Mr. Biden Must Step Aside

We didn’t watch the debate.  We had an important conflict, so we recorded it, and I could have watched it by now; but the unanimous assessments of pundits across the political spectrum has made it unnecessary.  I see no need to watch a guy for whom I have genuine respect, who I think has done a really good job as president, embarrass himself.  Over the last several days, these pages joined hundred of pundits in suggesting what strategies President Joe Biden might use to debate former President Donald Trump.  He apparently didn’t effectively execute in any manner.  It doesn’t matter why it happened – I understand that the President’s apologists are claiming he had a cold – it happened. 

Describing the first – and ultimately, pivotal – 1960 debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, Theodore White wrote over sixty years ago in The Making of the President 1960: 

“There was, first and above all, the crude, overwhelming impression that side by side the two seemed evenly matched – and this even matching in the popular imagination was for Kennedy a major victory. [Emphasis Added]”

By all accounts, the “crude, overwhelming impression” left with voters last night was that the 81-year-old President is not up to another four years.  It doesn’t matter if, as a number of commentators have indicated, that former President Donald Trump repeatedly lied (since I didn’t see the debate, I need to take that one on faith, but it doesn’t take a lot of faith  😉 ).  Mr. Trump will undoubtedly gain some percentage of the heretofore undecided voters dismayed by Mr. Biden’s seeming infirmity, but I am going to guess that Mr. Biden’s greater political wound will be the irretrievable loss of those swing voters who can’t stomach Mr. Trump and were as of last night’s debate willing to be convinced that Mr. Biden could serve another four years – but will now stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.  Mr. Biden needed those voters to overcome Mr. Trump’s rock-solid cultish support.  I don’t think even a bravura performance by Mr. Biden in the men’s second debate can overcome the disastrous impression left by his first performance (most commentators at the time considered the last three Kennedy-Nixon debates a draw); even if Mr. Biden does well, there will undoubtedly be the lingering suspicion in the minds of some moderate voters that maybe the President is on uppers, as the Trump Camp claims.

Democrats now face two obvious challenges: 

First, to convince a sitting President who has already secured sufficient committed delegates to secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination to release his delegates, and withdraw from the race. 

I am confident that it would be hard for anyone who has experienced the power of the presidency of the United States to accept the notion that s/he needs to voluntarily step aside (particularly if one believes, as I understand the President does, that his beloved son would never have been prosecuted had he chosen to forego a second presidential campaign).  However, given the vehement and unanimous view among his supporters about the probable impact of his debate performance, the President needs to do what he’s always done – put the country first.

Second:  Whom to nominate in the President’s place:  a candidate who can hit the ground running – i.e., who already has some national presence — and defeat Mr. Trump. 

It’s clearly way too early to speculate widely on potential replacement Democratic presidential nominees.  That said, if one believes, as I do, that in the current environment no Democrat can win the White House unless s/he wins Wisconsin, it cannot be Vice President Kamala Harris.  I suspect that in the coming days, Democratic WI Gov. Tony Evers will be telling major national Democratic politicos a version of what I consider the most vital fact about Ms. Harris:  not even one of our most progressive friends living in Madison, Wisconsin – perhaps the most progressive enclave between the coasts — thinks that Ms. Harris can beat Mr. Trump in Wisconsin. 

At the same time, to win 270 Electoral College votes, Democrats must find a candidate who will secure the enthusiastic support of the African-American voters and other voters of color, whom they cannot afford to alienate through any seeming slight to Ms. Harris.

While this note seems an extremely abrupt, heartless about-face about the President, a cold-blooded dismissal of a good man who has served the American people well for over half a century, what has persuaded me without even watching the debate of Democrats’ need to seek a different nominee was the reaction this morning of MSNBC’s Morning Joe’s decidedly-liberal panel.  It was apparent that they had genuine sorrow for a fine gentleman whom they know personally and have real affection for – but now no longer believe can defeat Mr. Trump. 

Mr. Trump is still Mr. Trump.  He must be defeated.    

The only good news for Democrats – a point that I’ve seen made elsewhere – is that because this debate was so early, it’s not too late to make a course correction.  Mr. Trump remains beatable in at least the northern swing states – if the Democrats are able to unite – quickly — behind the right candidate.  They’d best get to it.

We’ll see what happens.