Photo: AFP
One month ago, President Donald Trump prepared to take the stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, confident that he was coasting to an easy victory against Joe Biden in November. To say a lot has happened in 30 days is an understatement. Democrats have since shrugged off Biden for Kamala Harris, and the suddenly surging Democrats are riding a wave of positive emotions and poll numbers into their convention next week. Strategist and committeeman Robert Zimmerman is among the happy delegates heading to Chicago; he appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program and said the decision to put up a united front for Kamala Harris before heading to the Windy City was an easy one.
“We could have put on a great show for you, and that would have been fun for the media,” Zimmerman told Berman and Riedel. “Or we could have put together a convention that would be united behind nominating a Democrat, a great Democrat, and also defeating Donald Trump. And so, what you saw was it wasn’t that she was anointed… The delegates collectively came together, really within a matter of 48 hours, to really rally to her candidacy, and we did it for a couple of reasons. One, she is a respected figure, an admired figure in Democratic circles. Secondly, she has been out there on the issues, and people respect that. But I think more than anything else, we wanted to make sure that we were united and we were focused on winning the election in November.”
Zimmerman dismissed the notion that Democrats did a 180 on Harris, saying the move to embrace the Vice-President as their great hope in November was all part of the process. “I need Dramamine to go with that spin- come on! When has there ever been a Vice-President who hasn’t been the subject of those kinds of stories. That’s the territory; Vice-Presidents are always targets that way. But the bigger point is, you know, people could have run. Any number of people could have run for the nomination. It wasn’t closed to them… Frankly, you want to talk about party line unity or party loyalty- look at the way the Republicans rallied around Donald Trump, even after the mocked and humiliated and mocked so many of them, even after he frankly wouldn’t even debate his Republican opponents.”
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