Frank Bruni’s column from yesterday’s New York Times is a masterpiece. It speaks to the reasons that while 80% of Democrats and independents feel that Joe Biden has done an excellent job as president…nearly that same amount also feel he should not run again in 2024.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/opinion/biden-age-trump-.html
Here are portions for those of you who cannot get past the paywall:
An overwhelming majority of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic believe that President Biden has done a good job — 81 and 78 percent, respectively, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.
(snip)
Regardless, 58 percent of those same Democrats and independents said that they want a Democratic presidential candidate other than Biden in 2024. They seem to like him. They’re apparently grateful for him. Yet they’re ready to kick him to the curb.
It doesn’t add up. And the person to whom the arithmetic must feel strangest — and coldest — is Biden.
During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, he strongly signaled that he’ll seek re-election. So that settles that? I don’t think so, not when you factor in the metabolism of politics today, the predictable unpredictability of the world, and his age, 80, which comes with the increased possibility of deteriorating health and sudden illness.
The worries about his ability to endure the rigors of a presidential campaign and come out a winner aren’t going away. Nor will the calls for him to wise up, stand down and let a younger, fresher, more dynamic Democrat claim the center of the stage.
My Times colleague Michelle Goldberg issued such a plea in a column on Monday. I second it. I agree with her analysis, including her assessment of a Democratic bench deeper and more interesting than the party’s perpetually self-doubting downers realize. I wrote about that bench last November — and I didn’t even include Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland or Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, promising leaders for whom 2024 is just a bit too soon.
But I nonetheless want to pause and fully acknowledge what an extraordinary and difficult thing Michelle, I and others are asking Biden to do.
(snip)
In saving us from a second term of Trump, Biden quite likely saved us from ruin. And so … we’re done with him?
That’s beyond cold. It’s close to cruel.
(snip)
I know because my doubts aren’t quieted. I registered his endearing brio as he made his remarks, but I also registered his stumbles, the moments when he seemed to lose his way. He has had many of them over recent years. There are surely many, many more to come.
(snip)
Campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Biden told us to choose him over the other contenders because the stakes of depriving Trump a second term were incalculable and he was the safest bet against Trump. He carried the least risk.
Well, the stakes in 2024 aren’t much different, whether or not Trump secures his party’s nomination, because whichever Republican emerges victorious from the Republican primaries will have been touched and corrupted by Trump’s election denialism, his attacks on democratic institutions, his zest for provocation, his resentments, his divisiveness.
So, Democrats once again need to tread a cautious path. That caution explains the paradox of the poll I previously mentioned, and that caution is Biden’s lesson and legacy — which is how he should look at it. Democratic voters aren’t faithless or fickle. They’re fearful, just as he told them to be.
In other words, they’ve been listening to what he’s been saying since Trump came along. That’s a compliment to him. It’s a tribute. May he bask in it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/opinion/biden-age-trump-.html
Here are portions for those of you who cannot get past the paywall:
An overwhelming majority of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic believe that President Biden has done a good job — 81 and 78 percent, respectively, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.
(snip)
Regardless, 58 percent of those same Democrats and independents said that they want a Democratic presidential candidate other than Biden in 2024. They seem to like him. They’re apparently grateful for him. Yet they’re ready to kick him to the curb.
It doesn’t add up. And the person to whom the arithmetic must feel strangest — and coldest — is Biden.
During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, he strongly signaled that he’ll seek re-election. So that settles that? I don’t think so, not when you factor in the metabolism of politics today, the predictable unpredictability of the world, and his age, 80, which comes with the increased possibility of deteriorating health and sudden illness.
The worries about his ability to endure the rigors of a presidential campaign and come out a winner aren’t going away. Nor will the calls for him to wise up, stand down and let a younger, fresher, more dynamic Democrat claim the center of the stage.
My Times colleague Michelle Goldberg issued such a plea in a column on Monday. I second it. I agree with her analysis, including her assessment of a Democratic bench deeper and more interesting than the party’s perpetually self-doubting downers realize. I wrote about that bench last November — and I didn’t even include Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland or Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, promising leaders for whom 2024 is just a bit too soon.
But I nonetheless want to pause and fully acknowledge what an extraordinary and difficult thing Michelle, I and others are asking Biden to do.
(snip)
In saving us from a second term of Trump, Biden quite likely saved us from ruin. And so … we’re done with him?
That’s beyond cold. It’s close to cruel.
(snip)
I know because my doubts aren’t quieted. I registered his endearing brio as he made his remarks, but I also registered his stumbles, the moments when he seemed to lose his way. He has had many of them over recent years. There are surely many, many more to come.
(snip)
Campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Biden told us to choose him over the other contenders because the stakes of depriving Trump a second term were incalculable and he was the safest bet against Trump. He carried the least risk.
Well, the stakes in 2024 aren’t much different, whether or not Trump secures his party’s nomination, because whichever Republican emerges victorious from the Republican primaries will have been touched and corrupted by Trump’s election denialism, his attacks on democratic institutions, his zest for provocation, his resentments, his divisiveness.
So, Democrats once again need to tread a cautious path. That caution explains the paradox of the poll I previously mentioned, and that caution is Biden’s lesson and legacy — which is how he should look at it. Democratic voters aren’t faithless or fickle. They’re fearful, just as he told them to be.
In other words, they’ve been listening to what he’s been saying since Trump came along. That’s a compliment to him. It’s a tribute. May he bask in it.
