Most observers would agree that Adenauer’s seniority and depth of experience had been strengths in developing partnerships with the United States and other Western allies. Those same enabling features were on display this week at the NATO summit in Washington, where President Biden worked the world stage with the best of them. If not the commanding figure, Biden stood out as a forceful opponent of tyranny and a forceful advocate of democratic principles.
As Adenauer had done, Biden loomed large in the global arena and as an elder statesman. Ironically, however, he also echoed the condition Johnson found himself in in 1967: namely, a U.S. president bathing in the esteem of an international setting but floundering in the swamp of a domestic disturbance.
Massive Vietnam War protests were the source of Johnson’s troubles. For Biden, it is disputes within the Democratic Party over whether he should abandon his reelection bid in the wake of a dreadful debate performance and the slippage in support that has followed.
Different hazards; same political territory.
Johnson resolved his problem by stepping aside before being asked or forced to. Biden says he’s staying in the race to “finish the job because there’s so much at stake.”
The response to Biden over the past several days has ranged from mawkish to mean to maniacal. Convinced that Biden will lose to former president Donald Trump in November, a growing number have hit the panic button and called for his prompt exit from the race.
Maybe it’s time for a few political realities.
Yes, there’s the possibility of Trump winning if a still-weak Biden is on the November ballot.
But consider the consequences of dumping the putative Democratic nominee within weeks of the Democratic National Convention. Think of the gift given to Trump if there is raucous convention fight over the selection of a new Democratic ticket with loads of losers licking their wounds. How enthusiastic will they be, come November?
Consider, too, the damage done to down-ballot candidates if a newly constituted Democratic ticket leaves the Chicago convention without the united support of Democratic Party mainstays.
The last thing Biden, as well as the Democrats who want him gone, needs is a convention that ends up anything like the intensely divided 1968 convention that produced presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey. Or the 1980 convention, where hundreds of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s supporters walked out after President Jimmy Carter was renominated. Or even the 1992 Republican convention that renominated incumbent George H.W. Bush but featured an inflammatory speech by his defeated challenger, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan.
In all three cases, the nomination clashes made convention victories not worth having: Humphrey, Carter and Bush went down on Election Day — though Humphrey came close to Richard M. Nixon in the popular vote.
Which is to say, waiting to sort out Biden’s fate at the Democratic convention next month is both shortsighted and self-defeating. The only winner in a Democratic food fight would be Trump — who must be praying, “Don’t go, Joe.”
I believe present-day Biden — though wrinkled and gray, and slower with elocution skills — is fully aware of the state of political play: that by even the most optimistic reading of polling data, his path to victory is narrow and getting narrower.
Biden also knows, as party leader and a creature of Congress, that when a presidential candidate is taken down at the polls, some down-ballot candidates go with him. Does Biden want to be the president who helped Republicans reinforce their hold on the House and turn the Senate red? Will that be part of his legacy? Does he want that on his conscience? Or do the naysayers want it on theirs?
Biden is doing what he can to demonstrate his viability, that he has command of the job and that he can win again. And he must know he doesn’t have much time to make his case. But he does have time to make a good case for a path forward.
Ron Klain, Biden’s longtime adviser and former White House chief of staff, maintains that the president still offers the party’s best chance of defeating Trump. In a text message to The Post, he wrote: “[Biden] wins in 2024 as he did in 2020 — because his personal values and character ultimately prevail against Trump.” ’Tis maybe true, in Klain’s mind.
There’s a school of thought, however, that holds that Biden won in 2020 in significant part because of something Hillary Clinton didn’t do in 2016. Her vanilla ticket with Tim Kaine paled against the hue of the Biden-Harris ticket that faced off with Trump four years later. That ticket energized and mobilized the Democratic Party’s base, especially Black and young voters. Little wonder that in celebrating his 2016 victory against Clinton, Trump mockingly thanked Black voters for their low turnout. Think about it.
There is a path forward for Biden’s legacy. The contributions he has made, and has set in motion, can live on in a well-conceived Democratic ticket that he, between now and the convention, can do much to create. He could step back gracefully, ceding his role to Vice President Harris, who can carry on his democratic ideals, while he helps select the kind of smart, strong and energetic running mate she will need.
“Der Alte,” at the peak of Germany’s rise from a ruinous war to a state of prosperity, agreed to turn over the reins to new leadership. His indomitable spirit and reputation never died.
So, too, can Biden’s, if he decides wisely.
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