I wrote this on Monday, 7/1, four days after the disastrous debate.
A lot of reflection and a lot of emerging debate on the aftermath of Joe Biden’s disastrous debate on Thursday night. Should he step aside? A lot of people have called for it, the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, David Ignatius, Nick Kristof. I ponder the question. I believe the only circumstance that could justify in good conscience his proceeding is the absolute conviction on his own part, and that of Jill, his wife, and those closest to him that the Thursday night debacle was a total aberration and that indeed he is fit, not just some days but almost every day, to carry the responsibilities of the presidency and, as one can best predict, continue to for another five years, by which time he will be 86.
I have been convinced and argued for the past two years that Biden should not run for a second term. Indeed, he started out indicating that he would be a one-term president, and that’s exactly what he should have been, not because he hasn’t done a good job (in many respects he has done a superb job: foreign affairs, infrastructure bill) but because of his age.
I inevitably view this through the lens of my own experience, my own age. I know everybody ages differently. Biden is probably aging more slowly than I did, but he’s aging and he will continue to. That is inarguable.
I also put this in terms of running a major corporation like Procter & Gamble (much less of a responsibility, obviously, than the presidency). We wouldn’t conceive of having a CEO taking office at the age of 81; we wouldn’t even conceive of it. Growing up, we had a retirement age of 60. It became 65 nominally. That’s 16 years less than Biden’s age today.
Good arguments can be raised against Biden dropping out. There won’t be a lot of time to find another candidate (two months before the convention; four months before the election). But I would argue there is enough time for good people to make their case, and they would.
The one argument that falls absolutely flat is that there would be nobody else as good as Biden to compete against Trump. I don’t buy that for a minute. In fact, even before the debate, Biden was running slightly behind Trump and decisively in most of the battleground states. I don’t know what polls will show in the next week. Whatever they show, it will be temporal. After a very bad debate performance in 1984, Ronald Reagan’s rating dropped seven points, but he went on to win. No doubt: memories are short. If Biden has a good final debate in September, attitudes will shift. But one thing won’t shift, and that is the reality of Biden’s age and the concern about it by the voters.
I believe that the absolute imperative is to have a candidate who will keep Trump from having another term. The other imperative, and being that first imperative, is to ensure ourselves that we have a leader who will provide the best leadership for this country over the next four years. I do not believe that is Joe Biden. Therefore, I believe he should step down.
To be sure, if he doesn’t, I will go all out for Biden. I cannot stand the idea of a man of Trump’s perfidy being president of our great nation again.
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