Changing Horses

Schiff

Congressman Adam Schiff of California is a formidable politician.  Schiff was the “face” of the Democratic opposition to President Trump in the House of Representatives.  As head of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff fired the opening Congressional salvos against Trump with the Mueller Hearings.  When Colonel Vindman came to Congress with his report of Trump’s “perfect” phone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, offering aid in exchange for “dirt” on Biden, it was Schiff who held the first hearings.  That led to the first impeachment of Trump, with the Congressman as the lead House Manager in the Senate Trial.

Schiff was not part of the second Trump Senate trial, though he still was a pivotal voice in bringing the House to vote for a second impeachment.  After a contested primary this spring, when Congressmen Katie Porter and Barbara Lee split the all-important California Democratic progressive vote, he is now poised to become the junior Senator from California in November.

Mentor

Schiff is his own man.  With a Stanford undergraduate and Harvard Law degrees, he became an Assistant US Attorney, then served four years in the California Assembly.  He was first elected to Congress in 2000, and came up through the ranks in the Democratic delegation.  And he certainly had help.  Schiff became a trusted associate of Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to become Speaker of the House, and also from California.  Pelosi trusted Schiff so much, that she put him in charge of the most momentous House actions of this century, the “Resistance” to Trump’s Presidency.

So it was with some shock that I read Adam Schiff’s statement asking Joe Biden to withdraw his candidacy for the 2024 race (CNN).  The Congressman made it clear; he thinks that Biden can’t win the Presidency, and was risking Democratic control of the House and the Senate as well.  So why would Schiff, already a “safe” Senate candidate, step into the Presidential fray?  (And it’s not so he can run for President.  At best he’s third in line for that candidacy just including Californians!)

Speaker Emeritus

It’s been a long, crazy week.  But it was only eight days ago, that Speaker Emeritus Pelosi appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and said that she would “support” Joe Biden’s decision, whatever it was, about running for President.  That statement sounded good for Biden. But the reality was that Biden was clear that he intended to run.  When she was questioned about it, she reiterated that she would back whatever decision he made.  “The World” took note of the former Speaker’s carefully parsed “support”. It gave fuel to the fire consuming Biden’s candidacy.

In the past week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, another Pelosi acolyte, had “frank conversations” with President Biden. He conveyed the House Democrats concerns about his candidacy.  Last weekend, Senate Majority Leader Schumer had a similar conversation with the President.  And behind the scenes, Nancy Pelosi was doing what she does best.  She was counting “votes”, getting a “whip count” of Democratic support, and perhaps more importantly, financial support for both Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic ticket.  

We don’t know the results of Pelosi’s “count”, at least not directly from her.  But we can take a very educated guess.  There is only one reason that Adam Schiff would weigh so dramatically into the Presidential fray. He is telling us, and the President, where the most politically savvy Democrat of all, Nancy Pelosi, stands.  I’m sure Jeffries and Schumer told the President a similar message.   

Money, Money, Money

Like most things in life, it all comes down to money.  While Democrats are quick to trumpet their “small donor” fund raising, in the end, they too are dependent on “mega” donors to fund the billions of dollars needed to win the Presidency, the House and the Senate.  The pressure is high:  Elon Musk just pledged $45 million a month to the Republican absentee-ballot campaign.  

President Biden was in Las Vegas this week, to speak to the NAACP and the Unidos-US annual conferences. While there, he was told by longtime fundraiser Jeffrey Katzenberg, that the money has dried up (Deadline).  What went on in Vegas, didn’t stay there,  and neither did Biden. In another hit to his campaign, Biden contracted Covid, and was forced to abandon his schedule and fly back home to isolate.  As Trump’s Vice Presidential pick JD Vance took the stage in Milwaukee to resounding cheers and the approving eye of Trump himself, there were dark pictures of Biden walking alone across the tarmac in Delaware.

Changing Horses

There is no “revolt” coming at the Democratic Convention.  Such an event would set the stage for a Trump election.  Instead, the “wise elders” of the Party are making it clear:  if Joe Biden continues to run, they see no path to victory.  

Abraham Lincoln was running for re-election in 1864, during the worst of the blood-letting of the Civil War.  There were some calls by his own supporters for the Republican Party to find a new candidate.  Lincoln weathered that storm, and later told the following story.

I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap.

Don’t kill the messenger, Adam Schiff . He is simply delivering the verdict of his octogenarian mentor.  It’s not that the “elders” won’t stay on the “Biden Horse” in mid-stream.  It’s that they think that Biden is going to drown, and take the rest of the Party, and the country, down with him.

But, it’s still up to him.