If it were up to many of the nation’s leading political pundits, President Joe Biden would be spending the day working on the details of his retirement plan. I started putting together a list over the weekend of the prominent media voices calling on the incumbent Democrat to pass the torch, but I eventually gave up — because it was difficult to keep up with the deluge.
The editorial board of The New York Times was arguably the most prominent voice to urge Biden to stand down, and the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution soon followed with a front-page argument of its own. The Atlantic published a half-dozen pieces in the aftermath of last week’s debate calling on Biden to end his candidacy. They were joined by Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, David Remnick, David Ignatius, and many, many others.
Complicating matters, anxiety among many leading Democratic donors has reached the point at which some aren’t just looking for alternatives to the incumbent, some are also looking for refunds.
There’s no reason to assume that this chatter will end anytime soon. Indeed, once this conversation starts, it’s hard to make it stop. It’s reminiscent of the point in presidential primaries when candidates start facing questions — at every appearance and in every interview — about what it’d take for them to exit the race. The lines of inquiry themselves signal to voters that these candidates have bleak futures.
Every hour that Team Biden spends trying to reassure party officials, insiders, donors, voters, and pundits that his re-election plans remain on track is another hour in which it’s not making a case against Trump, drawing attention to the incumbent Democrat’s accomplishments, and presenting a vision for the future.
And yet, the grand total of Democratic officials — in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and gubernatorial offices nationwide — who’ve publicly called on Biden to step aside is zero. The Washington Post reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “has told his worried members to hold their fire for a few days to see how things shake out,” and to date, they have.
This is no small detail: The more Biden can keep leading Democratic officials on his side, the more he can focus on the general election. If those officials turned on him, the political challenge would go from bad to worse.
So, perhaps the president can breathe a little easier, satisfied that officials from his own party haven’t called for him to step aside? It’s not quite that simple. NBC News reported on an important interview:
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on Sunday acknowledged that there are “very honest, and serious and rigorous conversations taking place” in the Democratic Party following President Joe Biden’s dismal performance at the presidential debate on Thursday.
“We’re having a serious conversation about what to do,” the Maryland Democrat told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. Raskin, an influential voice in Democratic politics, added, “One thing I can tell you is that regardless of what President Biden decides, our party is going to be unified. … Whether he’s the candidate or someone else is the candidate, he is going to be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be the figure that we rally around to move forward and beat the forces of authoritarianism and reaction in the country.” These were not the words of a congressman who believes the underlying question has been resolved. So what should the public expect from this serious intra-party conversation? As unsatisfying as this seems, polling will likely have an enormous impact. If, for example, surveys in the coming days show a relatively unchanged race, Biden and his political operation will find it far easier to address Democratic anxieties. If, on the other hand, polls from the near future show Trump’s advantage reaching new heights, that will lead to a qualitatively different Democratic discussion. Remember, for Democrats, there is nothing but affection for Biden. Those who want to see him replaced on the ticket don’t do so because they dislike or disapprove of him; they’re motivated solely by electoral considerations. If the president isn’t going to win in November, the argument goes, then he’ll need to step aside. The Democratic conversation will almost certainly be data-driven, and to the frustration of the impatient, that data is not yet available.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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