Biden is out, but chaos is in

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, he gave up – withdrawing his candidacy for the presidency via the social network formerly known as Twitter. No big interview, no big set piece, certainly no New York Times exclusive. A tweet and an image is how presidencies end in the 21^st century.

Expect honeyed words about Biden’s decision from Democrats who were cursing Biden’s very name to be the order of the day – at least in public – for the next couple of days. Don’t expect to hear much of it said behind closed doors, or to be the public narrative for much longer.

Joe Biden has very obviously and publicly been ousted by the Democratic establishment. His actions have barely disguised that: he fought and fought to remain on the ticket until it was obvious that his efforts to resist were damaging himself as much as his party. 

Such is the obvious and palpable anger in Bidenworld that it seems likely his exit is motivated as much by a desire not to be blamed for what happens next, but instead to leave those who toppled him in focus. For so long as Biden remained the candidate, he could be blamed for Republican poll leads. From this moment on, so far as Biden and his team will be concerned, it’s someone else’s problem.

The many, many Democrats and their outriders who have spent the last three weeks assuring America and the world they know what they’re doing better hope they actually do. The process of Biden’s ouster was woeful: people spoke before thinking, before gathering evidence, before taking soundings. The lack of plan could not be more visible. That can’t remain true for the next stage.

Biden has not stepped down as president. Almost no Democrat has called on him to do so – and most defend his presidential record and accomplishments. That means the reasoning for his replacement could not be simpler: they are taking the bet that a new candidate is likelier to win the presidency than Joe Biden would have been.

The first step of making that a reality is, of course, selecting a new candidate. Kamala Harris, as vice-president, is by far the most obvious choice and would bypass several logistical issues that sound boring but upon which elections turn. 

Harris could easily access funds, staff, and voter data from the existing campaign structure and its PACs. She has more ability to run on Biden’s record – which Democrats still think is a good one – and she’s more tested on the national stage than any of the alternatives.

The problem is that even though Harris is polling better than she ever has, she is still barely polling better than Joe Biden – even as Biden’s polls are at their all-time low. That’s before the Republican machine has set her in its sights and before any damage from the selection process to replace Biden as candidate. This is the option Joe Biden has just endorsed, and the party may well hope that residual guilt or gratitude towards him avoids a contested succession.

But those polling weaknesses mean that for every Democrat who says the only sensible choice to replace Biden is Kamala Harris, there is another who says there must be some kind of open competition – even with the clock running as tight as it is.

Such people advance the idea of Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer, well known in the party but largely unknown on the national stage – and certainly not remotely as tested or vetted as any presidential candidate would be at this point. Others even call for Elizabeth Warren or even Bernie Sanders to throw their hat into the ring, but given they are 75 and 82 respectively, you have to hope the Democrats swerve that one. 

The reason the primaries happen well before the general election is that they often get nasty and they often divide the parties. It’s better to do that when most voters aren’t paying attention, and when there’s a good few months for activists to cool off and reunite before the general election.

There is every chance the Democrats are about to air an awful lot of dirty laundry in public while the entire world watches, and when they have just six weeks or so before the first early voting states start casting their ballots. 

Either they have an open process and all of the chaos that entails, or else they stitch it up and face recriminations from those who think the party elite has just replaced one loser candidate with another.

During that time they need to build a campaign around a new ticket – with either one or both of the presidential and vice-presidential picks replaced. That means new messaging, new infrastructure, new focus groups, new donors. 

It also means getting ready for an entirely new set of Republican attacks. They will still attack Biden and his record, and his health – expect endless questions as to why he is still the president if they thought he was unfit to be the candidate – but they will find many and varied new lines of attack on whoever takes his place. 

If the world were written by Aaron Sorkin, the decision by the Democrats to oust their candidate less than four months before election day would pay off – even if Sorkin himself thinks that Biden should’ve stepped down in favour of Mitt Romney.

But reality is not The West Wing. The Democrats have taken a huge, huge gamble predicated on the idea that if Biden stayed, they had lost already. That narrative will be challenged from all sides.

The most ardently pro-Biden faction will say that Biden was unchallenged in the primaries because he was the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump, and he was still the best candidate even after the debate calamity – but no candidate could have weathered endless trashing from their own side, so the Democrats threw away what could have been a winning bet.

Those slightly less pro-Biden but unsure of the wisdom of throwing out a campaign this late will say that the chance to throw him out was a year ago, and all the polling on his age was available and largely unchanged then, and went ignored. The party elite was gripped by a moment of panic, and let that overtake their rational brains – for good or for ill.

Anyone who supported the stepdown will reject both of these versions, and say they knew Biden was a doomed candidate either for months before saying so, or at least from the moment of the debate. 

The lower they can paint his chances of winning – ideally zero – the less possible culpability they have if what comes next goes wrong. That’s why the idea of Biden being hailed as a hero was always a non-starter. Democrats are consummate ass-coverers, and any hiccup in his successor’s campaign will drive panic. 

The way to cover yourself if the new candidate’s campaign falters is to say that Biden’s would have been even worse. When talking off the record, Democrats will not be able to help themselves but trash Biden’s record.

For now, though, in the homes and bars of the Democratic Party elite, there will be rejoicing – they did for Joe. They may soon learn that there is nothing more dangerous in politics than suddenly getting what you want.

For the sake of the world, though, the rest of us must hope they knew what they were doing. The alternative, the Trump 2.0 presidency, might be more than any of us could bear.