Who Else Is There?

After President Joe Biden’s disastrous presidential debate performance last week Democrats are in a panic. The editorial boards of newspapers all across the country (including very liberal papers such as the New York Times and The Washington Post) are calling on Mr. Biden to withdraw from the race for president. The Democrats may be panicked but they are also very tight lipped, all of them supporting President Biden on camera. It is in the back rooms and personal conversations where panic takes over.

The Democratic base will probably be a pretty reliable bloc for the president despite his infirmities, if only because they hate Trump so much. It is among the independents that their concern lies. All the undecided participants in a Frank Luntz focus group said after watching the debate that President Biden should be replaced and early polls show a Trump advantage. But most reliable polls take several days of polling to get results so it may be several days before we get a clearer idea of how President Biden’s performance impacts independent voters.

At a campaign stop in North Carolina after the debate President Biden gave a strong performance but many people are saying that he must hold an unscripted press conference to show that he has his mojo back. It is during unscripted and spontaneous moments that Mr. Biden’s weaknesses are most apparent (keeping in mind that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping delight in doing unexpected spontaneous things). A repeat of his debate performance or a refusal to hold such a press conference would likely cause a further deterioration in his polling numbers.

But if he does withdraw from the 2024 race, what are Democrats going to do? Who will replace him? This is the reason Democrats are panicking. Normally, a vice-president should be ready to take over if the president is incapacitated, as occurred when Harry Truman replaced FDR after he died in office, or when a president resigns with Jerry Ford stepping in after Richard Nixon resigned.

The problem is that Vice President Kamala Harris is relatively untested and is deeply disliked by much of the electorate, even more than Mr. Biden. Saddled with all the problems of the Biden Administration (that’s precisely why Mr. Biden named her border czar) and less popular than Mr. Biden, she would be a very longshot to beat Mr. Trump. President Biden could resign as president and elevate Ms. Harris to the presidency for the remainder of his term giving her a chance to prove herself. But the word is that the president’s wife, Jill Biden is replicating the role of President Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Edith, who functioned as the virtual president after Mr. Wilson was felled by a stroke.

So if President Biden sinks in the polls or withdraws from the campaign, Democrats are faced with a serious problem. The progressive wing of the party would be outraged if the intersectionally well-endowed but widely disparaged Ms. Harris was passed over for a different candidate (especially if that candidate was intersectionally-impaired such as a white heterosexual male candidate). But there may be little other choice.

Most of the well known Democrats are on the far-left wing of the Democratic Party, progressive candidates to which Joe Biden was the supposedly centrist alternative (he wasn’t). Most independents have rejected the radical proposals proffered by the proponents of DEI and Critical Race Theory. California Governor Newsom is well known nationally but so are the abysmal results of his progressive policies, with Californians abandoning the state, companies fleeing for friendlier climes, drug-fueled homeless encampments, rising crime and failing schools.

Moderate Democrats in the House and Senate (such as Mark Warner, Tim Kane and Mark Kelly) are needed where they are. Hakeem Jeffries as minority leader in the House may have the stature necessary for the job, but he will be needed as Speaker if the Democrats can get a majority. That leaves lesser known governors such as Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gretchen Whitmire of Michigan as replacements but they would have a lot of work to do to gain national recognition in the few months left until the election.

But who else is there? That is why the Democrats are panicking.

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The Democrats have a real big problem, but that doesn’t mean that the road to a Republican election victory is a foregone conclusion. Nikki Haley warns that the Republicans should prepare for a Biden replacement that would give Mr. Trump a run for the money. A younger replacement candidate might dare former President Trump to reveal the cognitive tests he claimed he aced. Or take a new test from a non-partisan doctor acceptable to the Democrats. Mr. Trump also has problems remembering things – like facts. When Mr. Biden can’t remember facts he stumbles and goes quiet or freezes. When Mr. Trump can’t remember facts he just makes up new alternative facts.

At the recent Business Roundtable quarterly meeting Mr. Trump reportedly “was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map”  and, further, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” according to Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s Squawk Box. Mr. Trump is almost as old as Mr. Biden and appears to be approaching some of the same infirmities as his opponent. As for the club championship that he bragged about during the debate, that could have been a case of “let the Wookie win.”

Mr. Trump claimed in the debate that he would have preferred to retire to a life of leisure at his various golf clubs but felt he had to run in order to defeat Joe Biden because of the horrible job he did. But if Joe Biden withdrew from the race, would Donald Trump also withdraw? What if the Democrats somehow came up with somebody very popular, someone who had a very good chance of beating an old white male that most people don’t like or trust. Someone like Michelle Obama. A lot of Democrats would love to have Michelle Obama leading their ticket. Would Mr. Trump also withdraw in order to give the Republicans a better chance of winning? I doubt it. I don’t think that’s why he is running again.

Many people think that it is too late to change candidates in either party. But remember, it was not that long ago that the candidates were not known until the end of the party convention when the campaign started around Labor Day. The Democratic Convention does not start for almost two months. So Mr. Trump must be prepared for anything. Necessity is the mother of invention and the Democrats are in great need.