Can Biden run out the clock?
As Democrats frantically debate whether President Joe Biden should be the party’s nominee, they’re racing against an uncomfortable — and uncertain — deadline.
Democratic National Committee members are expected to meet next Friday to determine a date to nominate Biden in a virtual roll call, which could come as soon as the end of this month, weeks before the party’s convention in Chicago, which begins on Aug. 19.
Officially giving Biden the nomination would effectively blunt some calls for him to drop out and would send a clear message to wavering party members that it was time to put aside their concerns and get in line.
The decision to nominate Biden early and online was made well before the president’s poor debate performance. But it’s now creating an optics problem for the party as it faces criticism that it allowed Biden to go too far in quashing his primary competition, including reordering the primary schedule to be more favorable to him and booting alternative candidates in states where the party determines who makes the ballot. Even some of the DNC’s own members have acknowledged that moving ahead with a virtual nomination is not a great look.
“I do not want this virtual roll call to be used as a way to protect Biden within this context,” said a DNC member, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Compounding the bad optics of an early virtual roll call is the fact that it’s not technically necessary anymore. [Continue reading…]
[Wednesday] was a day that encapsulated the harsh reality facing the president’s campaign. His team could scramble to create all the noise they wanted. He could cling to support from Black voters and organized labor. He could host a successful NATO summit and display his foreign policy bonafides. He could travel for energetic rallies and send forceful letters about his intent to stay in the fight. He could sit down for national media interviews and field questions in an hourlong press conference. But there was nothing Biden or his campaign could do to make people unsee what had unfolded on the debate stage two weeks earlier.
“Presidential campaigns don’t end. They run out of money. That’s what’s happening right now,” said one Democratic donor adviser. “Grassroots money, normally, is expensive, and it takes a lot of money to raise that money, so the idea that somehow they’re going to make up high-dollar [donors] with grassroots money is insane.”
A defiant president pulled every lever this week to demonstrate his intent to stay in the race — to prove that he was still the one to beat Donald Trump — but it’s done little to quell the rebellion. Doubts about Biden’s viability are growing among some people inside the White House and campaign operation, as is frustration with the inner circle that many believe is still unwilling to accept the grim political reality.
“Everyone I know who’s involved in this is moving to a place of very real fears about a Republican trifecta,” said a former administration official concerned about what a Trump administration could do with the help of a GOP-controlled Congress. “It’s hard to stomach because we were told this was about saving democracy, and now we’re doing this to protect one guy’s feelings. The despair we all feel is hard to overstate.” [Continue reading…]