Democrats have a big opportunity before them — one they could easily blow.
Joe Biden bowed out of the race for his party’s nomination today promising in a prepared statement to “speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”
If Biden had left it at that, chaos would have reigned. He left no instruction to the delegates he amassed in what was, for the most part, an uncontested primary. He thanked his vice president, Kamala Harris, “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work,” but he neither endorsed her presumed candidacy to replace him nor did he sanction any of the various processes some have toyed with that would be designed to produce a suitable, consensus replacement. No one knows what the president currently thinks about how this unprecedented condition should resolve itself. Into that void, an untold number of freelancers will rush in the effort to popularize their vision of how the party should move forward.
Shortly after the statement was published, however, Biden endorsed his vice president to “be the nominee of our party this year.” The president’s endorsement was, however, confined to a social-media post composed, presumably, not by Biden’s own hand. The president will have to show far more enthusiasm for his chosen successor in the coming days to tamp down apprehension among Democratic elites over her competency as a candidate — no matter how much he resents it.
Democrats have a big opportunity before them — one they could easily blow. If the party descends into infighting and factionalism as their nominating convention approaches — or, worse, if the convention itself turns into an undisciplined free-for-all — whatever goodwill Democrats hope to capitalize on from this maneuver is unlikely to materialize. Voters tend not to reward a party in anarchy with control of the reins of power. If, however, Democrats rally around a new candidate — and, let’s face it, it’s Harris or bust — and turn their convention into a show of renewed enthusiasm and unity akin to what the GOP managed, they very well could reset the race.
If Democrats manage to transform their convention into both the most lavish ice floe in history for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s debutantes’ ball, Democrats could reap the rewards of being the first of the two parties to jettison their extremely unpopular nominees. If the party descends into pandemonium, Donald Trump’s upward trajectory will continue apace. But we just don’t know precisely how much the Democratic Party’s struggles at the top of the ticket were a result of their Biden problem or their Biden-Harris problem. We’re about to find out.
For the last three weeks, Joe Biden has insisted that he would not drop out of the race — no one, not even God himself, could make him reconsider. To this, Democrats stroked their chins over Biden’s coy ambiguity, eventually assuring their supporters that he would make up his mind eventually. Not one Democrat is today confused over Biden’s intentions. They’re getting right to work. Republicans had best be prepared for the possibility that, whatever Harris’s flaws as a candidate, voters are prepared to give her and her party a second look.