Schiff...ting Allegiances
Democrat Adam Schiff, the favorite to win California's open US Senate seat this November, calls for Biden to withdraw from the Presidential race. Is this the end of the beginning to oust Biden?
WASHINGTON — As Republicans gather in Milwaukee to coronate Donald Trump as their party’s nominee for President, many Democrats are planning a palace coup against the sitting President, and the party’s—by far—leading vote getter during the 2024 Democratic primaries. While Republicans preach party unity, Democrats are scheming to bounce Biden from the presidential ticket.
Schiff joins more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress calling on Biden to abandon his presidential bid and allow the party to select another candidate—despite 3,896 of the Democratic Party’s 3939 delegates being pledged to the president.
While calling President Biden “one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history,” Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), a powerful ally of Nancy Pelosi and the favorite to win to win the US Senate seat in California, yesterday implored President Biden to withdraw from the race. “Our nation is at a crossroads,” Schiff said in a prepared statement, “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
“While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” Schiff said.
Word to the wise. If Schiff calls you consequential—it means he thinks you are no longer consequential. It would be consequential, however, if Biden becomes the first presidential candidate in history to win his party’s nomination at the ballot box, only to surrender it at the convention. So, rather than a call to “pass the torch,” Schiff’s statement was instead meant to torch Biden’s quest for a second-term.
The President’s unsteady public appearances since the debate debacle—while not as disastrous as the debate—have been less than inspiring, and have set the Democratic Party even further into panic mode. The morning after Biden’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last weekend, Suzy Weiss writing in The Free Press, said that “In the end it was better than expected and worse than we deserve.”
So far, Biden has remained defiant, at least up until yesterday. He has steadfastly refused to step down, and insists he’s the only one who can defeat Trump—perhaps proof that he IS losing it. But as the pressure on the president to withdraw mounts—from calls from fellow Democrats to pull out and dismal poll results showing him losing to Trump in key battleground states—he has, according to the New York Times, “become more receptive in the last several days to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid,” though he “has not given any indication that he is changing his mind about staying in the race.”
The Washington Post reported this morning that Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) “in separate private meetings with President Biden last week, told him that his continued candidacy imperils the Democratic Party’s ability to control either chamber of Congress next year.” But closed door meetings and behind-the-back whispers aren’t likely going to be enough.
In a scathing opinion piece, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff scolded fellow Democrats for their misplaced loyalty to a candidate, rather than to the party. Sound familiar? Isn’t that what the Left has been saying about the Republican Party in the age of Trump? Kristoff’s column is worth quoting at length.
“Polling and election history suggest that Trump is a weak candidate but that the Democrats are on course to nominate one who is even weaker,” he wrote. “There is a surprising subservience within the Democratic Party to the person of President Biden over the goals that Democrats say they are committed to achieve. In part, I fear, that’s cowardice.”
And there’s more. “This is a failure of leadership in the Democratic Party. For a party that insists that Trump poses a fundamental threat, how is such loyalty to a losing candidate in the national interest?…We’ve seen this before, this deference to a president of one’s own party, the pretense that the emperor is clothed — but previously we saw it in the Republican Party, and Democrats rightly excoriated this deference. Democrats scolded the Republican Party for becoming a personality cult, elevating one person above issues, goals and common sense.”
If there was an end of the beginning of the movement to oust Biden—this might be it. Schiff’s defection is a huge blow to the President’s candidacy—and now that the whispers of party leaders like Schumer and Jefferies can be heard over the din of media frenzied talking heads—the real end for the Biden candidacy might nigh be drawing near.
I mentioned earlier that there are reports that Biden is “receptive” to arguments about withdrawing, and today the White House confirmed that the President is suffering from a mild case of COVID and will be “self-isolating.” I had to laugh at that. Isn’t that what Biden has been doing for years now—isolating from the press and the public? How will we tell the difference? OK, back on topic. Biden hinted, however gently, during an interview released yesterday, that he would leave the race if a medical condition made that necessary. It would be ironic if COVID were Biden’s “graceful” ticket out.
“Many Republicans know in their hearts that Trump isn’t fit to be elected president in November, and increasingly many Democrats fear the same is true of Biden,” concluded Kristoff, “Yet too many in both parties are silent, placing comity and ties to power over the national interest. Finally, sadly, we see something in America that is truly bipartisan: leadership failure.”
Ultimately, it’s up to the President to lead. “The Buck Stops Here,” proclaimed a sign on Harry Truman’s desk. Sometimes you lead by stepping back or stepping aside, but what if Biden doesn’t? Will the Democrats reject him at the convention? That would be the ultimate indignity for Biden—a too proud man who has now stayed too long. A not uncommon occurrence in politics. While he doesn’t belong in a nursing home, he doesn’t belong in the White House either.
President Biden often describes himself as the nominee of the Democratic Party—he is not—at least not yet. That decision is made at the convention—and delegates at the convention are not bound, at least not by the rules of the Democratic Party—to vote for Biden. “Democrats across the party are worried that they have failed to choose the candidate most likely to defeat Donald Trump, and that it’s too late to do anything about it. But they need to grasp a critical point,” according to Daniel Schlozman, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins, ”Joe Biden is not yet the nominee of the Democratic Party.”
“The delegates are pledged,” says Schlozman, “not bound.” They are also pledged to act in the best interests of the Democratic Party—not the best interests of any one candidate. So Biden’s nomination—even if he chooses to stay in the race—is not assured.
How will this drama play out? Biden’s support, both among the party leadership and rank-and-file Democrats is crumbling—it may have even already collapsed. While he’s saying he’s running, he’s hinting at a way out.
“The U.S. presidency is a narcotic,” Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger wrote, “There should be a 12-step program for recovering from it.”
I fear, however, that President Biden has overdosed.