bad. Her specialties are banking, finance, and consumer protection. If you've never seen her eye-watering takedown of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon or hapless pharma CEOs like Richard Gonzalez, please, pause here and click the links. You're gonna fall in love with Katie right now, like I already have.
If you're a Democrat, or you're simply not a wingnut, you have to be getting a little nervous about the political future like I am. Our search for a savior is becoming increasingly desperate, and there appear to be no rising
rock stars on the horizon, no new Barack Obamas who will climb to national
prominence in time to rescue us from the coming zombie apocalypse. (Michelle: Any chance that you'd reconsider? Oprah? What about you? AOC?)
Katie Porter could fill the star-power vacuum. She's capable, she's colorful, she has a quick wit and a marvelous, dry sense of humor.
She's relatable. She's every woman's everywoman. She's from flyover country,
USA, and she possesses a crossover appeal that few Democrats can match. It's
going to be very difficult for Republicans to throw rocks at her. They will
anyway, but those rocks are going to bounce harmlessly off her single mom
armor. Katie Porter has the potential to become every wingnut's worst nightmare.
In my ideal world, DNC chair Jaime Harrison would gently persuade Diane Feinstein to step down, and Gavin Newsom would select Katie Porter to fill Feinstein's unexpired term. I find it regrettable that Newsom passed over Katie when he filled Kamala Harris' vacant seat. Elevating Porter to Senate status probably isn't necessary, but it would certainly be helpful. Joe and Kamala, recognizing the grim political reality, would step aside and make way for Katie. So would the rest of the aging Democratic cohort. Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, or Jamie Harrison himself would make excellent running mates, but if any one of those guys is chosen, Katie's name should be at the top of the ticket. If you pair Katie with Gretchen Whitmer, either name at the top of the ticket would work, but I still think that nominating Katie Porter for President might represent Democrat’s best shot at retaining the White House.
In a recent interview with The Financial Times, Hillary Clinton ruled out a presidential run in 2024, saying that a challenge to Joe Biden would be "disruptive." She has a point, but let's imagine for a moment how disruptive the second coming of a President Donald Trump would be, or even worse, the first coming of a President Ron DeSantis. The disruption caused by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe versus Wade should convince any sane American with a brain that it’s finally time to elect a woman to be President of the United States. Democrats need to be a little disruptive, and they need to start talking about Katie Porter.
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