A woman for president in 2024

What if we elected a woman to the US Presidency in 2024?

Hillary Rodham Clinton famously ran against Donald Trump in the 2016 "None of the above, please God, please" presidential election. In one of the early rallies in her campaign, she called out to a largely female audience, "Who wants to see a woman president?" 

As I have said before, Clinton didn't lose because she was a woman. She lost because she was ... um ... objectionable. Undesirable. An even worse choice than Trump, if such a thing were possible.

I had also said that I would entertain a matchup between two female statesmen (stateswomen? statespersons? respected leaders, anyway) like Condoleeza Rice and Madeleine Albright.

This year, we have two new possibilities.

On the right, we have Nikki Hailey who, in spite of her support of Donald Trump, has shown herself to be an adequate and able politician and diplomat.

On the left, we have Kamala Harris who has spent the last four years in President Biden's shadow, the spare, as it were. Before becoming Vice President, she was also an accomplished leader and politician. If, for some reason, Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, Harris would be a good replacement for him.

Here's the two of them, having fun together. (Not a real picture. Credit: OpenArtAI)

It's a pretty even matchup, with an interesting twist.

Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley (from Wikipedia)

Nikki Haley was born in 1972, in South Carolina. Her parents were Sikh Indian immigrants. Her birth name was Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She goes by her middle name, and "Haley" is her married name.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris (from Wikipedia)

Kamala Harris was born in 1964 in California. Her mother was a Tamil Indian immigrant, and her father was a Jamaican immigrant. Her birth name was Kamala Devi Harris.

The Bottom Line

So not only would we have two women running against each other, but we would have two Indian Americans, both of them children of immigrants, running against each other.

Both of them have a net positive track record and no serious scandals to worry about (if we ignore Haley's support of Donald Trump). Both are refreshingly young, compared to the current front-runners, meaning that they won't die or go senile in office. And both have a lot of potential.

Haley vs. Harris for 2024. It has a nice ring to it.

It's a choice I'd like to have to make.

Three things Joe Biden must do immediately

 Here are three things Joe Biden must do immediately:

1. Have his lawyers file injunctions in a Federal court, forbidding anyone in the Trump administration from burning, erasing, or otherwise destroying anything, starting right now. An accounting of this administration needs to take place, and Trump and his minions have proven their willingness to hide or destroy evidence wherever they can.

2. Put safeguards in place to keep Trump, his families, his staff, and anyone else, from looting the White House like the Clintons did on their way out the door. Tag and inventory everything, and inspect every box, bag, briefcase, suitcase, purse, or container, exiting the White House. And do something to hold these people personally and financially accountable if anything is missing.

3. Have the FBI, CIA, or NSA take immediate steps to secure and protect executive branch electronic assets, right now. I suspect that Trump, and everybody who works for him, will try to sabotage these assets. (This includes that secure server with the Trump phone conversations on it.) I submit that their sabotage will be for two reasons: first, to protect themselves and The Boss from prosecution; and second, to maliciously make it difficult for the incoming administration to do their jobs.