Rarely mentioned during the Democratic National Convention this week is the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris is the party's first nominee for president in 56 years who didn't enter a single primary.
Her nomination, of course, was a last-minute situation that occurred after Joe Biden was essentially forced out of the race a month ago by the opposition of major party contributors alarmed at the thought of the president facing former President Donald Trump after a televised debate that all sides concluded was a disaster for Biden.
The same Democrat powers then moved quickly to ensure Harris had the backing of all the Biden delegates who no longer had a candidate they were committed to.
But none of the delegates and party activists who spoke to Newsmax at the convention in Chicago voiced any remorse about the way Biden was shoved aside and Harris swiftly became nominee by default.
"A nasty battle would have not been helpful to the party," Bob Creamer, veteran Democrat strategist and husband of Rep. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., told Newsmax. "And that's precisely what would have happened had [Biden] got out sooner and a crowded nomination battle followed."
Asked if the pushing aside Biden followed by Harris' quick wrap-up of the nomination was fair to the Democratic grassroots, Creamer shot back, "Yes, it was a fair process. Kamala called all potential rivals, including our own Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and they all said they were behind her."
Creamer, author of the new book "Nuts and Bolts: The Formula For Progressive Electoral Success," called Harris' selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate "a magnificent choice."
"He was a coach and teacher so he appeals to the ordinary voter. And he has a very progressive record in Congress and as governor."
Asked what he thought of the forcing out of Biden and the resulting wrap-up of nomination by Harris, Democrat State Committeeman John Rogers of Biloxi, Mississippi replied: "It is what it is."
"I don't think a nomination battle was necessary," he told Newsmax. "Kamala has already been tested by being elected state attorney general and U.S. senator from California. Look, this was not a bad way to nominate a candidate at a time when things have been getting a little unpredictable. Look at COVID."
Rogers' view that unpredictable situations require fresh means of solving them was seconded by William and Mary College Professor Emeritus Ronald Rapoport.
"It's not that much different from Lyndon Johnson announcing he wasn't running and the party turning to Vice President [Hubert] Humphrey," Rapoport said. "LBJ did make his announcement in March, so there was a little more time for the Democrats to settle on a candidate."
But, Rapoport noted, "this telescoping of the process of nominating a candidate in both 1968 and now made it necessary for the elites of the Democratic Party to play a major role in the selection of a nominee. But they played this role with support from the grassroots, so it's not that weird."
Whether a nomination contest with several candidates spread out over months would have also ended with Harris as the candidate is debatable. But that Democrat activists don't have a problem with the sacking of their president and snap choice of a fresh nominee is inarguable,
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.