NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — The buzz regarding the possibility of replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket has reached a crescendo in the wake of his Thursday night debate performance against former President Trump.
Observers called Biden’s responses halting, confused and unclear, especially in the first half-hour of the 90-minute debate.
Political analyst Joel Rubin said the calls for a replacement candidate are warranted.
“Democrats need to change the conversation pretty quickly,” Rubin said. “The narrative right now is, as a result of the debate last night, that Joe Biden is not ready for prime time.”
Politics aside, in order to name a new candidate, Democrats would have to play a high-stakes game of beat the calendar. The Democratic Convention begins Aug. 19 in Chicago.
Norfolk State University professor and political and legal analyst Dr. Eric Claville said it would be a mammoth uphill battle.
“The work that it would take, the funding it would take to get a new candidate across the country may be an insurmountable task for the party at this point,” Claville said.
Claville said if Biden agrees to step aside, his delegates “go to the convention and they vote as superdelegates, meaning they can vote for the candidate of their choice.”
He pointed to the 2020 race, in which both Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had turned over their delegates to the convention where Biden was nominated for president.
In addition to Vice President Kamala Harris, several governors, including Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) and Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) among others have been floated as potential replacements. But Claville said anyone other than Harris would be skipping over her, and could cause the Democratic party major problems.
“If she is leap-frogged for other candidates, and having to run for Vice President again,” Claville said, “would that cause a fracture within the Democratic party with African American voters?”
Rubin said it’s time for First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, who visited Hampton Roads Thursday, to convince the president to let someone else run.
“She knows better than anybody what his frailties are,” Rubin said, and added he was surprised at the difference between Biden’s performance in the debate compared with his much more commanding delivery during February’s State of the Union Address.
“That’s different from being on the debate stage,” Rubin said. “He looks to the casual observer that he’s declined precipitously in the last six months. That’s a concern.”
Both Rubin and Claville say it’s likely that party power brokers will want Biden’s ear in the days to come.
“[I think] Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, maybe Nancy Pelosi, are going to be sitting down with him and saying ‘Mr. President this election is too important to the party, and too important to the nation, for you to continue to be at the top of the ticket,'” Rubin said.
“You’re gonna have some very interesting conversations,” Claville said, “some hard conversations and decisions that have to be made immediately.”
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June 29, 2024 at 05:34AM
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Local analysts: replacing Biden difficult but not far-fetched - WAVY.com
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