Moving Forward

Designated Survivor

Jenn and I have been “bingeing” the TV series Designated Survivor.  The show first aired from 2016-2019, and is kind of a cross between two other shows of the early 2000’s. The West Wing was the political White House drama starring Martin Sheen as the President. The show aired for seven years (and helped me survive the George W Bush administration).  Twenty-Four ran for nine years around the same time. It was an action drama where Kiefer Sutherland was an intelligence agent who broke every rule to save the Nation.  A season spanned twenty-four hours, thus the name.  I was (and still am) a West Wing guy, not a Twenty-Four guy, more interested in Aaron Sorkin’s incredible dialogues, than the Fox explosions.

In Designated Survivor, Kiefer Sutherland returns as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development left out of the State of the Union address, when the Capitol is destroyed, along with the American government.  By default he is the President, and faces all the challenges of rebuilding the federal system, finding the terrorists who destroyed the Capitol, and other crises.  In this drama, FBI investigators work directly for the President, thus “marrying” West Wing drama with Twenty Four action.

West Wing Moment

West Wing quotes are still rife in our political life today.  Forty through sixty year-old politicians and news commentators grew up watching the West Wing, Democrat and Republican alike.   In fact, one of the ways news commentators describe the current Biden dilemma, is that it isn’t likely to create, “… a West Wing moment, when the Democrats come together to pick a new candidate…”.  

But I heard an even more apt quote that applies to Biden on Designated Survivor last night.  The political operative on the show, said that, “A crisis either lasts one news cycle or ten.  If at lasts one cycle, we can move on.  If it lasts ten, it will define your Presidency”.  

Defining Biden

I hoped that the Biden campaign would work past the incredibly bad debate performance of just last week (believe that, it was only a week ago!).  There was a clear strategy:  get the President out; to rallies, interviews, unscripted settings. Prove that he’s not the “lost old man” that we saw on the Atlanta debate stage.  But they didn’t do that.  Biden did a couple rallies, but then “sheltered in place” either at Camp David or the White House.  Is this because he’s developing plans, or because he really is the “lost old man”?  

This crisis lasted more than just a news cycle.  The question of Joe Biden’s fitness even survived Monday’s outrageous Supreme Court ruling that Donald Trump was virtually immune from any criminal prosecution, and the Fourth of July holiday.  Here on the Fifth, it’s still leading all of the news shows, not just on Fox, but on CNN, MSNBC and the big three broadcast networks as well.  It has “defined” the 2024 Presidential race.  

I still believe that this is not “our” decision.  Only Joe Biden and those around him know his real condition.  But they are faced with one stark fact. He’s an eighty-one year old man, running for four more years in the hardest job in the world.  The “prima-facie” case is that he is already too old, and will be far-far too old, by the time 2028 rolls around.  And, even if he just had a “bad night” at the debate, it’s likely there will be more bad nights in the future, not fewer.

One Term Presidents

After the debate, I vowed that I wouldn’t jump on the band wagon of those that want Biden to retire.  But here we are, with a crisis that extends a whole week, and seems to only be growing worse.  I still feel that this truly is Biden’s call, not ours.  But I would be remiss if I didn’t go the next step, and try to “game out” what happens if Joseph Robinette Biden, 46^th President of the United States, determines not to run for a second term.

It has happened before.  In the pivotal year of 1968, Lyndon Johnson determined not to run for a second term in the White House.  We were in the middle of the Vietnam War, with the Democratic Party completely split over the issue.  Johnson was faced with fierce opposition, first by Senator Gene McCarthy and his “Children’s Crusade”.  In the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy came within seven percent of the serving President, sending a clear message to the White House.  A few days later, Senator Robert Kennedy entered the race, further dividing the Democrats.  Soon, Johnson withdrew.

Instead, his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey (of Minnesota) entered as Johnson’s “stand-in”.  The race soon came down to Kennedy versus Humphrey, and was leading to a split convention.  But Kennedy was assassinated in June after winning the California primary, and while the Democrats nominated Humphrey for President, their convention in Chicago was completely divided by both opposition candidates and students marching (and being beaten by police) in the streets.  Republican Richard Nixon ultimately won a narrow victory over Humphrey, and the course of the Nation was altered.

2028 Campaign

Johnson pulled out of the race in March.  If Biden were to pull out, it would be only weeks before a convention.  All of the delegates are chosen, and the vast majority of them are pledged to vote for Joe Biden on the first ballot.  There are several candidates (Moore, Buttigieg, Whitmer, Harris, Newsom, Warnock, Polis, Pritzker, Brashear, Shapiro, to name a few) who might consider running.  Without a primary season to sort this out (our 2028 Democratic future) how would the Democratic Party not splinter by region, race, gender, or view?

The answer is that President Biden would have to “anoint” a candidate, one who would not only win against Donald Trump in 2024, but likely govern until 2032.   And that “anointed” could only be the current Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.  There are several reasons who Harris is the ONLY one.

It’s Harris

First, Biden has already made the decision that Harris is prepared for the Presidency.  It’s the choice he made in 2020, and stood by for the past four years.  And Harris has done everything to demonstrate that she is prepared to be President.  

Second, there is a practical financial matter.  Harris is the only other candidate that could collect on the Biden campaign war chest of hundreds of millions of dollars.  That money was raised for the “Biden-Harris” campaign, not a “generic Democrat” campaign.  Any other Democratic candidate would be so far behind Trump on the fundraising curve, that raising enough money would seem insurmountable.

And third, there is the reality of the makeup Democratic Party.  There are two huge constituencies in the Party, women, and people of color.  For the serving Vice President, a woman of color, to be passed over by a brokered Democratic Convention in August of the election year, particularly for a white male, virtually guarantees a split in the heart of the Party.  At the least it would diminish turnout in this “margins” election.  At worst there could be an actual split or even a walkout.  Like 1968, Chicago could prove to be another Democratic disaster.

America’s Choice

All in the face of the most important Presidential election since the election of 1864.  Like that critical moment in the middle of the Civil War, the Nation is at a turning point.  Will we be a Nation moving backwards (Project 2025) or a Nation moving forward?  Will we turn to authoritarian leaders, or “double-down” on democracy?  What is the future of the American experiment? And even more importantly, will we give Donald Trump, now immune from criminal prosecution as President, the power of the Presidency to alter our Nation?

It’s Joe Biden’s decision, but it will be America’s choice.