WILL DEMOCRATS SUFFER IMPULSE BUYER’S REMORSE? The most striking thing about the Democratic move to anoint Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee is how incredibly fast it was. President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race early Sunday afternoon. Thirty-two hours later, less than a day and a half, the party’s top leadership, plus a majority of the nearly 4,000 Democratic convention delegates, had committed to support Harris. By late Monday night, the Harris campaign posted a message headlined, “Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris on Becoming the Presumptive Democratic Nominee for President.”

People from all over the political world were amazed at what Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) called the “lightning quick unification” of the party. No, it was not surprising that the party would endorse its sitting vice president once the president removed himself from the scene. But even with Harris’s skimpy record and low approval ratings, nobody appeared to give supporting her a moment’s thought — they just acted. It would not be an exaggeration to call the move to Harris a stampede.