I’ve really been trying to avoid the almost nonstop cycle of spin, defensiveness and bravado that has dominated the news cycle since the debat-cle of Thursday night. My roommate is positively stunned at what he perceives as completely blind arrogance on the part of the Democratic party and has relentlessly barraged me with alert after alert where one newspaper after another is calling for a change at the top of the ticket and where apopletic donors are openly challenging party leadership as being tone-deaf and gaslighting.
Indeed, my own e-mails are relentlessly driving this point home even on what should otherwise be a slow pre-holiday weekend. Witness what was dropped this morning via USA TODAY’s tongue-twisting duo of Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy and Phillip M. Bailey:
To many major donors of President Biden’s re-election campaign, one thing is obvious after last night’s debate debacle: things need to change – and fast.
Less than 24 hours since the two men left the debate stage, Democratic donors were feverishly texting each other about facing a free fall ahead of the August convention in Chicago. With the clock ticking, bundlers − the people who give and rake in large sums − were openly wondering if they should be thinking about putting their money elsewhere. Other givers are having backroom discussions about whether they should step up to pressure Biden to step down directly.
One former Obama Administration official, who served on Obama’s reelection committee and has raised funds for Biden, said they woke up to multiple text chains of current donors and former administration officials (both Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris) all “freaking out.” Other text threads expressed being “extremely disappointed.”
But as virtually every objective outlet is reporting, the reality check is that so long as the Bidens believe in their own resolve and determination, not to mention the stark fact that they have virtually all of the committed delegates for a convention mere weeks away, even the threat of cutting off funding isn’t deterring them. Which, of course, has the other side’s leaders downright giddy and in a knife-twisting mood. THE BULWARK’s Mark S. Caputo summed up some of those thoughts in his newsletter this morning:
JOE BIDEN HAS NO PLANS TO QUIT the presidential race. Nor does Donald Trump’s campaign expect him to.
Amid the fallout from the president’s dire performance in Thursday night’s debate, those familiar with Trump’s campaign say it remains focused on Biden as the Democrats’ de facto nominee. Kamala Harris is and will remain Biden’s running mate, they believe. All the panicked chatter among Democrats of her or a swing-state governor replacing Biden atop the ticket is just that: talk.
“It’s a fascinating parlor game. But a lot of it is just mental masturbation,” said a top Republican insider, reflecting the mindset in Trump’s orbit. “Nothing’s changed. He’s the sitting president with 90 percent of the delegates committed. I don’t care if he’s FDR in a fuckin’ wheelchair: He’s still the sitting president.”
And while logistics and the consensus interpretation of campaign financing laws suggest that Harris could conceivably be an option, her tracking and favorability ranks even below Biden’s. Which may explain why a new “endorsement” has come from a most unlikely source, again per Caputo:
Already, the Trump operation has elevated Harris’s role on the ticket, releasing a TV ad heading into the debate, which portrayed Biden as weak and his vice president “waiting behind him.”
“Vote Joe Biden today and Kamala Harris tomorrow,” the ad’s narrator says as a clip of Harris laughing closes out the spot.
An operative familiar with the campaign’s strategy said the ad was not a sign the Trump campaign was seriously considering that Harris would replace Biden on the ticket. Instead, “it was a hit on Joe Biden. It was to troll Joe.(“)
So Plan B, or even Plans C, D and E–a.k.a. Whitmer, Newsom or Pritzker–don’t look very viable. But that doesn’t change the fact that an awful lot of people can’t stand the thought of rolling into November with the Biden-Harris ticket as it is currently comprised.
To those I offer this novel idea–what if we simply swap out a Biden? And no, not the other convicted felon involved in newscycles of late.
The Associated Press’ Josh Boak reported this morning on how much more front and center one Biden with a clean bill of health and no pending charges is becoming:
Jill Biden, 73, has long been her husband’s chief confidant and public defender, but her role looms larger this year and is attracting increasing scrutiny from Trump supporters, some of whom question whether she’s the one doing the steering these days.
Jill Biden, early on reluctant to embrace the role of political spouse, is all in.
As a native of the Philadelphia area, her tone has grown increasingly feisty as she has told supporters that Trump has gotten “my Philly up.”
She has also expressed to supporters how much she cherishes her place among Washington elites and dammit, she’s not going to let her hubby’s perceived capabilities get in the way of that lifestyle and access.
She’s beginning to have a presence and even a look quite similar to another First Lady, a persona that grew in the wake of her husband’s distractions with his own challenges of confidence. I was working for Haim Saban during the second term of the Clinton presidency, where several staffers on his political side confided that Hillary was handling more and more detail work aside from taking the high road and staunchly defending her Yale sweetheart all the way. Indeed, that experience and time in the public eye was crucial to jump-starting her own political career, one that commenced with her successful run for Senator of New York mere months after she and Bill left Washington behind. Democrats of influence love to see a supportive spouse. In Jill Biden’s case, supportive would be an understatement. Lately, she’s practically been Joe’s cane.
Is she qualified? Eminently more so that the presumptive Republican nominee when he descended upon the scene in 2015. She teaches at a community college, which indicates she’s dealt with far larger IQs and greater maturity than him. Getting her “Philly up” would have certainly come in handy last Thursday night in articulating policy and calling out Trump’s diarrhea of the mouth. Hillary did a far better job trading jabs and dekes with FOJ in her debates, and indeed was well on her way to beating him in the election before she forgot which laptop she was using for e-mails. I suspect Dr. Jill has learned a few things about laptop sensitivity from her stepson that would avoid that from becoming an issue.
Would Harris truly raise a French fit if she had the opportunity to be part of an all-female ticket? And if she did, would it not tick off an even more sizable part of the majority that considers her an even weaker alternative to Trump than her current boss?
Agenda? Not a thing has to change since that seems to be resonating far more favorably than the current person delivering it. And if FOJ has Project 2025 doing his ghostwriting, I suspect more than a few decent Democrats can provide a Project 2024 handbook for her to follow.
There’s certainly precedence for spouses to take over terms from their husbands. According to the Center for American Women And Politics (CAWP) website, eight senators, 30 congressmen and three governors have been succeeded by their wives over the course of history. Muriel Humphrey and Lurene Wallace were two of the more notable ones that I personally recall. Lurene Wallace took over when her husband sought the presidency; she died in office. 
Humphrey and others took over after their husbands actually died. But I suspect an awful lot of influential Democratic donors might contend for all intents and purposes that may already have happened in this case with the Bidens. And with the precedents of those previous successions, a far more viable argument could be made to the likes of the FEC that those millions that the party has raked in could more easily be transferred to someone with the same surname as the current presumptive candidate.
Look, I acknowledge this is hardly an idea without its downsides. Many different sectors would have to be placated. And these days, nothing comes easily.
But, honestly, I’m fed up with the barrage of alerts and text messages I’m getting on all the problems with Joe and how dire life might become if what so many see as an inevitable November outcome comes to pass. Keeping it in the family, knowing full well Dr. Jill would have the benefit of his brain for as long as it holds out, seems to me like it could be a decent compromise.
If not, what’s your solution?
Until next time…