The daily drumbeat of challenges to the continued viability of President Joe Biden’s candidacy in his pursuit of reelection in November has all the markings of classic Chinese water torture. And its result is just as predictable.
Most observers agree that Biden should not continue in the race. He was behind former President Donald Trump in virtually all polls before the late June debate debacle and has fallen further behind in several battleground states as the fallout from the debate, Trump’s triumphant survival of an assassination attempt and other developments have played out.
Democrats also express concern that if Biden stays in the race his presence at the top of the ticket could jeopardize down-ballot races in several key battleground states and solidify Republican efforts to sweep the White House and elect majorities in both houses of Congress.
Biden, his family and many of his closest advisors have convinced themselves that Biden remains the best possible choice to beat Trump. While that was true four years ago, there is good reason to be concerned that it is not the case today. Nonetheless, the Biden team seems to believe that Biden can survive the challenges they admit he faces and continue as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Others are less confident. And more than half of Democratic voters believe he should step aside.
More importantly, it is belittling to Biden and damaging to his historic and heroic legacy for him to keep trying to prove he is up to the job, while an entire nation watches his every step and utterance to find evidence of his age and its consequences.
And then there’s the fact that we cannot unsee what we saw in the late June debate. And we can’t unsee what we have seen in subsequent efforts by Biden and his campaign to show vigor, vitality, alacrity and intellectual dexterity that have similarly backfired.
We will not benefit from a presidential campaign preoccupied with proving whether one candidate has the strength and energy to serve as president. Instead, there are consequential policy, security, economic, social and political issues on which we need to hear more from the candidates, with a focus on their planned approaches and ideas. Every minute (and dollar) spent on candidate vitality is a distraction and a waste of valuable campaign opportunities.
Biden has had a long and impressive run. He is one of the most accomplished political leaders of our generation. He has a lot to be proud of, and there is still more to accomplish in the remainder of his term.
It is entirely up to Biden to decide what happens next.
The American people voted to have Biden lead our country four years ago and to trust his judgment on many issues confronting our nation. He has gone through the primary process and has the necessary committed delegates to support his continued candidacy.
Now, he has a big decision to make regarding the country’s future. We trust that Biden has the strength and self-awareness to do the right thing.
Your trust in Joe Biden is sorely misplaced. His “historic and heroic legacy” is composed of historic inflation, historic rise in energy prices, historic spending sprees causing historic debt, a historic rise in crime, a historic failure in support for Israel and Jewish students on campus, and a historic rise in foreign wars caused by his historic weakness in foreign policies. The debate that you surely ignored tore away the Biden’s historic fig leaf
of competence revealing an increasingly senile president who was overwhelmed by not only by his duties but also his lack of debating skills.
Joe has made his decision, he’s staying in the WH but his party is about to make it’s. If he stays he will lose the presidency and likely drag down the party’s chances of winning in Congress. It’s been long obvious that Joe was losing it but the Democrats and the media hid that fact for years. That charade is now over, you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. The only thing historic about Joe is his downfall.