Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now.
"The time has come.
The time the time is now.
Just go.
GO!
I don't care how."
Joe Biden won't go. Neither will Dianne Feinstein.
Democratic officeholders, activists, pundits, and gatekeepers are enablers. Democratic voters have moved on, and it is time for the enablers to acknowledge the obvious: Biden and Feinstein are hurting the country and their own policy priorities by hanging on too long. In Hans Christian Anderson's The Emperor's New Clothes, it took a little girl to speak aloud what was apparent to everyone:
“But he hasn’t got anything on."
Dyed-in-the-wool Democrats will follow Biden off the cliff, but the marginal ones necessary for Democrats to avoid a landslide defeat want someone else. Look at the poll: 77% of Independents who lean Democratic want someone other than Biden.
Among Black voters, only 41% want him to run again, and only 55% say they would support him in a general election. These are fatal, disastrous numbers. Are the polls right? Maybe not exactly. But the general idea is right. Biden is slipping from barely-adequate into dangerously-inadequate.
Democratic party leaders are afraid. They read that presidents running for re-election who face a primary challenge then go on to lose, e.g. Gerald Ford (Reagan), George H.W. Bush (Buchanan) and Jimmy Carter (Ted Kennedy.) They misread history. Ford, Bush and Carter did not lose because they had a primary challenge. They had a primary challenge because they had giant weak spots the primary challenge exposed.
The problem for Biden isn't policy. Republicans call Biden a Communist/Socialist/radical, but he is a centrist Democrat., the sweet spot of moderate bipartisan politics. His job is to communicate competent leadership, and he cannot do that. He now looks and sounds like a figurehead in a job that requires hands-on competence -- his own competence, not the competence of people behind the scenes. A challenger does not need to run as a policy opponent of Biden, and should not. Just be an alternative. Praise Biden. Thank him. Bury him with praise.
Democrats have a bench. The new governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro was Pennsylvania's Attorney General prior to being elected governor. He is 49. In a self-confident, articulate way he voices approximately the same centrist policies as does Biden. He need not attack Biden. Just give people a choice.
You haven't heard of Josh Shapiro? Campaigns can fix that. He isn't a proven presidential winner? He won handily in Pennsylvania. Winning in South Carolina or New Hampshire will show he is presidential material. Winning brings fame and credibility.
Or if not Josh Shapiro, then Gretchen Whitmer. Or Amy Klobuchar. Or Gavin Newsom. Or Jared Polis. Or one of several California U.S. Representatives. But you don't know much about them? Again, campaigns will fix that.
My preference is someone who can win in Pennsylvania. But won't Democrats demand that it is a woman's turn, or a Black person's turn? Some will say that, but most won't. Democrats want a winner and they resent the notion of identity-based turns. Let everyone compete. Biden undermined Justice Jackson by saying he would only pick a Black woman. He should have said he picked her because she was the very best. Uber-progressives and identity-centric Democrats are leaders of the Democratic Party, but they are out of touch with the vast majority of its voters.
Joe Biden thinks no one but him can beat Trump. Any Democrat can beat Trump, so long as the Democrat looks moderate and fully capable. Trump is toxic, except to the 40% of Republicans in thrall to him. Republicans seem bound and determined to nominate the least electable person by sticking with Trump. How self-destructive, Democrats think. And yet Democrats are about to do the same thing.
There is a shortage of courage among Democrats to face some instant criticism for voicing aloud the obvious: It is time for Biden to go. Feinstein, too.
Be the little girl.
Usually I agree with you, and this time I don't. I think Biden is doing a really good job - he understands how to push the system better than anyone since LBJ (imo). At the same time, I do kind of wish that he would willingly step back ... and I really want Feinstein to step back. Ha, once again, I am mostly very confused.
I am so ready for new blood in the Democratic Party. It is high time to get younger Democrats in power.