After many years of defending Joe Biden and his approach to politics, often in the face of naysayers who said his belief in bipartisanship and norms was antiquated, I joined Team Pass-the-Torch in my most recent column for Washington Monthly.
Yet so far this week we’re seeing more Democratic energy going towards either sticking with Biden (driven by the president’s defiance) or organising a slapdash pseudo-primary involving town hall debates before the convention.
I do not find any of the arguments for these paths convincing. And nor is the case Biden made for himself on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “All the data shows that the average Democrat out there… still want[s] me to be the nominee,” Biden said.
This is not quite true. The data is mixed. The recent Wall Street Journal poll found “two-thirds of Democrats would replace Biden on the ballot with another nominee,” and CNN’s poll found 56 per cent of Democrats think they have a “better chance of winning with someone else” than Biden. But 59 per cent of Democrats in the CBS News/YouGov poll say Biden “should be running.” In The New York Times/Siena poll a slight 48 per cent plurality of Democrats declare Biden “should remain” the nominee (versus 47 per cent who say he shouldn’t.)
But to the extent it is true, so what? The question is not whether Biden can retain base voters but whether he can win back swing voters and actually win the election.
As Trump ticks up in polls since the debate, Biden has not and cannot articulate what he can do to regain momentum. His entire strategy was premised on proposing an early debate to put the age issue to bed. That’s now inoperative, and there is no obvious backup plan.
Biden also pointed to a “neurological physical in February” to reassure the public he is in fine shape, and his doctor released a letter yesterday saying he hasn’t seen a neurologist since. That was five months ago. Something could have happened since then, such as a mini-stroke or an acceleration of a previously undiagnosed condition.
Considering Biden’s late June debate performance was much worse than his State of the Union address in March, his hour-long interview with Howard Stern in April and his appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the next day, a fresh examination — recently recommended by Sanjay Gupta, the CNN medical correspondent and neurosurgeon — appears warranted.
Also unconvincing is the idea of a Biden withdrawal followed by a “mini-primary” — essentially a series of town hall events for candidates before the Democratic convention when delegates would choose the new nominee. Versions proposed by James Carville and two prominent Democratic donors involve town hall events hosted by celebrities. Carville offers Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The other proposal suggests Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift.
Carville would limit the candidates to eight, chosen by the former presidents. The donor proposal envisions convention delegates casting a preliminary vote to whittle the invite list to six.
Carville argues this will allow delegates to “grill and stress-test these leaders.” But you can’t stress-test candidates in a few weeks. True vetting takes months, and sometimes even that isn’t enough to ensure no skeletons are rattling around.
Another supposed selling point is the excitement such an open process with celebrity moderators would generate. Carville argues that the town halls would “generate record numbers of viewers” as “the young, the old and everyone in between will tune in to see history being made in real time.”
Allow me to submit the possibility that most Americans are tired of excitement. Biden was elected in the first place to bring back normalcy. He darn well almost did — churning out bipartisan wins, avoiding debt limit and government shutdown crises, and holding NATO together — except he’s now induced mass anxiety over the possibility of his cognitive decline.
The mini-primary proposals appear to presume Biden withdraws from the race without resigning the presidency (since that would tip the scales in favour of the person who would become president, Kamala Harris).
That would not remotely soothe anxieties. As the Washington Monthly’s Matthew Cooper wrote last week:
Remaining a caretaker president for seven months after a Democratic, if not national, panic over his competence is risky and untenable. By what logic is Biden, 81, visibly slipping in his gait, carriage, and verbal acuity, too old to run for president but just fine serving as president?
Americans do not need a month-long chaotic spectacle of a mini-primary while they continue to worry about the faculties of the sitting commander-in-chief.
The simplest, cleanest, most anxiety-neutralising path is Biden’s resignation, and Harris’s elevation to the presidency.
Overnight, America would have a president with cogent speech, without any apparent health issues, and who has gone through more stress-testing than any other Democrat in the country.
Of course, Harris is no lock to win. No Democrat is. No potential candidate stands out in trial heat polling versus Trump. And such polling doesn’t tell us in advance how any candidate would hold up to the inevitable barrage of attacks.
Harris, however, is the only potential candidate other than Biden who can be president during the campaign. And that informs how a Harris campaign could and should unfold. A Harris campaign should be a quasi-Rose Garden campaign, showing the country how she would do the job… by doing the job.
Trump campaigned for weeks by making brief appearances outside a dingy courtroom, without losing his lead.
I’d take my chances with Harris, Monday through Friday, updating the public on new developments and policy initiatives with daily remarks in the Rose Garden, answering questions in the White House Press Briefing Room, and at least one prime-time East Room press conference.
Then on the weekends she could blitz the battleground states with rallies and local media interviews. With the battleground narrowed to about seven states (plus the congressional district representing Omaha, Nebraska), she could hit most of them every weekend if not all.
We don’t know for a fact whether the Bay Area progressive can persuade swing voters in the Upper Midwest, Southeast and Southwest, while fending off every scorched-earth smear tactic imaginable. But we know that she has had more practice dealing with such smears than anyone else.
And unlike a fresh face who would enter the race with unfairly high expectations, Harris could benefit from low expectations, which can be more easily cleared with the trappings of the presidency. Plus, she could get on with the campaign immediately, and not waste time with a convoluted mini-primary, when there’s not a minute of campaigning to spare.
Democratic party leaders need not shut down the ability for others to compete against Harris at the convention, but they have no obligation to try to book Taylor Swift for a town hall forum ahead of time.
Harris could even magnanimously welcome anyone else interested in the job to compete for it at the convention, and preclude complaints that backroom decisions shut down democratic processes.
But chances are most Democrats would be relieved to end this period of terrifying uncertainty. Even the most ambitious ones likely wouldn’t want to hurt their own careers by prolonging the agony, just to argue they are somehow more qualified than the first woman of colour to be vice president and president.
Democrats would do themselves and every American a favour by expediting this process, forcing Biden to accept all the data showing his path to victory is no longer visible, and rallying around the simplest path forward.
Elevating the first woman of colour to the presidency is exciting enough. •
