Betting Markets Sidling Toward Kamala; But What About Michelle?

Last week, I posted on why, even though VP Harris is hilariously unpopular, “It’s Gotta Be Kamala.”

Tuesday morning there was a surge in the betting markets toward Kamala as the Democratic nominee:

Biden’s drop was perhaps due to an article running at the top of NYTimes.com:

Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome

People who have spent time with President Biden over the last few months or so said the lapses appear to have grown more frequent, more pronounced and, after Thursday’s debate, more worrisome.

But why Kamala instead of Newsom as the beneficiary?

The path of least resistance for the Democrats is Kamala, ideally for them with Joe announcing his retirement soon for later this summer. Kamala would thus go into the campaign not as the real life version of Selina Meyer, the shallow, ditzy Veep played by Julia-Louis Dreyfus on Veep, where she deals with trivial VP questions, but the suddenly dignified new President taking on two unexpected burdens at once.

Of course, she would still be Kamala, DEI President. But she’d look good compared to recent Biden, and swing voters would likely be sympathetic toward the Democrats, toward Joe for falling on his sword, and as American they would hope Kamala would be an adequate President for however much time she has left.

The best alternative to Harris for the Dems would be Michelle Obama, who would solve their DEI problems with not making the black woman Veep the nominee. But that probably means Joe would stick it out to January, which wouldn’t be as good for the Democrats as him resigning now. (Or Kamala could be President for six months but Michelle would be the nominee. But all these more convoluted plans are likely to cause more problems than they solve: e.g., a President Kamala and a Candidate Michelle would likely step on each other’s toes, perhaps leading to hissing cat fights in public.)

And, has Michelle ever wanted office? My impression is that the bane of her otherwise pleasant life is that she inherited the shoulders of her older brother Craig, a power forward who was twice Ivy League basketball player of the year.

On the outside, she has these massively masculine shoulders, leading to no end of nasty jokes about her femininity. When she was young, she was driven crazy by all the people recommending to her that she play basketball. She hates basketball.

That’s because on the inside, though, Michelle is a womanly woman. As First Lady, she undertook extremely feminine First Lady projects like fitness, nutrition, and gardening.

Right now, she’s exactly where she wanted to be at this point in her life: married to a famous man, rich, popular, living a retired First Lady’s best life. The one thing she likely misses most at this point is grandchildren, and those probably won’t be far off. Being President herself is not likely at all high on her bucket list.

But, still, who knows?