Thursday’s presidential debate debacle — widely regarded as a low point for President Joe Biden, who appeared feeble and sometimes confused — many Democratic elites and nonpartisan pundits are suggesting a break-the-glass-in-case-of-emergency move that resided on the margins of conventional political thought just a week ago: The incumbent president, they argue, should step aside in the interest of the country, and delegates should name his replacement at the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
Any move to replace Biden just four months before the election carries considerable risk. The party can ill afford to pass over its sitting vice president, Kamala Harris, who represents a core Democratic constituency as a Black woman — but Harris consistently underperforms in polling. And allowing delegates to make such a momentous decision, negating the will of millions of primary voters and turning a nomination process that has been the norm for decades upside-down, is surely a recipe for division and rancor.
But it’s not like we haven’t been here before. On March 31, 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson stunned the nation when he announced that he was pulling out of that year’s presidential election. The Democratic National Convention that followed several months later devolved into chaos and violence and left the party’s eventual nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, hobbled at the start of the fall campaign season. He ultimately lost a painfully close election to Richard Nixon, in no small part because of the unruly convention in Chicago.
This is why, despite the fact that many of us also dislike Kamala, she should be the only name in the running, and he shouldn’t wait until the convection to step aside. He should resign now, let Kamala be president for a few months, and then she can run in the election as an incumbent with full party support. No one else can legally claim his delegates or even use the campaign’s money, only she can do that if he resigns. This would be the only real way to force the DCCC into not shitting the bed, which is their default setting. Any other approach, in my opinion, is a recipe for mayhem at the convention, and yeah, an inevitable Trump presidency.
I don’t think a black woman has much of a chance of being elected president in this climate, but even if that weren’t the case, it’s my understanding that she’s even more disliked than Biden.
I think a black woman with Obama’s gravitas would mop the floor with trump. She doesn’t have that, and she’s got a ton of baggage too.
I very much disagree
For her (or anyone) to have a chance, there has to be some semblance of competition (if not for voters, at least for delegates)
A spectacle at the convention would get news coverage, and competition between Biden replacements would be the best way to vet the candidates’ viability
The last thing anyone should want is for the DNC to simply anoint any one person without any outside input