Can Biden beat the count and make it to the convention?

While calls for him to exit continue, the Democrat National Convention is barely a month away, beginning on August 19 in Chicago, IL.  To me at least, it is inconceivable that anyone would attempt to swap candidates after this seminal event. 

Last Thursday – two short days before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, but what proved to be an eternity in politics – President Joe Biden did his level best to assuage fears that he lacks the mental acuity and stamina to prevail in November by hosting a formal press conference after the much vaunted NATO summit in Washington, DC.  While the President’s performance was far superior to his disastrous showing at last month’s debate, presenting himself as a reasonably credible, if at times meandering and confused, Commander in Chief (including an odd moment when he referred to some other Commander in Chief and claimed he picked “VP Trump”), many in the Democrat Party still weren’t satisfied and calls for him to withdraw from the race, though oddly not the Presidency itself, continued afterwards.   “We are faced with a stark choice: be resigned to slog through this election praying we can successfully defend our democracy, or enthusiastically embrace a vibrant vision for our future,” explained Illinois Representative Brad Schneider in a statement announcing his belief that another candidate should step forward.  “I love President Biden. I am forever grateful for his leadership and service to our nation…I fear if he fails to make the right choice, our democracy will hang in the balance,” he continued.  Representative Schneider was joined by Hawaii Representative Ed Case, who said “I do not believe President Biden should continue his candidacy for re-election as President…This is solely about the future, about the President’s ability to continue in the most difficult office in the world for another four-year term.”  The reaction from the donor class was less than promising as well, when a Democrat Super-PAC announced on Friday that they were freezing $90 million in funds so long as President Biden remains the candidate.  For their part, the mainstream media’s reaction can best be described as lukewarm.  CNN’s Stephen Collinson summarized the President’s performance in two simple statements, “President Joe Biden’s critical news conference didn’t end his reelection campaign on Thursday night. But it showed why it will be so hard for him to save it.”

Mr. Collinson’s network also reported on events before the press conference that didn’t bode well for the President, namely that former President Barack Obama and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been colluding behind the scenes against him.  Previously we’d known that President Obama had reviewed and presumably approved George Clooney’s New York Times’ op-ed claiming President Biden is not the man he was just a few years ago, but now we learned that “Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have spoken privately about Joe Biden and the future of his 2024 campaign. Both the former president and ex-speaker expressed concerns about how much harder they think it’s become for the president to beat Donald Trump. Neither is quite sure what to do.”  CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Jeff Zelezny also noted that they “spoke with more than a dozen members of Congress, operatives and multiple people in touch with both Obama and Pelosi, many of whom say that the end for Biden’s candidacy feels clear and at this point it’s just a matter of how it plays out, even after Thursday night’s news conference.”  Likewise, Politico reported on a group of Democrat “super friends” intent on ousting President Biden.  “Some Democrats we spoke with dreaded the likelihood that Biden aides would spin the night as a big win that showed a president in full command of his faculties. And so, the Biden detractors will regroup. Many lawmakers had drafted statements and were waiting to release them after the NATO summit and press conference wrapped up. Will they release them today?  What’s more, Democratic leaders at some point will also have to speak to Biden about the situation. How frank will they be?”  “The Super Friends are assembling,” explained a House Democrat unimpressed with President Biden’s press conference performance. “There’s a group of people who are going to go make their case to whomever they can get to at the White House that he needs to step aside and we’re going to get our asses kicked if he doesn’t.”  In an “ideal world,” this “Super Friends” delegation would be “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi, and Jim Clyburn,” according to the member in question.  Of that group, only Representative Clyburn has spoken publicly in support of the President, while Minority Leader Jeffries recently refused to extend his endorsement.

Typical of the political posturing to date, little if any attention has been paid to the substance of President Biden’s actions rather than the show.  In that regard, the President himself insisted the NATO summit was a smashing success, declaring “We just concluded this year’s NATO Summit.  And the consensus among the members was it was a great success.  It was especially momentous because it represented the 75th year of the most important military defense alliance in the world’s hi- — the history of the world.”  When asked about a verbal slip up earlier in the day, wherein he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin, the President shot back with questions of his own, “Did you see any damage to our standing in my leading this conference?  Have you seen a more successful conference?  What do you think?”  The reaction from foreign leaders gathered at the conference, however, was far from as positive.  Britain’s The Telegraph claimed “Biden’s gaffe has ruined months of our hard work, says European officials.”  As they characterized it, “Joe Biden’s gaffes have ruined months of hard work and undermined the NATA summit, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph.  On stage, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz defended the president over a slip of the tongue in which he called Volodymyr Zelensky ‘President Putin’.  The US leader went on to call Kamala Harris ‘vice-president Trump’.  But roaming the corridors of the summit, aides were more frank in their verdict of the president’s performance. ‘It was awful,’ an official said, describing standing in the crowd as events unfurled.  The consensus amongst diplomats and officials who spoke to The Telegraph, and were granted anonymity to speak more freely, was that it took less than a minute to change the narrative of an entire summit.  The sources realized they would be forced to read about the gaffe on tomorrow’s front pages instead of stories of their successes.”  Viral video has also emerged of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who previously had to guide our aging President back to a group of European leaders when he wandered off at an event in France, rolled her eyes and visibly sneered at the news President Biden was late, apparently as usual, for one of the meetings, sometimes by an hour or more. 

At this point, it is impossible to say whether what some are calling a political vortex will ultimately draw the President down.  He remains defiant and insists he will continue with his campaign no matter what.  At an event in Michigan on Friday – one day before the assassination attempt and one shunned by every major Democrat and union figure in the state – he declared, “Fourteen million Democrats like you voted for me in the primaries.  You made me the nominee, no one else. Not the press, not the pundits, not the insiders, not the donors. You the voters. You decided, no one else, and I’m not going anywhere.  I am running and we’re going to win.”  In principle at least, President Biden was speaking the truth.  He has almost twice the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination, and he and he alone has the power to release them for another potential candidate.  The future of his candidacy remains firmly in his own hands, but still, it is almost impossible to believe President Biden could continue should some combination of former President Obama, Majority Leader Schumer, or Representative Pelosi, three of the most prominent voices in the Democrat Party, publicly demand he withdraw from the race.  Indeed, perhaps one of the reasons none of the three has said anything in public so far on whether he should continue is because they know his candidacy would be permanently damaged if they spoke out, and are, smartly in my opinion, hedging their bets – speaking in private in attempt to put pressure on the President, but not in public where their chances in November could be fatally damaged, assuming of course that they aren’t already.  The clock is ticking, however, and any Democrats, whether currently in office or revered for their previous service, are going to have to make a final decision very soon.  The Democrat National Convention is barely a month away, beginning on August 19 in Chicago, IL.  To me at least, it is inconceivable that they would attempt to swap candidates after this seminal event.  First, there are potential legal and fundraising issues that could prevent a new candidate from appearing on the ballot in key states or using funds that had been previously raised.  Second, and more importantly, the convention, along with its free airtime on major networks and comprehensive media coverage, is the last real opportunity to properly introduce a candidate to the American people, offering at least the potential to reset the race.

Assuming Democrats aren’t insane enough to believe they can change horses in the middle of an October campaign, the equivalent of halfway across the Mississippi, it seems reasonable to assume that the start of the convention would be the last possible opportunity to dump President Biden in favor of someone more energetic.  This leaves less than five weeks to do so, strongly suggesting that the President might simply be able to run out the clock by biding his time, especially given the shift in the conversation as a result of the assassination attempt on his opponent and the Republican National Convention, which has essentially stalled discussions about replacing President Biden for now.  Regardless, if the President’s reaction to the assassination attempt and his interview with NBC’s Lester Holt earlier this week are any indication, the conversation will begin anew next week, perhaps with a vengeance.  On Sunday, the President attempted to retake control of events with a prime time Oval Office address that failed to go exactly as planned.  He began by referring to his opponent as “former Trump,” saying “Thankfully, former Trump is not seriously,” and then he garbled the word “injured.”  He said violence wasn’t the answer, but failed to mention that it was a radical progressive shooter that attempted to assassinate Republican Members of Congress in 2017, the deranged man who targeted conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, the progressive driven riots in 2020 and even this very year in support of Palestine.  From there, he appeared unable to say the phrase “ballot box,” instead referring to it as a “battle box” twice.  “In America, we resolve our differences at the battle box.  That’s how we do it.  At the battle box.”  Perhaps most bizarrely, he closed by coming incredibly close to endorsing his opponent’s campaign slogan, saying, “We’re blessed to live in the greatest country on Earth, and I believe that with every soul, with every power of my being, so tonight, I’m asking every American to recommit to make America, so, to make America, um, think about it, what’s made America so special.”  The interview with Lester Holt didn’t go much better.  After asking everyone to tone down the rhetoric, he insisted that he’s not engaged in any overheated rhetoric himself – before immediately saying former President Trump was a danger to the country and repeating the long-debunked “very fine people on both sides” lie.  “Have you taken a step back and done a little soul searching on things that you may have said that could incite people who aren’t balanced?”  Mr. Holt asked, offering a question that had a relatively easy answer, something along the lines of, “I think we all let our passion for what we believe is right get the better of us from time to time, it’s human nature in the heat of the moment, but after Saturday, I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to be a little more careful and controlled.”  Instead, he said, “I have not engaged in that rhetoric,” a truly astounding claim for a man who called the entire state of Texas Neanderthals and insisted anyone that doesn’t support his voting “rights plan” was the equivalent of a Confederate.

Given the constantly shifting and unpredictable political climate – true before the assassination attempt, true tens time over now – it’s difficult to see how President Biden can keep up, and yet it’s equally difficult to see how his fellow Democrats who are dissatisfied with his candidacy can apply enough pressure between July 22 and August 16 to convince him to withdraw.  Anything’s possible, but if I had to bet, I’d say President Biden beats the clock, and continues stumbling onward, a mortally wounded candidate (figuratively, of course under the circumstances) who simply doesn’t realize it yet.