One Day Soon I'll Write A Post About Biden Dropping Out & Before I Post It He Will Have Dropped Out

Can we do better?

Over the weekend I spoke with two senior House Democrats (separately), just in an informal chit chat kind of way. I like both of them and each one told me they are interested in being Kamala’s running-mate. I haven’t had any hallucinogens since January 1, 1969 but I had to wonder if I was having some kind of a flashback from 50-some-odd years ago. But no, they were both serious. And then, yesterday, a couple of PunchBowl reporters wrote that Jerry Nadler, Mark Takano, Don Beyer and Adam Smith said Biden should step aside as Democratic nominee during [Hakeem Jeffries’] private leadership call Sunday afternoon. Most said Kamala Harris should be the nominee.

I lived outside of the U.S. for almost 7 years and spent a lot of time working abroad even when I did live here. It seems like every friend of mine in Europe e-mailed or called over the weekend asking me if Biden was dropping out. A Swedish guy I met in a park when he was 18, Åke— and who I haven’t seen since— sent me a message on Facebook: “what will happen in USA before the election with Biden, will he stay or... And is there another democratic candidate that can challenge and win over Trump? Not good for Europe either if Trump wins. What do You think about this race?” My friends in Holland, where I used to live, who haven’t gotten over the Geert Wilders right-wing surprise in their own country yet, were all asking me about Trump’s chances over the weekend. They had all watched the Biden debate performance in gloomy horror.

Dan Pfeiffer, obviously concerned, about Biden’s tone-deaf interview with George Stephanopoulos last week wrote that his “primary reaction was sadness. Joe Biden is a good person and has been a great President. There was something so painful about watching this man of great achievement struggle to answer a series of questions about his ability to do his job. Stephanopoulos asked the questions with respect and decency. Nevertheless, the whole exercise felt demeaning and diminishing. Joe Biden is a proud man— rightfully so. Being forced to defend his mental capacity on national television was rough for him and everyone who respects and cares about him… Biden supporters argue that we shouldn’t throw away three and half years of a consequential presidency over one 90-minute debate. I couldn’t agree more; except this is about more than one ‘bad night.’ The debate was a culmination of mounting concerns from the public about Biden’s age. Two things can be true at once: Biden deserves better than the ignominy of the last week and a half, and the President brought this on himself by refusing to address concerns about his age earlier and then faceplanting during a crucial debate.”

Nor was any of this lost on the NY Times, where Katie Glueck, Nick Nehamas and Lisa Lerer reported on the increasing turmoil in the Democratic Party over the stalemate about the nomination. “Numerous officials, lawmakers and strategists in President Biden’s own party increasingly see his candidacy as unsustainable— and their private anxieties are slowly but steadily spilling into public view, interviews with more than 50 Democrats this week showed. Growing swaths of Democrats now believe that by remaining on the ticket, the president is jeopardizing their ability to maintain the White House and threatening other candidates up and down the ballot. The moment is setting up an extraordinary clash between a defiant president of the United States who insists he is not abandoning his re-election campaign and members of his party who are beginning to suggest that he should.”

Centrist Democrats from Biden’s own wing of the party, like Scott Peters (CA) and Angie Craig (MN) are extremely pessimistic and calling on Biden to get out of the race. “Lawmakers,” wrote the trio of Times reporters, “say they have been deluged with concerns about Biden’s candidacy from donors and constituents. Among members of the Democratic National Committee, essentially the political arm of the White House, many said that they remained supportive, but even there, fissures are emerging. And a Democratic member of Congress, a former high-ranking Obama administration official and a senior aide to a prominent Democratic governor all privately used the same word in separate interviews on Friday to describe Biden’s standing in the campaign: ‘untenable.’”

They brought up a senior White House official, who has worked with Biden during his presidency, vice presidency and 2020 campaign, who told them Biden “should not seek re-election. After watching Biden in private, in public and while traveling with him, the official said they no longer believed the president had what it took to campaign in a vigorous way and defeat Trump. The official, who insisted on anonymity in order to continue serving, said Biden had steadily showed more signs of his age in recent months, including speaking more slowly, haltingly and quietly, as well as appearing more fatigued in private.”