The Biden-Replacement Operation

[homersapien 12,172]

The tricky business of changing presidential candidates without tearing the party apart and losing the election anyway

By Ronald Brownstein

When I reached the longtime Democratic strategist James Carville via text near the end of last night’s presidential debate, his despair virtually radiated through my phone.

“I tried, man, I tried,” Carville wrote to me.

A few minutes later, when the debate was over, we talked by phone. Carville has been one of the loudest and most persistent Democrats arguing that President Joe Biden was too old to run again. Carville, who managed Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and is still, at 79, an influential political analyst, had tempered that criticism lately—though more out of resignation than conviction. His apprehension about Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump had never really diminished in my previous conversations with him, but he’d seemed to accept as inevitable that the party would not reject a president who wanted to seek a second term.

But last night, Carville, like other Democrats I spoke with, sounded almost shell-shocked, as he searched for words to describe Biden’s scattered, disoriented, and disjointed debate performance.

“What is there to ******* say?” Carville told me. “How could somebody not see this coming? I’m just flummoxed.”

What do you think will happen next? I asked. “I have become aware of the limits of my own power,” Carville responded. He thought that Biden running again “was a terrible idea. I said it publicly. I failed … I understand that. But how could you not see this coming?”

I had one last question. What do you think should happen next—should Biden step aside? “I don’t know,” he said, in a leaden tone. “The Democratic Party is at a come-to-Jesus moment. That’s where we are.”

Carville was far from the only Democrat reconsidering a scenario that had seemingly passed into political fantasy: whether Biden could be persuaded, or pushed, not to run again. Another prominent Democratic strategist, who is considered one of Biden’s staunchest defenders in the party and did not want to be named for this report, told me his view last night that “there’s a very high likelihood that he’s not going to be the candidate.” Even so, the strategist added, “I don’t know how that happens.”

If Biden insists on staying in the race, the odds remain high that Democrats will in fact nominate him at their convention in August; dislodging an incumbent president is a huge task. But more Democrats in the next few days are likely to crack open the party-nomination rules. And those rules actually provide a straightforward road map to replace Biden at the convention if he voluntarily withdraws—and even, if he doesn’t, a pathway to challenge him.

Trump was hardly a colossus in the debate. Though less belligerent than in his first 2020 debate with Biden, and far more vigorous than Biden last night, Trump continued to display all of his familiar negative traits: He lied almost obsessively, defended the January 6 rioters, bragged about his role in overturning the constitutional right to abortion, and repeated his discredited claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Nothing in Trump’s performance convinced Democrats that he could not be beaten in November. But Trump’s evident vulnerabilities will probably compound the concern about Biden, because they showed that Democrats might still stop him if they had a candidate who was not laboring under so many painfully apparent vulnerabilities of his own.

For Democrats fearful that Biden can’t win, the president’s showing last night was so bad that it might have been good—in the sense that it put the idea of replacing him as the nominee, which the White House had almost completely banished from conversation, back on the table. The pro-Biden strategist last night flatly predicted, “I do think that somebody is going to declare and challenge him.”

Some top party strategists said last night that they considered the widespread panic over Biden’s performance a hysterical overreaction. “Missed opportunity, but the idea that it is a game changer is totally wrong,” Geoff Garin, the experienced Democratic pollster, told me.

Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, a co-founder of Way to Win, a liberal group that focuses on electing candidates of color, offered no praise for Biden’s performance but also did not view it as an insurmountable obstacle to beating Trump. “This election has always been bigger than these two candidates and their performances,” she told me. “The choice and contrast between the two different futures they represent is clear and will become more stark as we get closer to Election Day.”

But these voices were very much the exceptions in the communal cry of despair that erupted from prominent Democrats last night. “Unmitigated disaster” was the summary of one, who is a senior strategist for an elected Democrat considered a possible Biden replacement and who asked to remain anonymous. “I think there was a sense of shock at how he came out at the beginning of this debate, how his voice sounded; he seemed a little disoriented,” David Axelrod, the chief political strategist for Barack Obama, said on CNN immediately after the debate. “He did get stronger as the debate went on, but by that time, I think the panic had set in.”

The key mechanism in the party rules that allows for replacing the nominee resulted from a change approved decades ago after the bitter 1980 primary fight, when Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts challenged a weakened President Jimmy Carter for the nomination. After a convention battle, which Carter won, Democrats agreed to eliminate the so-called robot rule, which required convention delegates to vote on the first ballot, at least, for the candidate they were chosen to support, says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, who played a central role in the change.

Instead, she told me last night, the rules now say that delegates to the convention “shall ‘in all good conscience’ vote for the person they were elected to represent.” This means, she added, that “there is a presumption you will vote for Biden, but the ‘all good conscience’ could cover a lot of things.”

If Biden voluntarily withdrew, the party would employ a process to replace him that harks back to the era when presidential nominees were selected mainly not through primaries but by party leaders at the convention itself. “If he does it himself, there are many, many ways to replace him,” Kamarck told me. “About 4,000 people have already been elected to the convention. If Biden stepped aside tomorrow, several people would get into the race, no doubt, and the race would consist of calling these people and trying to convince them.

“It would be an old-fashioned convention,” she went on. “All 4,000 delegates pledged to Biden would suddenly be uncommitted, and you’d have a miniature campaign.” Under changes approved after the Hillary Clinton–Bernie Sanders 2016 race, the so-called superdelegates—about 750 elected officials and other party insiders—would become eligible to vote only if no candidate won a majority on the first ballot and the race went to a second round at the convention.

If Biden remains in the race, another candidate could still make a case to the convention delegates for replacing him. Even after last night’s performance, though, Kamarck doubts that a serious party leader would try this. “I don’t think anybody will challenge him, frankly,” she told me. “I think the depth of feeling for him in the party is very strong.”

But the staunchly pro-Biden strategist who expects a challenge thinks the operation could play out in a way similar to the two-step process that helped persuade Lyndon B. Johnson, the previous Democratic president not to seek reelection, to step aside in 1968. Johnson that year initially faced an anti–Vietnam War challenge from Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. After McCarthy—a relatively peripheral figure in the party—showed Johnson’s weakness in the New Hampshire primary vote, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, a much more formidable opponent, jumped in. Fifteen days later, Johnson announced his withdrawal from the race.

If a challenge to Biden develops before the August convention, the strategist predicted, it would unfold in a similar way. First out of the box will be a secondary figure unlikely to win the nomination, the strategist said. But if that person demonstrated a sufficient groundswell of desire for an alternative candidate, more heavyweight contenders—such as Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California—might quickly follow, the strategist predicted.

Talk of replacing Biden may conceivably dissipate once the initial shock of last night’s debate fades. Most Democrats who want to replace Biden also remain extremely dubious that his incumbent running mate, Kamala Harris, could beat Trump—but if she sought the nomination, then denying that prize to the first woman of color who has served as vice president could tear apart the party. The fear that such a fight could practically ensure defeat in November is one reason Democrats who are uneasy about renominating Biden have held their tongue for so long.

Still, the prospect of the party simply marching forward with Biden as if nothing happened last night seems difficult to imagine. Even before his disastrous performance, Democratic anxiety was rising with the release of a flurry of unsettling polls for Biden in the 48 hours before the CNN debate. National Quinnipiac University and New York Times/Siena College polls released Wednesday each gave Trump a four-percentage-point lead over the president, the challenger’s best showing in weeks. Yesterday, Gallup released a withering national poll that showed the share of Americans with a favorable view of Trump rising, while Biden’s number was falling—with more respondents saying that Trump, rather than Biden, had the personal and leadership qualities a president should have.

Tellingly, three-quarters of those whom Gallup polled said they were concerned that Biden “is too old to be president,” exactly double the share that registered the same concern about Trump. Like the Times/Siena and Quinnipiac polls, Gallup also found that Biden’s job-approval rating remained marooned below 40 percent—a level that, as Gallup pointedly noted, is much closer to the historical results at this point in the race for the recent incumbents who lost their reelection bids (Carter in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1992, and Trump in 2020) than those who won a second term.

Not all the polling on the debate’s eve was as glum for Biden. But the overall picture suggested that whatever polling boost Biden had received from Trump’s criminal conviction in the New York hush-money case a month ago has evaporated. Instead, polls are showing that the former president has regained a narrow but persistent advantage, both nationally and in the decisive battleground states.

All the usual caveats to ironclad conclusions from last night’s set piece apply, even if it was a debacle for Biden. Presidential races are marathons, with unpredictable twists. Many Democrats still believe that Biden is a decent man who has been an effective president. The resistance to Trump remains deep and durable among large swaths of the American electorate.

But the viability of Biden as the candidate who can overcome Trump’s lead looked much more doubtful within moments of the president taking the stage last night. Biden’s performance justified every fear of the cadre of longtime party strategists, such as Carville and Axelrod, who have openly voiced the concerns about renominating him that plenty of others have shared only privately.

Carville, though, was feeling no “told you so” joy last night. His parting words to me: “I hate being right.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/great-democratic-conundrum-biden/678830/?utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20240628&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The+Atlantic+Daily

Edited June 29 by homersapien

[homersapien 12,172]

And to maintain perspective:

Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform

The debate was a travesty—because its whole premise was to treat a failed coup leader as a legitimate candidate for the presidency.

By David Frum

The first question about January 6 was asked at minute 41.

Donald Trump replied with a barrage of crazy lies, ending by seeming to blame Nancy Pelosi’s documentarian daughter.

Then, just to be fair, CNN moderator Jake Tapper followed up with a question to President Joe Biden. Did he really mean to imply that Trump’s voters were a danger to democracy?

Biden fumbled the answer, as he fumbled so many other answers. The octogenarian president delivered a fiasco of a performance on the Atlanta debate stage. But the fiasco was not his alone.

Everything about the event was designed to blur the choice before Americans. Both candidates—the serving president and the convicted felon—were addressed as “President.” The questions treated an attempted coup d’état as one issue out of many. The candidates were left to police or fail to police the truth of each other’s statements; it was nobody else’s business.

It may be no coincidence that the modern television presidential debate was born at a time of national political consensus. In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon presented a choice very familiar to viewers in the days of three big channels and a limited number of mass-market products: You could choose Crest or Colgate, two very similar products to meet a similar need. One might be a little mintier, the other a little spicier, but both did the job. Now we live in a very different world, a world in which the choice is much more existential—and yet we retain the Crest-versus-Colgate format.

How could it be otherwise? We live in a political culture in which some of us think the supreme issue of our time was an attempted violent overthrow of the Constitution, while other Americans think it was Hunter Biden’s laptop. There are means and institutions to arbitrate those differences. That’s what elections do. But television debates cannot do it, because television debates don’t happen unless they get buy-in from both sides. Therefore, television debates are designed necessarily to ratify the concept of “both sides.”

Ferocious controversy will probably now erupt over Biden’s leadership of the Democratic Party. We’ll hear all kinds of plans to swap him out somehow. Maybe those plans will be workable, but probably not. Through the uproar, it will be important to keep in mind that this election is not about Biden. It’s about you and your commitments and your values. Biden is just the instrument. Like any instrument, he’s imperfect. But better an imperfect instrument than a would-be autocrat who demands a cult of personality.

A century ago, the socialist leader (and presidential candidate) Eugene V. Debs rebuked followers who idolized him: “I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.”

Against the threat of Trump, Americans must save themselves. The job of doing so cannot be delegated to some charismatic savior—and anyway, that charismatic savior has yet to present himself or herself. Television always wants to reduce active human beings to passive viewers. The presidential-debate format has especially served this purpose: “Do I prefer the candidate in the red tie or the blue one?”

This most recent debate has taught the danger of spectatorship. The job of saving democracy from Trump will be done not by an old man on a gaudy stage, but by those who care that their democracy be saved. Biden’s evident frailties have aggravated that job and made it more difficult, but they have also clarified whose job it is. Not his. Yours.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/debate-trump-platform-january-6/678818/?utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20240628&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The+Atlantic+Daily

[auburnatl1 6,020]

Maybe I’m clueless but I was surprised when he announced he’d run again. People were doing the age math 4 years ago.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129

[I_M4_AU 8,888]

What was suprising is the Democrats couldn’t see this when he announced his intention to run again and didn’t have anyone with a chance to win primary him.  I think it had to do with having the right’s constant bringing up his failing health and mental capacity that they were determined to back this guy.

Some couldn’t see this coming and that is what gaslighting does for you.

[homersapien 12,172]

6 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

Maybe I’m clueless but I was surprised when he announced he’d run again. People were doing the age math 4 years ago.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129

Like you said, it's very hard to take the keys away.

The cruel irony of the situation is the alternative to Biden is even worse - which is exactly why Biden needs to step down.

[auburnatl1 6,020]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Like you said, it's very hard to take the keys away.

The cruel irony of the situation is the alternative to Biden is even worse - which is exactly why Biden needs to step down.

Even if he stepped aside, the challenge the Dems have is who is the heir apparent? Feels like total convention nasty chaos. And what happens to Biden’s $200m war chest? Legally they can’t just reallocate it to another candidate.

Damn tricky 11th hour stuff.

[auburnatl1 6,020]

6 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

Even if he stepped aside, the challenge the Dems have is who is the heir apparent? Feels like total convention nasty chaos. And what happens to Biden’s $200m war chest? Legally they can’t just reallocate it to another candidate.

Damn tricky 11th hour stuff.

Ps  People have been murmuring this scenario for months - if she’d do it.

https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/michelle-obama-speculated-to-replace-joe-biden-after-presidential-debate-barack-obama-says-a-fight-between/amp-11719652093974.html

[jj3jordan 2,160]

50 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

What was suprising is the Democrats couldn’t see this when he announced his intention to run again and didn’t have anyone with a chance to win primary him.  I think it had to do with having the right’s constant bringing up his failing health and mental capacity that they were determined to back this guy.

Some couldn’t see this coming and that is what gaslighting does for you.

In 2020 the democrats had a candidate to fill every single slot of their diversity agenda. After early campaigning and two primaries they decided the only way to win was for everybody to quit and support the rich straight racist old white guy as their candidate. The literal opposite of the democrat platform. Obviously nothing has changed.

[I_M4_AU 8,888]

30 minutes ago, jj3jordan said:

In 2020 the democrats had a candidate to fill every single slot of their diversity agenda. After early campaigning and two primaries they decided the only way to win was for everybody to quit and support the rich straight racist old white guy as their candidate. The literal opposite of the democrat platform. Obviously nothing has changed.

Yep, the left loves to jump on Republicans for not replacing Trump as the nominee even though he had primary challengers.  When ask why Joe  did have primary challengers the pat answer was it has never happened before, as if that is a valid excuse.  They are about to find out why you would primary the incumbent.  We knew this day would come, they were hoping it wouldn’t.

[SaltyTiger 8,526]

14 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Yep, the left loves to jump on Republicans for not replacing Trump as the nominee even though he had primary challengers.  When ask why Joe  did have primary challengers the pat answer was it has never happened before, as if that is a valid excuse.  They are about to find out why you would primary the incumbent.  We knew this day would come, they were hoping it wouldn’t.

Wasn’t the narrative that Biden was the only democrat that could take Trump out in 2024. I have a tough time buying that people close to Joe knew what the results of an unscripted debate would be. Almost as though he went to Camp David for a week and worked on the NC rebound speech. 

[auburnatl1 6,020]

14 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Yep, the left loves to jump on Republicans for not replacing Trump as the nominee even though he had primary challengers.  When ask why Joe  did have primary challengers the pat answer was it has never happened before, as if that is a valid excuse.  They are about to find out why you would primary the incumbent.  We knew this day would come, they were hoping it wouldn’t.

I fully hold maga accountable for not selecting Desantis or Halley.   In mind they lost all credibility and fully deserve their current reputation.

The Dems had a more awkward situation with an incumbent president - however, you have a valid point that nonetheless the Biden situation has been apparent and somehow should have been directly confronted long ago.

[I_M4_AU 8,888]

40 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

I fully hold maga accountable for not selecting Desantis or Halley.   In mind they lost all credibility and fully deserve their current reputation

I was hoping for DeSantis and was worried how Trump was going to pull off a victory, having said that, it appears the current reputation is going to put Trump in the White House again.

42 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

The Dems had a more awkward situation with an incumbent president - however, you have a valid point that nonetheless the Biden situation has been apparent and somehow should have been directly confronted long ago

The disappoint thing about Biden is the Dems knew it and tried to gas light the American people until Election Day.  I believe many people will not take kindly to that attempt and deserves their current reputations.

[auburnatl1 6,020]

13 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

I

The disappoint thing about Biden is the Dems knew it and tried to gas light the American people until Election Day.  I believe many people will not take kindly to that attempt and deserves their current reputations.

Since I view Trump as dangerous and potentially traitorous strategically to the country , I won’t comment. To me it’s still a lesser of 2 train-wrecks election.

Anyone who’s been around early dementia (I’m being presumptive) knows there’s an occasional bad day and then alot of good days. But then the ratio shifts over time. If the Dems thought he’d have the performance he did they wouldnt have pushed so hard for the debate.   They wanted it. I think most were as shocked as anyone. But to your point - anyone close to him with any experience with the condition should have intervened a while back. It’s natural to be hopeful, but not when hes the potus.

Edited June 29 by auburnatl1

[JMWATS 253]

If the democrats move forward in replacing Biden won’t the nomination go to Vice President Harris?   

Edited June 29 by JMWATS

[homersapien 12,172]

3 hours ago, auburnatl1 said:

Even if he stepped aside, the challenge the Dems have is who is the heir apparent? Feels like total convention nasty chaos. And what happens to Biden’s $200m war chest? Legally they can’t just reallocate it to another candidate.

Damn tricky 11th hour stuff.

Never too late to do the right thing, especially considering the alternative.

 

[homersapien 12,172]

2 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

In 2020 the democrats had a candidate to fill every single slot of their diversity agenda. After early campaigning and two primaries they decided the only way to win was for everybody to quit and support the rich straight racist old white guy as their candidate. The literal opposite of the democrat platform. Obviously nothing has changed.

You guys really don't see the irony of criticizing the Democrats for who they came up with as a candidate? 

[homersapien 12,172]

50 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

Since I view Trump as dangerous and potentially traitorous strategically to the country , I won’t comment. To me it’s still a lesser of 2 train-wrecks election.

Anyone who’s been around early dementia (I’m being presumptive) knows there’s an occasional bad day and then alot of good days. But then the ratio shifts over time. If the Dems thought he’d have the performance he did they wouldnt have pushed so hard for the debate.   They wanted it. I think most were as shocked as anyone. But to your point - anyone close to him with any experience with the condition should have intervened a while back. It’s natural to be hopeful, but not when hes the potus.

Your assessment of Trump is right on. He truly is a danger to our democracy.

As you suggest, Biden's problem is with presentation/performance. That's a normal result of decline, not necessarily dementia. But he's competent in developing policies and implementing them.

Trump is at least as mentally deficient as Biden - arguably more so. He cannot speak in successive sentences. He just spews lies and vitriol.

There's no question in my mind as to who would be best for the country.  I hope Biden steps down, but if he doesn't, I'll still vote for him. 

It's still a binary choice.

[homersapien 12,172]

22 minutes ago, JMWATS said:

If the democrats move forward in replacing Biden won’t the nomination go to Vice President Harris?   

No.

[creed 1,770]

If I was a Trump supporter I would think Biden is the best presidential canidate for the democrats. 

[jj3jordan 2,160]

34 minutes ago, homersapien said:

You guys really don't see the irony of criticizing the Democrats for who they came up with as a candidate? 

Oh there is irony involved. Talking 2016 here in case you can’t keep up. For 2020 it’s just riding the horse as far as he will go before he collapses. We had full primaries in 2016 and 2020 but the electorate spoke. I guess you mean it’s ironic that our party actually listens to the voters and not the puppet masters.

[auburnatl1 6,020]

3 minutes ago, jj3jordan said:

Oh there is irony involved. Talking 2016 here in case you can’t keep up. For 2020 it’s just riding the horse as far as he will go before he collapses. We had full primaries in 2016 and 2020 but the electorate spoke. I guess you mean it’s ironic that our party actually listens to the voters and not the puppet masters.

Ah, the voters did actually speak. Confused. So to be clear - 2016 was a fair election but 2020 …  Why is that?

And maga  doesn’t have puppet master?  Seriously?

 

[JMWATS 253]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Whatever do you mean?  How could the Democrats not nominate Vice President Harris who could become our first female president? 

Edited June 29 by JMWATS

[WillMunny 1,524]

3 hours ago, JMWATS said:

Whatever do you mean?  How could the Democrats not nominate Vice President Harris who could become our first female president? 

Because the democrats know that:

1. Kamala Harris isn't qualified to be a mayor, much less president.

2. She couldn't win.

Edited June 30 by WillMunny

[wdefromtx 3,494]

My guess is they try Michelle Obama, or…..try Hillary again. I feel like Hillary will be the panic button option. 

[SaltyTiger 8,526]

3 hours ago, JMWATS said:

 

Below the belt edit.