NB: If not Biden, who? Kamala Harris? Unfortunately, the overarching
issue has to be electability (preferably with "coat tails" so that the
USA does not get a Republiklan Congress nor Republiklan control of too
many States, at least until there can be more proportional
representation in the Senate and the Electoral College system is
de-fanged -- a vote in Wyoming or Alaska should be worth the same as one
in California or New York). The "correct" losing Democratic candidate
will not address the fundamental issue of the damage a Republiklan
President will do.
https://www.nationofchange.org/2023/01/25/biden-2024-decision-pits-the-partys-elites-against-most-democrats/
Politics
Biden 2024 decision pits the party’s elites against most Democrats
Biden’s decision on whether to run again should be seen as much more
than just a matter of personal prerogative.
By
Norman Solomon -
January 25, 2023
NationofChange
Denial at the top of the Democratic Party about Joe Biden’s shaky
footing for a re-election run in 2024 became more untenable over the
weekend. As the New York Times reported, investigators “seized more than
a half-dozen documents, some of them classified, at President Biden’s
residence” in Delaware. The newspaper noted that “the remarkable search
of a sitting president’s home by federal agents—at the invitation of Mr.
Biden’s lawyers—dramatically escalated the legal and political situation
for the president.”
Donald Trump’s obstructive refusal to cooperate with the federal
investigation into the far more numerous classified documents in his
possession stands in sharp contrast with Biden’s apparently full
cooperation with the Justice Department. Yet Biden now faces a documents
scandal that’s sure to fester for quite a while—the average length of
special counsel investigations has been upwards of 900 days—and the
impacts on his plans to seek re-election are unclear.
Meanwhile, here’s an assumption so routine that it passes as
self-evident among power brokers and corporate-media journalists:
Democratic voters are presumed to be mere spectators awaiting Biden’s
decision on whether to seek a second term. Hidden in plain sight is a
logical question that remains virtually off-limits to raise in standard
political discourse: Why not ask them?
What a concept. Biden could actually seek guidance from the Democratic
base—the people who regularly turn out to vote for the party’s
candidates, give millions of small-dollar donations and do priceless
volunteer work in support of campaigns to defeat Republicans.
Biden’s decision on whether to run again should be seen as much more
than just a matter of personal prerogative. Rather than treating it as
such, Biden could put party and country first by recognizing that the
essential Democratic task of defeating the Republican ticket in 2024
will require widespread enthusiasm from grassroots Democrats. Biden
would be boosting the chances of beating the GOP by including those
Democrats in the decision-making process as he weighs whether to
officially declare his candidacy.
But there’s one overarching reason why the Biden White House has no
interest in any such idea. The president doesn’t want to ask the
question of loyal Democratic voters because he probably wouldn’t like
the answer. His stance is clear: It’s my party and I’ll run if I want to.
A glimmer of that attitude showed through during a news conference
shortly after the midterm election. Noting that “two-thirds of Americans
in exit polls say that they don’t think you should run for re-election,”
a reporter asked: “What is your message to them?” Biden’s reply: “Watch
me.” Later, CNN and CNBC polls found that nearly 60 percent of Democrats
didn’t want Biden to run again. Yet from all indications, he still
intends to do just that.
Defying the wishes of most of the party’s voters could be spun as
leadership, but a more fitting word is hubris. Whatever the
characterization, it runs a serious risk of self-defeat. For instance,
only wishful thinking leads to a belief that the Democratic presidential
nominee next year can win without a strong turnout from those who
represent the party’s bedrock base and its future—the young.
Biden’s “watch me” attitude is especially out of whack in relation to
youthful Democratic voters. A New York Times poll last summer found that
a stunning 94 percent of them under age 30 said they didn’t want Biden
to be the party’s nominee. Such a disconnect spells trouble if Biden
does run. Too many young people might heed the “watch me” attitude by
declining to volunteer or vote for Biden before he goes down to defeat.
In normal times, a president’s renomination has been his for the taking.
But in this case, when most of the party’s supporters don’t want him to
run, exercising raw intra-party leverage to get nominated would indicate
a high degree of political narcissism. It’s hardly a good look or an
auspicious path.
If he runs in 2024, Joe Biden would be the foremost symbol of the status
quo—not a good position to be in when faux populism will predictably be
the name of the Republican game. In a poll last November, only 21
percent of registered voters told Hart Research that the country was
“headed in the right direction” while 72 percent said it was “off on the
wrong track.”
For the president, gaining the Democratic nomination next year would
likely be much easier than winning the White House for a second time. If
Biden is content to become the party’s nominee again while ignoring the
majority of Democrats who don’t want him to run, he’ll be boosting the
chances that a Republican will get to work in the Oval Office two years
from now. To prevent such a catastrophe, grassroots Democrats will need
to directly challenge the party elites who seem willing to whistle past
the probable graveyard of Biden’s second-term hopes.