Joe Biden is too old to run for president again. Everybody knows it, including Democrats. Their endorsements of Kamala Harris for another term as vice president are tepid and lukewarm. And that’s if they even bother to endorse her.
But it may be the House Republican’s impeachment inquiry that has Democrats the most spooked. Not because it has a chance of succeeding, but because it encapsulates all the challenges facing Biden in his re-election bid that Democrats worry could simply overwhelm the 80-year-old.
“He is in a period of his life where passing and death is imminent,” said Sharon Sweda, the leader of the Democratic Party in Lorain County in Ohio. “We are all on a ticking clock. But when you’re at his age or at Trump’s age, that clock is ticking a little faster, and that’s a concern for voters.”
Some Democrats try to distract from these frailties by pointing out that Trump is almost as old. But you don’t have to hold a medical degree to see that Trump is hale and hearty compared to doddering Biden.
The Democratic Party may be reaching a point where all of these concerns reach a critical mass, causing a revolt among the party faithful against Biden.
“I’m not saying that this is going to be easy and he’s fine,” Jim Messina, who ran Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, said in an interview. “Look, America is split right down the middle. Both parties are going to get 46 percent, and we’re fighting over the rest.”
But interviews with more than 30 lawmakers, strategists, activists and other Democrats show that the uncertainty persists.
Many Democrats express steadfast support for the president’s running for a second term, and no major figure has risen to challenge him in a primary. Several party leaders predicted that even voters who voice ambivalence about Biden will ultimately be animated to vote against the Republican choice, especially if that choice is Trump.
But few offered confident assessments that Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings would rebound before next year, and many conceded that one of the president’s most significant challenges is one he has no control over: his age. Supporters and critics alike suggested that Biden’s prospects may hinge on whether he can find a way to overcome a persistent and growing feeling in the electorate that his advanced age is his defining characteristic.
Republicans don’t have to exaggerate Biden’s infirmities. They’re on display for anyone who cares to look. And as far as the polls go, what Biden and the Democrats don’t get is that the “disconnect” between the “good economy” pushed by Democrats and voter’s perceptions of how the economy is actually performing are night and day. Inflation has come down, but it’s still more than twice as high compared to when Biden took office. And Biden did nothing to bring inflation down. The Federal Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates and fiscal policy did far more than anything Biden did.
Appealing to history won’t make Biden’s age any less. Nor will it make the worst, the dumbest, and the least popular vice president in modern history disappear.
Kamala Harris is a disaster. It’s one reason why Biden won’t drop out of the race. Every Democrat with an ounce of political smarts knows that Kamala Harris would be unable to match up with Donald Trump or any other Republican on the debate stage.
Some Democrats question Harris’s political strength, and on occasion lawmakers have struggled to defend her. Former house speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave a less-than-enthusiastic answer when asked by CNN last week whether Harris is the best choice to be Biden’s running mate in 2024. “He thinks so,” she said. “And that’s what matters.”
Asked if she agreed with that assessment, Pelosi called Harris “politically astute.”
Democrats wouldn’t dare criticize Kamala Harris. As a woman of color, she’s protected by her race, her gender, and her ethnicity. This trifecta of diversity means that she’s on the ticket either as Biden’s running mate or as a replacement for the president if he should bow out .
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For those who think that Biden won’t be on the ticket by the time the convention is gaveled to order next July, only death or serious illness will keep him from running. We forget the hold that power has on people. FDR ran despite being gravely ill. He died in April after being inaugurated in March. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke in 1919 that was kept from the public until it was announced he wouldn’t run for a third term in 2020.
Joe Biden is not an intelligent man, nor is he a thoughtful man. He is, however, an ambitious man — an ambition that has propelled him to the pinnacle of power. For almost all men, it proves to be too much to give up.
They will have to carry Biden out of the White House feet first for him not to run.
