Here’s How Joe Biden Channels Lincoln to Secure His Legacy

Over the following six to seven weeks, the Democrats will begin to show to the world that they have a talented “bench” of governors, senators, and House members, as well as mayors and former mayors. In this period not only do Harris and Biden hit the campaign trail together but so do many key surrogates, again showing that the Democratic Party has a powerful, hopeful, reviving agenda for the nation and the most pluralistic coalition ever assembled. And it has youth and experience.

This plan acknowledges that Harris is the one legitimate person at this particular moment who should succeed Biden. She is the vice president, and Joe Biden owes her and his party this act of both boldness and prudence. Making this choice gives Biden, admired by many of us, the chance to take a long bow in history, to go out with glory. It will still be his convention until the final day. And he will always be remembered not only for defeating Trump, reviving the economy, and saving NATO but for a humility and patriotism all too rare in American life.

I am more than aware that Harris has her detractors on the question of electability. But “folks!” as Biden would say, let’s be real. She is smart, extremely well versed in issues, experienced now on the foreign policy stage for more than three years, and the greatest voice in our politics on the issue of women’s reproductive freedom—which is about everyone’s freedom. Harris’s first run for the presidency failed, the border is still a nightmare issue, and she will have to find some distance from Biden on Israel-Gaza. But she has been in the room for every major decision, foreign and domestic, and that matters. She is brilliant on the issue of guns, and she now has a full grasp of the stakes of holding together the Western alliance in Europe and beyond. The country has not seen enough of Kamala Harris.