By Dave Andrusko
In retrospect it seemed inevitable. A disastrous debate performance led to a drying up of donor money and a growing litany of Democrats—including top leadership— insisting that pro-abortion President Joe Biden agree not to run for a second term. And to top it off, Biden came down with COVID last week.
On Sunday, at 1:46pm, Biden used X (Twitter) to acknowledge that he would not seek re-election. It came just one minute after Biden told senior staff of his decision. In his first announcement, he did not endorse pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democrats’ nominee.
It is worth noting that just a few minutes later Biden abruptly did:
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Talk about two trains passing in the night. Biden’s withdrawal announcement came just a few hours after state party chairs in swing states released a joint letter reaffirming their support for President Biden!
The situation truly is unprecedented, a political first:
No sitting American president has dropped out of a race so late in the election cycle. The Democratic National Convention, where Mr. Biden was to have been formally nominated by 3,939 delegates, is scheduled to begin Aug. 19 in Chicago. That leaves less than a month for Democrats to decide who should replace Mr. Biden on the ticket and just under four months for that person to mount a campaign against Mr. Trump.
The New York Times’s Michael D. Shear summarized the seismic developments in 49 words: “President Biden, 81, abandoned his bid for re-election and threw the 2024 presidential contest into chaos on Sunday, caving to relentless pressure from his closest allies to drop out of the race amid deep concerns that he is too old and frail to defeat former President Donald J. Trump.”
That Republicans came out of last week’s highly successful Convention loaded for bear was a fact—and a very important fact— but one that the legacy media couldn’t bother to mention in their calculous of why Biden suddenly dropped out.
Meanwhile, the way forward for Democrats is anything but clear.
“Mr. Biden’s decision abruptly ends one political crisis that began when the president delivered a calamitous debate performance against Mr. Trump on June 27,” Shear wrote. “But for the Democratic Party, Mr. Biden’s withdrawal triggers a second crisis: who to replace him with, and specifically whether to rally around Ms. Harris or kick off a rapid effort to find someone else to be the party’s nominee.”
The temptation to anoint Harris is as risky as it is obvious to some big donors and many Democrats. In 2020, her own run for president was such a disaster she dropped out before a single primary was held. Her approval ratings as vice president have been in the 30s.
Moreover, “it’s worth noting that a number of elected Democrats, including Senator Jon Tester, who faces a difficult re-election in Montana, have urged an open nominating process,” writes Katie Glueck. “That could be one area of friction moving forward.”
And, food for thought. As of now, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and former President Barack Obama did not immediately jump on the Harris bandwagon.
On the other hand, Black women are the staunchest supporters of Democrats of any demographic. If Democrat leaders pass over the first Black female vice president, the party could easily fracture.
Also not to be ignored is the influence of EMILY’s List which raises big money for female Democrats who are pro-abortion absolutists. Theodore Schleifer writes that the group “has been a fierce defender of Harris over the years, and they could play a key role in getting big money behind a Harris presidential campaign.”
However, “Some Democrats have argued that anointing a candidate is risky, and say that the party would be better off with a competition and a more democratic selection process,” according to Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Medina. “That would require another candidate to get in the race. If that happens, there could be party-sanctioned forums across the country, with candidates questioned by a moderator in front of a national television audience. Short of that, the candidates could embark on a monthlong national campaign, jetting across the country to solicit support from state delegates and delegations.”
Finally, Republicans drew what to them is an obvious conclusion. “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X.
Democrats have been complicit in the largest political cover-up in history. They have known for a long while that Joe Biden was not capable of holding his office.
At this stage, it doesn’t matter who President Trump runs against. The American people will hold every Democrat accountable for this and the disastrous Biden/Harris administration.
We will fix this mess after the November election, when we grow our House majority, flip the Senate, and re-elect President Trump the November election, when we grow our House.