Is There a Good Reason Not to Panic? Well, No, Not Really.
The Democrats have always had three options. Sticking with Joe Biden always seemed like the least bad option. Last night, that changed.
Item one: The Democrats have always had three options. Sticking with Joe Biden always seemed like the least bad option. Last night, that changed.
Joe Biden had barely opened his mouth last night when I gasped and said to myself, "Oh God, this might be really bad." His voice was thin and raspy and weak. His words, ostensibly about how badly Donald Trump botched the pandemic, were unfocused and constituted a huge missed opportunity. And that kept happening over and over and over again.
Trump lied like crazy, sure. Nobody’s aborting a fetus after it’s born. "Everyone" did not want Roe overturned. Millions of people from prisons or mental institutions have not crossed the border. Food prices haven’t "quadrupled." It went on and on—CNN’s fact-checker said he counted at least 30 outright lies. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash never stepped in to fact-check Trump. All that is true. But none of that changes the overwhelming fact. Biden confirmed Democrats’ worst nightmares. "We finally beat Medicare"? Dear God.
CNN’s flash poll had respondents saying Trump won by 67 to 33 percent. Frankly, I’m not sure who those 33 were. The die-hardest of die-hard Democrats, I guess, or maybe single-issue voters who heard Biden say one thing they liked. But 33 percent means a ton of Democrats admitted that their guy lost, and the guy they really hate and rightly consider a direct threat to the country won. And probably half of that 33 were voting with their heart.
What happens now? Let’s talk about the people who have the power to go to Biden and tell him to step aside. What kinds of conversations is Barack Obama having today? Who’s Chuck Schumer talking to? Hakeem Jeffries? Nancy Pelosi? How about Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore? The big donors and bundlers? And perhaps most of all, there’s Jill and his family.
All these people have known for a long time that the Democrats had three options. The first has been sticking with Biden. People knew he was a risky proposition. But until this debate, Biden was, plausibly, the least bad option. Because the other two options are these.
Option two is that Biden steps down and hands it to Kamala Harris. She’s his vice president, and how in the world do you sidestep a sitting vice president?
That’s the most likely non-Biden option, but I know no one who’s excited about it. She’s just not a good politician. What’s the scenario where she beats Trump? Maybe she generates some higher enthusiasm among Black women, and theoretically among younger voters to some extent. Maybe she’d have more success making the race a referendum on abortion.
Harris, though, has a huge weakness. She has never really been able to make a strong economic argument. Even back when people were gushing about her in early 2019, when she announced her presidential candidacy, I noticed she had nothing to say about economic issues. And they’re kind of important in a presidential election. And then, of course, there are the racism and sexism you have to factor in here that would hurt her unfairly. My guess is that she runs three to five points worse than Biden against Trump, and that turns a margin-of-error race into a decisive loss—and one that probably affects control of the House and/or Senate.
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