By: Emmanuel Roy
St. James, New York—Last night, President Joe Biden gave voters many reasons why they should not re-elect him. One reason is that he has displayed early signs of dementia. He is too old and too tired, could not finish a sentence, could not remember simple facts, and stumbled over his words too many times.
Twelve minutes into the debate, mass panic among Democrats began when Joe Biden answered a question about the national debt and confused trillionaires with billionaires. He stumbled over millions and billions.
He lost his train of thought, stumbled, and paused while staring at the floor. When he popped his head up, it seemed like he had recovered his thought. Instead, he blurted out this nonsensical line: “we finally beat medicare.”
The second half of the debate was not better. Biden seemed to lose his train of thought as he paused for several seconds, trying to recover. It was painful to watch the leader of the free world struggle to remember simple facts. Biden and his campaign insisted that their dial-testing focus groups showed improvement. “Generally, as we went through the entire debate on all of Trump’s answers, the dials moved downward,” Biden campaign pollster MOLLY MITCHELL told Politico — citing such metrics as which candidate was most presidential and most likable and best addressed your concerns on the issues, where Biden outpaced Trump by more than 20 points, she said.
But for the focus group of Democratic insiders who watched Biden while holding their breath, it was too little, too late to ease the deep sense of foreboding that rippled through.
The delegation of Biden surrogates in the CNN Atlanta spin room did not even attempt to defend Biden’s debate performance. Instead, they switched the subject to his record, which Biden failed to defend for 90 minutes. All Biden had to do was defend his records by showing Americans that their lives are much better now than under Donald Trump and reassure them that their lives will continue to improve. But Biden did not talk about his accomplishments because he could not remember them, and you cannot defend what you can’t remember.
Some staffers said every failure can be explained by an excuse, such as Biden’s cold. They added that the real culprit was the lack of an audience, which the Biden campaign had demanded. Some Biden aides found the performance so concerning that they spent last night updating their LinkedIn just in case Biden loses the election.
During a post-debate interview with CNN, Vice President Kamala Harris conceded that things didn’t go great. “It was a slow start, that’s obvious to everyone,” she said, “and I’m not going to debate that.” She discussed Biden’s successful record versus Trump’s, something that Biden should have done.
In response to VP Harris, former Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) told MSNBC, “Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish: reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight.”
What should the Democrats do to save the white house? Should they have an open convention to nominate another candidate? Who should be the nominee?
Democrats have discussed whether we should dump Biden in their private group chats and anonymous texts to reporters. Last year, two prominent political strategists, David Axelrod and James Carville, tried to sound the alarm. However, only one elected official, Rep. DEAN PHILLIPS (D-Minn.), voiced the party’s widespread doubts about the wisdom of Biden running again. Most Democrats stayed quiet and closed ranks and will pay a heavy price come November.
The question now is: Will more Democrats join the dump-Biden chorus, or will they continue to try to close ranks and remain silent?
The left op-ed pages are bubbling with columnists saying Biden should step down. Biden cares about the views of the opinion elite, so those pieces may convince him to step aside, but his ego might prevail over reason.
But for the debate to matter outside of the pages of the Atlantic and the Times, two things probably have to happen: (1) prominent elected Democrats or high-ranking former officials need to voice these concerns in public, and (2) top Democrats need to pressure Biden in private. Will they do it?
One House Democrat told JMart, “The movement to convince Biden not to run is real.” This member said Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER and House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES “should consider ‘a combined effort’ to nudge Biden out of the race.” Another person, a well-connected lobbyist, noted Jeffries and Obama are set to raise money for House Democrats today in NYC.
Key people who could convince Biden to step aside include (1) his family, particularly his wife JILL and sister VALERIE BIDEN, (2) his closest advisers (TED KAUFMAN, TOM DONILON, RON KLAIN, STEVE RICCHETTI, and ANITA DUNN), and then (3) the bold-faced electeds and former electeds whose opinions he couldn’t ignore (Bill and HILLARY CLINTON, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Clyburn, Delaware Sen. CHRIS COONS).
Party leaders could nominate California Governor Gavin Newsom for president during the convention. Newsom is young, energetic, and successful, having led California out of the pandemic.
