I feel for the guy. But I also can't help but feel that if he had announced after the '22 midterms "after an extremely productive legislative session, and an election where my party held up well, I feel it's time to step aside and allow a new generation to step in" he'd be going down as like, an American Cincinnatus.
This isn’t really on Biden, but the people around him. People who are sundowning often don’t have good insight into how bad it is. I feel bad for him too.
I think this is an underrated part of this whole thing. Biden has a very very tight circle of people who he trusts, and that circle is full of old people whose last grasp at true political influence was through Joe Biden. So it was just advantageous for them to keep plodding along and keep him in the race.
It's not just his old brain trust. I won't mention a name here, but there's someone I greatly respect, who is a journalist with a long track record as both an investigative journalist and a blogger with strong Dem connections and an orthodox Dem point of view. I will call him John Doe
And John Doe, even last night, remained resistant to any notion of changing Biden out. He acknowledged, barely, what everyone saw, but said don't worry, long campaign, debates don't matter anyway, etc. He had earlier reacted very negatively to Ezra Klein's suggestion that Biden should step aside. He makes all the same points- the President is always the nominee, when you primary or knock the President off the ticket you lose, etc.
There are plenty of John Does out there. A few of them finally woke up last night, but there's still plenty who haven't and are continuing the party line that this is no big deal, just a hiccup, everyone needs to calm down and stop giving Trump ammunition by focusing on this rather than Trump's lies, etc.
At the end of the day, the John Does are the problem. Not just Biden's tight circles. There's just a whole bunch of people in Democratic politics who have convinced themselves that chaos is bad and the establishment candidate needs to be backed and to face as little resistance as possible. They hated Bill Bradley for running against Gore. Despised Nader (of course). Decried Bernie Sanders. Were outraged at the story that Hillary cleared the field or her people stopped Biden from running. They are always there with a column or a comment that we all have to squelch our objections, that there's only one way to do things, and we must not have any chaos.
And these John Does have influence. They are in the media (as my John Doe is). They are strategists. They are pundits. They are advisors to politicians.
And if you are a John Doe, your outlook is to always rationalize the situation, blame the media if negativity gets featured (my John Doe does that all the time too), do some Poll Trutherism, and say that anyone who is pointing out that there are serious flaws or roadblocks must be deluded and needs to stop harming the effort.
In other words, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a rather foundational political text in party presidential politics.
In 2016, Bernie was paper, Clinton was scissors, and Trump was rock. Clinton was a bad bad match-up with Trump, and it had nothing to do with Bernie. The so-called "Bernie Bros" were never gonna vote for Hillary. She was a terrible candidate, and everyone but the Democratic Kool-Aid drinkers knew it.
Hillary was not a terrible candidate. She *won* the popular vote. A plurality of all the people in America preferred her over Trump. That she came up short in appealing to 80,000 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin whose voting priorities changed largely in response to the relative salience of culture war vs economic issues *does not* negate that victory. I will crucify myself on this cross.
Just say *you* don't like Hillary and let that be enough.
In 2016 the entire media landscape and party apparatus was against Trump and he won anyway. The prime decision maker in this situation was Biden. Once he decided to run, there were no good alternatives. You could run against Biden, but if you did so and lost (which was likely) then you've spent a lot of money and time for nothing. Everyone made logical and rational decisions after Biden made his call.
It's clear he made the wrong call. Maybe he did it because his advisors didn't advise well. Maybe he did it because he's a stubborn, proud, politician. Maybe he did it because he thought he was a better choice than Kamala Harris. At the end of the day: it doesn't matter. Biden doesn't listen to those John Does: he listens to his gut, his advisors, and his family.
I have to admit you are right, though I wish there was some way to get him off the ticket. I was a supporter of Dean Phillips and he was a reasonable good pol, but I think there is a groupthink phenom that you have to support the front runner. Where the GOP has elevated anarchy to a team sport, perhaps the Dems need a little more. Now, that might have been the problem in 2016, surely in 1968 when Dem divisiveness hurt, but this in 2020 should not have been an ideological issue, but just the ability to be honest, and see Biden's terrible poll numbers, and not try to sneak him through knowing that most voters, of both parties thought he was too old.
I thought Biden was a stronger candidate this time around than HRC was in 2016 but I was wrong.
The stay the course people defending Biden are right about one thing: right now none of the options look ‘better’ in the polls. Which is true, but Biden is losing! If Biden were winning like he was in 2020 then I wouldn’t budge at all. I was ok with Biden because he rose to the occasion, at least enough, in big moments to be fine. He had a good state of the union. He’s looked good in speeches, I figured he’d be fine in the debates and a fine performance is enough to beat Trump. But Biden wasn’t fine he was awful. Sure, another democrat starts in a similar place to Biden right now, but another democrat right now is way more likely to pivot and change the race than Biden. All Biden can do is not slip more, or hope Trump fucks it up. That isn’t a good bet anymore.
I dunno. The whole "but his people are egging him on to stay in" thing seems like a poor excuse. This isn't Weekend at Bernie's. Biden, old as he his, as agency. He is the President, for chrissakes. He has agency. Part of the job is listening to your advisors and, with all due respect, saying "no, for the good of the country, I am going to reject your advice and step down".
For sure. Biden is an adult, he can make his own decisions. But there's also a lot of good reporting that has shown the impact of his advisers on his decision making process. It would've been nice if they didn't put their professional interests ahead of the country's.
TBH, the utter mendacity of advisors who would cling to a ray of hope that Biden might win, under these circumstances, is one of the biggest indictments against Biden. *He picked these people*. Where I work (NVIDIA) we have the concept of Pilot In Command. That means the person most responsible takes.... responsibility. Delegating and blaming on your staff is the weakest of weak sauce arguments you can make.
Every leader creates the conditions under which her or his team will convey difficult truths. Biden has clearly fostered an environment where nobody will do so. It doesn’t matter whether Biden selected people who cannot assess the situation or ones who see it clearly but won’t tell him — it’s his fault.
Keep in mind that this is a person who spent eight years watching Obama regularly and systematically seek out contrary views, but he was often the “last one in the room” who delivered them.
And you don't think those old people know a lot of young, up-and-coming Washington staffers whom they can recommend to Biden? For all I know, the older you are, the more experienced you become at recognizing young talent and intelligence.
Biden justifiably believes he is up to the job of being President. I think he probably still is. Unfortunately, as Matt points out, the job of being a strong candidate is different, and he is clearly not up to performing that role.
I’m going to call out the ageism in your remark about “folks that age”. As an old person I can clearly see how bad it is. In terms of those surrounding Biden, blind loyalty or even opportunism isn’t an unusual characteristic in people of any age who either want to advance or extend their careers.
Edited accordingly. Apologies! The comment was about Biden specifically, not his staff/family, and was definitely a generalization. My mother is currently hyper aware of and frustrated by her lapsing memory.
It still grates to this day that the 2020 team strongly implied he only wanted one term, then turned around acted like those were just rumors. If they were really taking that seriously, and assuming Trump would still be a factor in 2024, I don’t see Harris getting chosen as VP.
It was very weird! I was always the one telling my friends, have you seen him actually give a speech? He’s still kind of got it! Don’t trust the videos… I got clowned very hard for that take and I was wrong.
The part that really confuses me is that I saw clips of him talking to a crowd after the debate and he was perfectly fine and plenty energetic! Which makes me think even if he himself might still "have" it, he's being prepped and advised horribly (which is the impression I've gotten from a lot of campaign decisions lately)
There is a huge difference between thinking on your feet (which was seen in the debate) and giving a rah rah speech to acolytes as you’ve done thousands of times in your 50+ year career.
People in their 80s are often cognitively fine at some times and foggier at other times. I’ve seen this firsthand with aging relatives. A presidential candidate unfortunately needs to be “on” close to 100% of the time. (Ironically, it’s probably less of an issue for governing, although it will become one as it gets worse.)
As with being ill, being elderly has its better days and its worse days. He really did give an acceptable State of the Union speech but clearly last night was not acceptable. Now we really know.
The problem with last night was, he couldn’t call in sick to the debate. He can do the job—I’m sure any President who’s ill can have a surrogate stand in for him in meetings—but can’t campaign with a cold. A younger candidate can sound a little hoarse and muscle through it, but someone Biden’s age needs to take the night off (which is not option for a high stakes debate).
I'm right there with you, Ben. I thought he looked mostly good at SOTU and genuinely thought that he would put the talk to rest last night. But that was obviously wrong
If he’s anything like my relatives, he might have good and bad days. You can catch him sounding quite sharp one day, or totally incoherent the next. And each side zeroes in on those instances that serve their purpose.
Some prominent ex-pols like Claire McCaskill are already doing that. I suspect that current officeholders are mostly expressing their concerns privately for now. (And even a number of those like Angie Craig and Ro Khanna pretty frankly acknowledged that the debate performance was really bad/concerning.)
They are likely doing this privately. Publicly, they wouldn't dare. And I think that's fine. They want him to leave with his dignity. However, in two weeks, this could change
- She's well below "replacement-level". She's unappealing to many people. Trump will clobber her.
- I don't see her winning an open vote at the convention. If these people are choosing between Josh Shapiro, Big Gretch, and Kamala, who exactly is voting for Kamala?
If Obama is going to be the heavy and tell Joe it's over, he should tell Kamala as well.
If you're in it to save democracy, save democracy. No half measures.
This is what I mean about wishcasting though. If you aren’t ready to accept Harris, then don’t assume that Obama has some magical power to orchestrate party nominations. The system doesn’t work like that. I would hope that the convention picks someone else, but realistically if it’s not Biden it will probably be Harris. So make sure to think about where you stand on that.
As a political outsider, to me the “hard problem” requiring high activation energy would be the convention nominating someone other than the incumbent president who won the primary race. Once you’ve crossed that hurdle, the act of picking whoever polls best as his replacement seems very marginal by comparison.
Why would this matter to anyone who doesn’t owe her some kind of personal fealty? The point is to beat Trump, not cater to Harris’ ego. This sounds like it would be a tough conversation for Biden personally, a blow to her and her personal staff, and totally irrelevant to literally everyone else.
And would also require Biden to betray a core promise of his campaign, making a black woman VP than ditching her when it's time for that person to be President is not something President Biden will do.
It's not a marginal problem though to pick someone else. It would be easy enough for Biden to step down and let Harris virtually automatically take his place - that's literally her role as VP.
But trying to pick someone else introduces a whole new set of problems. First, there's no agreement on who else would be better, so right there you split and put the party at war with itself. And, it's bad enough having major party so visibly in disarray by sitting President step down. But also dumping the one who's officially next in line, wouldn't have the advantage of incumbency, and then following that up with a big public fight over who to pick instead is just not feasible. And the chaos might also embolden and encourage some states or lawsuits to start playing games with ballot access trying to block the late-picked replacement from the ballot, so then they might also have win in some places as a write-in. The sooner this idea is dropped the better. It's right up there with the idea of minting a trillion dollar platinum coin as a huge waste of time and distraction.
I disagree about the "chaos" mattering in and of itself--that seems like 24-hour news cycle stuff (does anyone really expect the Republicans to pay an electoral price for their ridiculous extended speakership debacle?)--but I think you make a lot of other very good points about non-Kamala candidates representing coordination problems. I can't speak to the ballot issues but if those are are substantial risks then yes, that certainly seems like a big deal.
(Personally I'd probably just use flat out polling to try to solve the coordination issues, if feasible. Try to precommit at the convention to whoever has the best chance in the general. But easier said than done.)
To be fair it isn't really clear how the "system" works in this situation. We already had a primary so it is just on Biden and the Democratic party to figure out their nominee(him or otherwise) and present a justification.
If democrats want people to line up and get excited about the nominee then having "elites" pick their favorite is probably not going to help with that goal.
I think they are *allowed* to pick for whoever if Biden drops out.
Her _profile_ --a prosecutor with immigrant parents -- was great. It's her positions and performance since that is the problem. She's been _part of_ the Warren Sanders Administration, not the opposition.
What about arguing that she should be disqualified on the grounds that she was part of the same administration and staff that covered up his true infirmity and did nothing to convince him to stand down?
This is *WHY* she'll be the nominee. Biden is not a fool. He knows that if he quits now, and is not replaced by his VP, it'll be open season on him and his administration. Him gracefully passing the batton to his chosen successor, is his one way to exert some control over the situation, and retain some sense of dignity
Read through your comment again. Biden *is* the nominee. He has the pledged delegates - the rules of the convention say no one can even challenge him until a second round that isn't going to happen. You need him to step away to kickstart the process of finding another candidate. The idea that you would need to attack Harris for standing by Biden, either because she covered up his infirmity or because the administration is too unpopular, is exactly why Biden is gonna want her to be his successor. He is not going to go along with a process where is cast as a failed president that his party had to run against to beat Trump.
Isn't Harris underrated at this point? People have written her off so much for so long now that it would only take replacement-level performance to generate positive surprise and good vibes. And her main task would be to attack Trump - she might even be good at that.
Yep. I think with little more than a month to go before the convention Biden really HAS to announce he's standing down from the re-election along with an explicit endorsement of Kamala. There is at least a reasonable democratic veneer to that decision...she did "win" a general election as the person second-in-line to the presidency.
An open convention in 2024 would feel both anarchic and undemocratic. What candidates would they be choosing from? Who are these delegates anyway? And even in a "best case" scenario where that process selects a Whittmer it's a lot to hope the party could rally around a relative unknown a mere 2 months before the election.
For those of us who want a Democratic president, it feels to me the best path is to hope Kamala surprises us. She's been in the White House for 4 years. She'd have her pick of competent Biden people. She's got an OK story on immigration. She's got a great story on abortion. She might be able to thread the needle and take credit for the good parts of the Biden administration (jobs, crime) while distancing herself from the bad (inflation).
I'm talking myself into her as I write this and will be watching what she does over the next few weeks to see how she behaves and whether there is any consolidation of a movement behind her.
I'm not sure they can do that - there are lots of ambitious people already in the race, and Kamala was not especially beloved here as AG among insiders.
Agreed. Harris isn't a magic bullet, but she would very likely be the choice. In the last 48hrs, I have gotten ok with that. She also has time to select a strong running mate from the bounty of talent out there. She would also have access to Biden's cash and advisors. Biden can't fight. Kamala can. It would seriously shake up the race AND the Trump team would struggle to pivot strategically
Jill Biden is the person who can tell Joe to drop out, not Obama, because Joe still feels some type of way about Obama (allegedly) telling him not to run behind the scenes in 2016.
I don't think this proves anything. Of course you have your partner's back in public right after they delivered a bad performance. What matters is what she will say in private.
Don't underestimate how much being contrasted with Trump would boost her favorability. It cannot be overstated: Trump is extremely unpopular, and also a pretty inept politician in many ways. If he'd been up against a vanilla democrat last night, the news cycle would be endlessly droning on about how bad Trump looked.
This is part of the reason people are talking so much about Biden right now. The narrative is very much "How awful do you have to be to lose so badly against THAT Trump performance?"
Maybe Matt has access to secret polling suggesting her numbers are a lot stronger than presumed? /s
If Kamala Harris is inevitably going to be the nominee—if Democrats simply cannot find a way to settle on someone who's likely to be a lot more competitive vis-a-vis Donald Trump—I'd personally be tempted to say the best path forward would be for Joe Biden to resign the presidency, and at least give Kamala Harris a few months to gain stature. Because yes, it appears terrifyingly likely that Trump would indeed "clobber her."
They are fake but it's also not clear which way they would shift once she became a candidate. "Generic Dem" isn't doing so badly in polling. She should find some staff who are better at their jobs than the ones she had in 2020 though
Right, how said transfer takes place probably has an effect. She maybe gets a narrow window to reintroduce herself, or the Democrats and Groups all jockey in a factional circular firing squad.
I was thinking maybe she’d be satisfied with being president for a few months and would realize that the moment demands a much stronger Trump opponent.
Seems logical to me that if one side can put forward a treasonous convicted felon, then the other can put forward the one capable person in this country who could immediately rescue us from this shitshow. Nominate Obama, fight it in the courts with some BS defense (which could drag out well past 2028), and hellishly campaign like it’s 2008 again. Pretty sure “Hope and Change” would sell right now. If Trump has taught us one thing, it’s that rules, norms, and precedents are meaningless.
No, it would not drag out well past 2028- it would be handled via an immediately issued injunction before being dismissed rapidly on preliminary motions. It wouldn't require oral arguments, it wouldn't take up any time in any appellate court, and SCOTUS would never bother with it. The constitution is not ambiguous on this point- Obama is constitutionally ineligible.
I feel for the guy. But I also can't help but feel that if he had announced after the '22 midterms "after an extremely productive legislative session, and an election where my party held up well, I feel it's time to step aside and allow a new generation to step in" he'd be going down as like, an American Cincinnatus.
Just not a great day.
Alas.
This isn’t really on Biden, but the people around him. People who are sundowning often don’t have good insight into how bad it is. I feel bad for him too.
I think this is an underrated part of this whole thing. Biden has a very very tight circle of people who he trusts, and that circle is full of old people whose last grasp at true political influence was through Joe Biden. So it was just advantageous for them to keep plodding along and keep him in the race.
It's not just his old brain trust. I won't mention a name here, but there's someone I greatly respect, who is a journalist with a long track record as both an investigative journalist and a blogger with strong Dem connections and an orthodox Dem point of view. I will call him John Doe
And John Doe, even last night, remained resistant to any notion of changing Biden out. He acknowledged, barely, what everyone saw, but said don't worry, long campaign, debates don't matter anyway, etc. He had earlier reacted very negatively to Ezra Klein's suggestion that Biden should step aside. He makes all the same points- the President is always the nominee, when you primary or knock the President off the ticket you lose, etc.
There are plenty of John Does out there. A few of them finally woke up last night, but there's still plenty who haven't and are continuing the party line that this is no big deal, just a hiccup, everyone needs to calm down and stop giving Trump ammunition by focusing on this rather than Trump's lies, etc.
At the end of the day, the John Does are the problem. Not just Biden's tight circles. There's just a whole bunch of people in Democratic politics who have convinced themselves that chaos is bad and the establishment candidate needs to be backed and to face as little resistance as possible. They hated Bill Bradley for running against Gore. Despised Nader (of course). Decried Bernie Sanders. Were outraged at the story that Hillary cleared the field or her people stopped Biden from running. They are always there with a column or a comment that we all have to squelch our objections, that there's only one way to do things, and we must not have any chaos.
And these John Does have influence. They are in the media (as my John Doe is). They are strategists. They are pundits. They are advisors to politicians.
And if you are a John Doe, your outlook is to always rationalize the situation, blame the media if negativity gets featured (my John Doe does that all the time too), do some Poll Trutherism, and say that anyone who is pointing out that there are serious flaws or roadblocks must be deluded and needs to stop harming the effort.
In other words, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a rather foundational political text in party presidential politics.
Real talk, if Bernie doesn't run, HRC probably wins in 2016
Berners are out parroting lies about the DNC rigging elections again after this debate. They loathe democracy.
My RFK Jr. friend says this exact same thing. Socialism is not popular! It's not a giant conspiracy.
In 2016, Bernie was paper, Clinton was scissors, and Trump was rock. Clinton was a bad bad match-up with Trump, and it had nothing to do with Bernie. The so-called "Bernie Bros" were never gonna vote for Hillary. She was a terrible candidate, and everyone but the Democratic Kool-Aid drinkers knew it.
Hillary was not a terrible candidate. She *won* the popular vote. A plurality of all the people in America preferred her over Trump. That she came up short in appealing to 80,000 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin whose voting priorities changed largely in response to the relative salience of culture war vs economic issues *does not* negate that victory. I will crucify myself on this cross.
Just say *you* don't like Hillary and let that be enough.
In 2016 the entire media landscape and party apparatus was against Trump and he won anyway. The prime decision maker in this situation was Biden. Once he decided to run, there were no good alternatives. You could run against Biden, but if you did so and lost (which was likely) then you've spent a lot of money and time for nothing. Everyone made logical and rational decisions after Biden made his call.
It's clear he made the wrong call. Maybe he did it because his advisors didn't advise well. Maybe he did it because he's a stubborn, proud, politician. Maybe he did it because he thought he was a better choice than Kamala Harris. At the end of the day: it doesn't matter. Biden doesn't listen to those John Does: he listens to his gut, his advisors, and his family.
I have to admit you are right, though I wish there was some way to get him off the ticket. I was a supporter of Dean Phillips and he was a reasonable good pol, but I think there is a groupthink phenom that you have to support the front runner. Where the GOP has elevated anarchy to a team sport, perhaps the Dems need a little more. Now, that might have been the problem in 2016, surely in 1968 when Dem divisiveness hurt, but this in 2020 should not have been an ideological issue, but just the ability to be honest, and see Biden's terrible poll numbers, and not try to sneak him through knowing that most voters, of both parties thought he was too old.
Loyalty sometimes advances stupidity.
Similar group think aided HRC in 2016
I thought Biden was a stronger candidate this time around than HRC was in 2016 but I was wrong.
The stay the course people defending Biden are right about one thing: right now none of the options look ‘better’ in the polls. Which is true, but Biden is losing! If Biden were winning like he was in 2020 then I wouldn’t budge at all. I was ok with Biden because he rose to the occasion, at least enough, in big moments to be fine. He had a good state of the union. He’s looked good in speeches, I figured he’d be fine in the debates and a fine performance is enough to beat Trump. But Biden wasn’t fine he was awful. Sure, another democrat starts in a similar place to Biden right now, but another democrat right now is way more likely to pivot and change the race than Biden. All Biden can do is not slip more, or hope Trump fucks it up. That isn’t a good bet anymore.
I dunno. The whole "but his people are egging him on to stay in" thing seems like a poor excuse. This isn't Weekend at Bernie's. Biden, old as he his, as agency. He is the President, for chrissakes. He has agency. Part of the job is listening to your advisors and, with all due respect, saying "no, for the good of the country, I am going to reject your advice and step down".
For sure. Biden is an adult, he can make his own decisions. But there's also a lot of good reporting that has shown the impact of his advisers on his decision making process. It would've been nice if they didn't put their professional interests ahead of the country's.
TBH, the utter mendacity of advisors who would cling to a ray of hope that Biden might win, under these circumstances, is one of the biggest indictments against Biden. *He picked these people*. Where I work (NVIDIA) we have the concept of Pilot In Command. That means the person most responsible takes.... responsibility. Delegating and blaming on your staff is the weakest of weak sauce arguments you can make.
Fuck. I need a drink
Basically, the “Feinstein staff” problem.
Every leader creates the conditions under which her or his team will convey difficult truths. Biden has clearly fostered an environment where nobody will do so. It doesn’t matter whether Biden selected people who cannot assess the situation or ones who see it clearly but won’t tell him — it’s his fault.
Keep in mind that this is a person who spent eight years watching Obama regularly and systematically seek out contrary views, but he was often the “last one in the room” who delivered them.
And you don't think those old people know a lot of young, up-and-coming Washington staffers whom they can recommend to Biden? For all I know, the older you are, the more experienced you become at recognizing young talent and intelligence.
Biden justifiably believes he is up to the job of being President. I think he probably still is. Unfortunately, as Matt points out, the job of being a strong candidate is different, and he is clearly not up to performing that role.
https://x.com/AlexThomp/status/1806580390573818073
Oh God. I physically cringed. Why is she talking to him like a toddler?
I’m going to call out the ageism in your remark about “folks that age”. As an old person I can clearly see how bad it is. In terms of those surrounding Biden, blind loyalty or even opportunism isn’t an unusual characteristic in people of any age who either want to advance or extend their careers.
Ageism is a fine heuristic. How many 4 year olds would you want to be president?
Edited accordingly. Apologies! The comment was about Biden specifically, not his staff/family, and was definitely a generalization. My mother is currently hyper aware of and frustrated by her lapsing memory.
Kamala covering for this is frankly disqualifying for her as well.
What was she supposed to do last night, throw him under the bus?
Its not last night, its the last year that is more concerning.
Sundowning. This sounds totally correct, having watched my mother-in-law deal with this at the exact same age. What a shame
It still grates to this day that the 2020 team strongly implied he only wanted one term, then turned around acted like those were just rumors. If they were really taking that seriously, and assuming Trump would still be a factor in 2024, I don’t see Harris getting chosen as VP.
Yeah, like, obviously his team has been running interference. I'm a fan of the guy, and I had no idea he was that bad on stage.
It was very weird! I was always the one telling my friends, have you seen him actually give a speech? He’s still kind of got it! Don’t trust the videos… I got clowned very hard for that take and I was wrong.
The part that really confuses me is that I saw clips of him talking to a crowd after the debate and he was perfectly fine and plenty energetic! Which makes me think even if he himself might still "have" it, he's being prepped and advised horribly (which is the impression I've gotten from a lot of campaign decisions lately)
There is a huge difference between thinking on your feet (which was seen in the debate) and giving a rah rah speech to acolytes as you’ve done thousands of times in your 50+ year career.
People in their 80s are often cognitively fine at some times and foggier at other times. I’ve seen this firsthand with aging relatives. A presidential candidate unfortunately needs to be “on” close to 100% of the time. (Ironically, it’s probably less of an issue for governing, although it will become one as it gets worse.)
As with being ill, being elderly has its better days and its worse days. He really did give an acceptable State of the Union speech but clearly last night was not acceptable. Now we really know.
The problem with last night was, he couldn’t call in sick to the debate. He can do the job—I’m sure any President who’s ill can have a surrogate stand in for him in meetings—but can’t campaign with a cold. A younger candidate can sound a little hoarse and muscle through it, but someone Biden’s age needs to take the night off (which is not option for a high stakes debate).
I'm right there with you, Ben. I thought he looked mostly good at SOTU and genuinely thought that he would put the talk to rest last night. But that was obviously wrong
If he’s anything like my relatives, he might have good and bad days. You can catch him sounding quite sharp one day, or totally incoherent the next. And each side zeroes in on those instances that serve their purpose.
When are Democratic senators and governors going to go on TV and demand Biden step aside?
Some prominent ex-pols like Claire McCaskill are already doing that. I suspect that current officeholders are mostly expressing their concerns privately for now. (And even a number of those like Angie Craig and Ro Khanna pretty frankly acknowledged that the debate performance was really bad/concerning.)
They are likely doing this privately. Publicly, they wouldn't dare. And I think that's fine. They want him to leave with his dignity. However, in two weeks, this could change
If it happens, sure. But will it?
Matt is misjudging Kamala in two important ways:
- She's well below "replacement-level". She's unappealing to many people. Trump will clobber her.
- I don't see her winning an open vote at the convention. If these people are choosing between Josh Shapiro, Big Gretch, and Kamala, who exactly is voting for Kamala?
If Obama is going to be the heavy and tell Joe it's over, he should tell Kamala as well.
If you're in it to save democracy, save democracy. No half measures.
This is what I mean about wishcasting though. If you aren’t ready to accept Harris, then don’t assume that Obama has some magical power to orchestrate party nominations. The system doesn’t work like that. I would hope that the convention picks someone else, but realistically if it’s not Biden it will probably be Harris. So make sure to think about where you stand on that.
As a political outsider, to me the “hard problem” requiring high activation energy would be the convention nominating someone other than the incumbent president who won the primary race. Once you’ve crossed that hurdle, the act of picking whoever polls best as his replacement seems very marginal by comparison.
Not to her! Him saying “the person who becomes president if I die shouldn’t be the nominee to replace me” could be the end of her political career.
Why would this matter to anyone who doesn’t owe her some kind of personal fealty? The point is to beat Trump, not cater to Harris’ ego. This sounds like it would be a tough conversation for Biden personally, a blow to her and her personal staff, and totally irrelevant to literally everyone else.
Exactly. People who can’t steel themselves to say or hear that news don’t belong in positions of national leadership anyway.
It would not be irrelevant to thousands of African Americans in the Biden coalition that are absolutely needed to win the election.
And would also require Biden to betray a core promise of his campaign, making a black woman VP than ditching her when it's time for that person to be President is not something President Biden will do.
It's not a marginal problem though to pick someone else. It would be easy enough for Biden to step down and let Harris virtually automatically take his place - that's literally her role as VP.
But trying to pick someone else introduces a whole new set of problems. First, there's no agreement on who else would be better, so right there you split and put the party at war with itself. And, it's bad enough having major party so visibly in disarray by sitting President step down. But also dumping the one who's officially next in line, wouldn't have the advantage of incumbency, and then following that up with a big public fight over who to pick instead is just not feasible. And the chaos might also embolden and encourage some states or lawsuits to start playing games with ballot access trying to block the late-picked replacement from the ballot, so then they might also have win in some places as a write-in. The sooner this idea is dropped the better. It's right up there with the idea of minting a trillion dollar platinum coin as a huge waste of time and distraction.
I disagree about the "chaos" mattering in and of itself--that seems like 24-hour news cycle stuff (does anyone really expect the Republicans to pay an electoral price for their ridiculous extended speakership debacle?)--but I think you make a lot of other very good points about non-Kamala candidates representing coordination problems. I can't speak to the ballot issues but if those are are substantial risks then yes, that certainly seems like a big deal.
(Personally I'd probably just use flat out polling to try to solve the coordination issues, if feasible. Try to precommit at the convention to whoever has the best chance in the general. But easier said than done.)
Especially if Biden himself endorsed that person
To be fair it isn't really clear how the "system" works in this situation. We already had a primary so it is just on Biden and the Democratic party to figure out their nominee(him or otherwise) and present a justification.
Can’t the delegates just vote however they like?
If democrats want people to line up and get excited about the nominee then having "elites" pick their favorite is probably not going to help with that goal.
I think they are *allowed* to pick for whoever if Biden drops out.
If Biden bows out, yup pretty much.
This is not wishcasting.
It's asking the question: When it comes down to it, how many Kamala-stans are there? Enough to win a vote at the convention?
I understand that people like her profile, but the party wants to win.
The party is in a near-death position at the moment, and that creates a moment of clarity.
This moment is most similar when the party fell into line behind Biden to stop Bernie from winning.
Her _profile_ --a prosecutor with immigrant parents -- was great. It's her positions and performance since that is the problem. She's been _part of_ the Warren Sanders Administration, not the opposition.
You don't have to be a "stan" to vote for her. Ultimately it's the contrast with the orange opponent
What about arguing that she should be disqualified on the grounds that she was part of the same administration and staff that covered up his true infirmity and did nothing to convince him to stand down?
This is *WHY* she'll be the nominee. Biden is not a fool. He knows that if he quits now, and is not replaced by his VP, it'll be open season on him and his administration. Him gracefully passing the batton to his chosen successor, is his one way to exert some control over the situation, and retain some sense of dignity
That doesn’t make any sense to me.
Read through your comment again. Biden *is* the nominee. He has the pledged delegates - the rules of the convention say no one can even challenge him until a second round that isn't going to happen. You need him to step away to kickstart the process of finding another candidate. The idea that you would need to attack Harris for standing by Biden, either because she covered up his infirmity or because the administration is too unpopular, is exactly why Biden is gonna want her to be his successor. He is not going to go along with a process where is cast as a failed president that his party had to run against to beat Trump.
I think you're being too clever by half here. People make really unpredictable decisions in situations like this.
Nope!
Isn't Harris underrated at this point? People have written her off so much for so long now that it would only take replacement-level performance to generate positive surprise and good vibes. And her main task would be to attack Trump - she might even be good at that.
Yep. I think with little more than a month to go before the convention Biden really HAS to announce he's standing down from the re-election along with an explicit endorsement of Kamala. There is at least a reasonable democratic veneer to that decision...she did "win" a general election as the person second-in-line to the presidency.
An open convention in 2024 would feel both anarchic and undemocratic. What candidates would they be choosing from? Who are these delegates anyway? And even in a "best case" scenario where that process selects a Whittmer it's a lot to hope the party could rally around a relative unknown a mere 2 months before the election.
For those of us who want a Democratic president, it feels to me the best path is to hope Kamala surprises us. She's been in the White House for 4 years. She'd have her pick of competent Biden people. She's got an OK story on immigration. She's got a great story on abortion. She might be able to thread the needle and take credit for the good parts of the Biden administration (jobs, crime) while distancing herself from the bad (inflation).
I'm talking myself into her as I write this and will be watching what she does over the next few weeks to see how she behaves and whether there is any consolidation of a movement behind her.
It seems like Gavin/the party could offer to clear the primary in the next governor's race in Cali.
I'm not sure they can do that - there are lots of ambitious people already in the race, and Kamala was not especially beloved here as AG among insiders.
If you make it clear the national party and Gavin will move heaven and earth to help you your odds are pretty good.
If you can't win the primary with that support you were never going to be president.
THANK YOU.
Honestly, I feel like people who can’t grasp this are mistaking party politics for K-pop stan debates.
Agreed. Harris isn't a magic bullet, but she would very likely be the choice. In the last 48hrs, I have gotten ok with that. She also has time to select a strong running mate from the bounty of talent out there. She would also have access to Biden's cash and advisors. Biden can't fight. Kamala can. It would seriously shake up the race AND the Trump team would struggle to pivot strategically
Jill Biden is the person who can tell Joe to drop out, not Obama, because Joe still feels some type of way about Obama (allegedly) telling him not to run behind the scenes in 2016.
About that.... this: https://x.com/AlexThomp/status/1806580390573818073
does not seem like a person who is about to drop the charade.
I don't think this proves anything. Of course you have your partner's back in public right after they delivered a bad performance. What matters is what she will say in private.
This is political fanfic basically.
Don't underestimate how much being contrasted with Trump would boost her favorability. It cannot be overstated: Trump is extremely unpopular, and also a pretty inept politician in many ways. If he'd been up against a vanilla democrat last night, the news cycle would be endlessly droning on about how bad Trump looked.
This is part of the reason people are talking so much about Biden right now. The narrative is very much "How awful do you have to be to lose so badly against THAT Trump performance?"
Maybe Matt has access to secret polling suggesting her numbers are a lot stronger than presumed? /s
If Kamala Harris is inevitably going to be the nominee—if Democrats simply cannot find a way to settle on someone who's likely to be a lot more competitive vis-a-vis Donald Trump—I'd personally be tempted to say the best path forward would be for Joe Biden to resign the presidency, and at least give Kamala Harris a few months to gain stature. Because yes, it appears terrifyingly likely that Trump would indeed "clobber her."
According to 538 she does have better approval numbers than Biden. Not good, but better.
Those numbers might be fake since she is the VP and doesn't have to do much at the moment.
They are fake but it's also not clear which way they would shift once she became a candidate. "Generic Dem" isn't doing so badly in polling. She should find some staff who are better at their jobs than the ones she had in 2020 though
2019 Kamala is better guide for "presidential candidate Kamala" than VP Kamala approval polling.
I would put very little weight on Trump v. Harris horserace polling from 2019
Not Trump v Harris. Harris v Harris. She is a catastrophe of a national candidate. Looking at her VP approval ratings is wildly overestimating her.
Right, how said transfer takes place probably has an effect. She maybe gets a narrow window to reintroduce herself, or the Democrats and Groups all jockey in a factional circular firing squad.
I was thinking maybe she’d be satisfied with being president for a few months and would realize that the moment demands a much stronger Trump opponent.
Now that you mention it,
Obama 2024?
*Michelle* 2024?
Michelle?
I think she might have even polled better in 2020 than Harris did when people would include her for whatever reason.
She benefits somewhat from the McConaughey effect, a celebrity who is generally liked because hasn’t had to do hard issue taking.
Although her association with a Dem president obviously limits that a bit, I think that’s what’s at play with her polling.
I feel like being the Democratic nominee is going to tie her to the Dems either way.
But yeah, she is young(er) smart and likeable. And people liked her book.
She's never held office, as far as I know any office. The only other president I can think of whom that describes is Trump 16
Seems logical to me that if one side can put forward a treasonous convicted felon, then the other can put forward the one capable person in this country who could immediately rescue us from this shitshow. Nominate Obama, fight it in the courts with some BS defense (which could drag out well past 2028), and hellishly campaign like it’s 2008 again. Pretty sure “Hope and Change” would sell right now. If Trump has taught us one thing, it’s that rules, norms, and precedents are meaningless.
No, it would not drag out well past 2028- it would be handled via an immediately issued injunction before being dismissed rapidly on preliminary motions. It wouldn't require oral arguments, it wouldn't take up any time in any appellate court, and SCOTUS would never bother with it. The constitution is not ambiguous on this point- Obama is constitutionally ineligible.