President Joe Biden’s sudden exit Sunday from the presidential race caps a recent string of extraordinary political moments that have unified Republicans, divided Democrats and made it seem, for a time, that the election was already over.
It’s not — at least not if Democrats keep their heads and show America how a responsible political party handles these epic political plot twists.
It’s reasonable that Vice President Kamala Harris has immediately emerged as the odds-on favorite to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, with endorsements from Biden and numerous other top Democrats. Whatever fair or unfair strikes against her, Americans at large voted Harris into the second spot four years ago, and Democratic voters confirmed that choice in the recent primaries.
It’s also reasonable that some in Harris’ party — most notably former President Barack Obama — have demurred from offering any immediate endorsements while pressing for a transparent and deliberative process that allows consideration of all options. Both stances are valid and aren’t contradictory.
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Time is short before next month’s Democratic National Convention but not so short that the party should careen toward a choice without calm and constructive discussion.
Everybody breathe.
If there has been a more consequential few weeks in American politics in the past half-century, we’re having trouble thinking of it.
First, a sitting president displays such shocking signs of age-related decline during a televised debate that it throws his reelection campaign into crisis and his party into chaotic division.
Then, his challenger escapes assassination on live television by literally inches — an attack his party promptly leverages into the most unified national convention from either party in at least a generation.
And now, in a supreme if belated act of patriotism, Biden has done what only George Washington and a handful of other predecessors did and stepped away from power before he had to, for the good of the nation.
Voters in November should contrast that statesmanship with former President Donald Trump, who refused to peacefully accept democracy’s judgment even after being voted out in 2020.
Another illuminating contrast may well be coming. How interesting would it be if voters in November get to choose between a professional prosecutor and a convicted felon?
At this writing, that’s the most likely scenario. Harris, a former district attorney and California attorney general, showed her prosecutorial chops during her time on the Senate Judiciary Committee, impressively taking on then-Attorney General William Barr and others.
True, Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign stumbled out of the gate — but not in the fundamentally disqualifying way of, say, a candidate who brags on tape of sexually abusing women.
And that was before Trump and his party managed through their Supreme Court manipulations to re-relegate women to second-class citizenship with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Even with Harris’ polling struggles, a Harris-Trump presidential debate would be a potentially disastrous proposition for a former president who played the central role in that development. Especially given Trump’s well-known inability to control his contempt when confronted by strong women.
This Editorial Board has said before that, once Biden cleared the path, Democrats should stage a series of mini-debates between top contenders and then choose a nominee at an open convention.
That is still ideal in principle but has been complicated in practice by the fact that most of the shortlist of contenders — including Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and J.B Pritzker of Illinois — have already endorsed Harris. What the party would lose in the potentially useful process of that series of debates, it appears to be gaining in partywide unity.
Still, an immediate coronation of Harris would be unwise. Harris has properly vowed to “earn” the nomination, and that’s the only way she should get it. At the very least, any serious challengers to her must be allowed to make their case in August to the convention delegates.
Those delegates aren’t the “party elites” that Republicans will certainly claim them to be but instead are grassroots Democrats from across the country. Genuine convention nominations aren’t some bizarre new idea but are in fact how both parties always chose their nominees until the 1970s.
The fact that some Republicans are threatening litigation over Biden’s plan to release his delegates and let the party choose another nominee — as if you can sue someone into staying in a presidential race — shows how badly they wanted to run against a president who, whatever his accomplishments, has been politically damaged by recent displays of decline.
That’s not to validate the ridiculous claim from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and others that, because Biden has decided to leave the race, he’s somehow obligated to resign the presidency. Wisely acknowledging that he isn’t up for four more years isn’t an admission that he can’t finish out the next six months.
The Fox News alternate reality notwithstanding, Biden has had a historically successful presidency: a strong economy with record-low unemployment and more modest post-pandemic inflation than most of the world; a steady hand of global leadership in tumultuous times; a return to normalcy and decency in domestic politics after the degradations of the Trump era.
If Biden’s veep is to carry Biden’s banner forward — and that looks more likely by the hour — she’ll have plenty in the way of Biden-Harris accomplishments to wave it at. Best-case scenario, she’ll surprise America with her ability to make that case better than Biden himself has been able to do.