As reluctant as I am to join the general scrum that resulted from the president’s desultory performance in last Thursday’s debate, the shebeen does have certain public responsibilities. However, let me say that rarely has my profession behaved so badly, and rarely has my low opinion of the Democratic party’s essential backbone been so thoroughly justified. Exhibit A on Point One: On his way to a fundraiser in the Hamptons, the president was greeted by six people carrying signs urging him to resign. Within minutes, at least five respected members of the political media—and you know who you are—leaped onto the Xwitter machine to share a picture of these pasty jamokes like their presence meant something.
Exhibit B on Point One: Too many pundits of the elite political class hand-waved the barrage of easily debunked lies laid down by a vulgar talking yam. Some of them excused this malpractice on the grounds that, what the hell, everybody knew the guy was a fountain of falsehoods anyway, so let’s talk more about the president’s raspy throat and halting delivery. When journalists downplay the truth in favor of performance skills, we’re in the very tall grass.
Now for the Democrats. There is legitimate cause for concern; when Jamie Raskin speaks, I listen. But there hasn’t been a presidential campaign in my lifetime in which the money boys didn’t panic over something. The consulting class—from the old Obama hands to, God help us, James Carville—all sit around being smarter than everybody else because they once hit the lottery with a genius-level politician. The pundit class needed grist for the mill, and I hate to say I told you so, but our stalwart new friends, the Never Trump Republicans, fairly stampeded to the lifeboats. The late Lowell George called it back in 1971.
Okay, so here’s my take. The president is the candidate as long as he wants to be the candidate. If he takes himself out, then Vice President Harris is the candidate. Period. Full stop. Over and out. She’s the only one who can deploy the money that the Biden campaign has raised, and the only one with a legitimate claim on the political infrastructure already in place. Passing her over for Johnny Perfect Candidate guarantees a bloody nomination battle and the loss of a big chunk of one of the most important parts of the Democratic base.
The Brokered Convention is a glorious fantasy for people who cover politics and know absolutely nothing about political history. The 1924 Democratic convention in New York, to name just one example that’s been bandied about recently, was a four-star political calamity. It took the party 103 ballots to nominate a faceless lawyer named John W. Davis, largely because William McAdoo, a prohibitionist backed by the revived Ku Klux Klan, and New York governor Al Smith, the Catholic and a “wet,” couldn’t get out of each other’s way. Thus did Calvin Coolidge win his own full term as president. Imagine all that with social media and television. On second thought, don’t.
The president is the candidate if he wants to be. If not, Vice President Harris is. All else is chaos. Don’t believe, no, don’t believe, don’t believe everything you hear...
