Following last night’s largely successful post-NATO press conference Democratic leaders and American voters need to assess very carefully where the 2024 presidential campaign ought to go. Biden fielded the press’ questions for almost an hour. He appeared strongly in command of numerous complex foreign policy problems. It is unlikely that any of the press assumed that former President Trump could have moved around the globe—from Ukraine to China to Gaza—with the same detail and specific substance that Biden demonstrated.
The President certainly made at least two gaffes which are or will be fodder for the Trump campaign. Biden also backed off certain precise numbers and some details, but he did demonstrate a classic Biden command of the field.
What remains now are for the Democratic Party—its leaders, candidates, aspirants, and donors—to answer several questions. They are all interconnected and the answers will be determinative as to whether they will or should support President Joe Biden’s run for a second term.
1. Is the goal first and foremost to prevent a second Trump Presidency?
2. Who can beat former President Donald Trump? If it is not President Biden who might be able to win?
3. Are Biden’s supporters interested in winning or are they going to select their best candidate and perhaps lose?
4. Do the Biden supporters accept the fact that it is highly probable—actuarily if for no other reason--that at some time over the next four years Vice President Kamala Harris will become president?
5. If Biden and/or his family and his advisers decide he should no longer serve as President, will Biden resign on his own or will America need to endure a painful 25th Constitutional Amendment crisis? (This is something that should have occurred under Trump, but Republicans were not prepared to act.)
6. Would a Harris Presidency—for at least part of the next four years--be preferable to a Trump Presidency?
Most people watching the President’s press conference would have concluded that Biden still had command of complex issues, both national security as well as the obvious domestic political questions. In micro-watching the almost 60-minute Q & A there were some noticeable verbal slips that were embarrassing for the President, but the overall performance was largely positive.
President Biden and his staff understand that he will be observed constantly in everything that the President will do and say until Election Day, assuming he remains in the race. He will have no off camera down time and will have no room for any more noticeable aging moments.
Can Biden pull this off? In public and during un-scripted moments the President will need to endure one more debate and probably a few more news conferences before November 5. Otherwise, he will be fully staffed and managed at all times as are all Presidents.
Democrats, Independents, and anti-Trumpers need to consider what Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said. Nadler, who is one of the brightest and most astute politicians in Washington and a long-time, loyal, liberal Democrat, was one of the first to call for Biden to step down. The ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee flipped on Tuesday. Nadler indicated: “Whether I have concerns or not is beside the point. He is going to be our nominee, and we have to support him.”
Americans and especially Democrats need to consider carefully their desire to defeat Trump. If, indeed, that is their primary goal, then the choice may not be optimal. They need only recall what the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck said about politics already in the 19th Century: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable—the art of the next best.”
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