Like every other political journalist, I will be closely watching George Stephanopoulos’s interview with President Biden tonight, but in reality, it is too late to save him. The die has been cast.
If Biden has another performance like he did in the debate, it’s obviously curtains. But even if he has a roughly serviceable performance, what Rich refers to as a middling one, it’s hard to see how he survives.
The bombardment of stories over the past few days has conveyed one thing, which is that Democrats have finally come to understand that it doesn’t matter if Biden can still pull a decent interview out of his hat. It’s clear that, like many aging people, he has good moments and bad — but the lapses are becoming more severe and more frequent. So even if he happens to be okay in one interview, there is no reason for Democrats to feel confident that he can consistently perform well over the next four months.
My guess is that for prominent Democrats, the decision has already been made to dump Biden. The reason it hasn’t happened yet is they are hoping he can get there on his own, but also, they need time to figure out the various scenarios involved in him stepping aside.
Should he merely step down from the campaign, or the presidency itself? Should they attempt to anoint Vice President Kamala Harris quickly, or try to pull off some sort of mini-primary to open it up to more comers in hopes that they emerge with somebody stronger?
The big concern, of course, is just because Democratic power brokers decide to dump Biden, it doesn’t mean he and First Lady Jill Biden can be persuaded to go without a fight.
I mean, you expect for a candidate to be saying stuff like this until a final decision has been made, because any indication that you are thinking of leaving would be devastating to the campaign.
Let me say this as clearly as I can:
I’m the sitting President of the United States.
I’m the nominee of the Democratic party.
I’m staying in the race.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 5, 2024
While I’m sure that Democrats could go through the bylaws and figure out some way to get him off the ticket if they really wanted to, the bloodbath to do so would tear the party apart. Additionally, even if they were successful, imagine going into an election arguing that you have to elect Democrats to save democracy after they just kicked the guy to the curb who won 99 percent of delegates among their voters.