Democratic Plan B
New! Improved!
Democrats don't need to despair that there is no clear successor to Biden.
The early primaries take care of that.
President Biden says he plans to run again in 2024. He doesn't want the Democratic agenda to look rudderless going into the 2022 midterms. Maybe he is so vain he really believes that no Democrat but him can beat Trump, but I suspect this is just posturing. If he insists on running, there will be an awkward and ugly mess, but Democrats will get through even that.
Some Democrat will run against him in New Hampshire and do very well--maybe outright win. It will be an embarrassing vote of "no confidence" for Biden, and a huge boost for whoever had the guts to run. Biden's loss will topple a giant and create a new one. Biden will announce he is dropping out to devote the rest of his term to solving some big problem. We have seen this movie before, in 1968. Eugene McCarthy ran against President Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire. McCarthy got 42% of the vote. Johnson got the message and announced he would not run for re-election. Then others got into the opened-up race, including Robert F. Kennedy, who appeared to be building a national coalition until he was assassinated.
The 1968 campaign for Democrats was a mess but the problem wasn't that Johnson's announcement opened up the race. That was the remedy.
Democrats worry there is no one on deck with a huge, national presence, no one like Hillary Clinton in 2015. Being nationally known, with a well established brand, is both head start and anchor. Friends come and go; political enemies accumulate. Long resumes include embarrassing old votes and comments made in a different political era.
Trump's celebrity and brand was an early advantage for him. I was in New Hampshire and saw his crowds, beginning at his first rally. People wanted to see in person the decisive billionaire tycoon they had seen on TV.
It was a big head start, but what really mattered is that Trump is a gifted performer, with a schtick of ad-libbed humor, resentment, prosecutorial accusations, bluster, and policy talk that appealed to many Republican voters. Trump was interesting and other politicians were boring in comparison, Hillary especially. Trump earned the tailwind of nonstop TV coverage. News departments realized that audiences wanted to watch Trump. He might say anything. Trump's campaign turned him from a joke into a formidable candidate.
No Democratic candidate would go into New Hampshire to do Town Halls with the visibility Trump had, but a free-for-all campaign would elevate one or more of them. Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Stacey Abrams, Bob Bennet, Gavin Newsom, Jared Polis, Sherrod Brown, Mitch Landrieu, and maybe a couple of Democratic billionaires may all decide they are the new voice of the American left. Some readers will look over this list and think "Seven Dwarves." Nobody has stature.
Stature is earned. You get it by exciting crowds, raising money, and winning elections. Then you have it. The pundit world has concluded that Kamala Harris underwhelms. That can change--or not. If she draws crowds, and if she says things people want to hear, and if she then beats other candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, the story of Kamala Harris will be brand new. She will have presence. Or it could go another way, and Buttigieg or Landrieu or Amy Klobuchar seizes leadership out from under her. Surprise! Then that person has stature.
Power is not given away. It is seized. A candidate proves up by winning with a message. Wins brings more attention and more wins. The story changes from maybe to momentum. That culminates in a feeling of relief among Democrats. They will have chosen a new leader.