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By Mark Davis
Host, "The Mark Davis Show"
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You can hear the groans from Democrats nationwide a little louder with each fresh news story portraying President Joe Biden's mental and physical decline. Recently, a catatonic moment with the president of Israel linked up in the news cycle with details of shallower stairs being installed on Air Force One. Even Democrats are increasingly concluding that keeping Biden on the ballot in 2024 could prove risky for their interests.
There is plenty of conservative attention on Biden's deterioration as well, but mainly in the form of criticism of the administration's performance in general. So if people who want the incumbent to win next year and people who want him to lose agree that a second Biden term is fraught with precariousness, what does that mean? And is there any logic to the growing murmur saying he simply can't—and in fact won't—be on the ballot?
Most folks reaching that conclusion are making a direct leap from Biden's obvious infirmity to the natural benefits of having someone else as the Democratic nominee when the party gathers for its Chicago convention next August. But precisely how does that happen? With a looming campaign that promises to shine even harsher light on Biden's frailties, the overwhelming odds are that he will indeed be on the ballot for reelection.
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How that affects the political fortunes of both Democrats and Republicans is something that will take shape over time. But right now, any talk of replacing Biden runs into a number of obvious obstacles.
What turn of events leads to someone else joining the ballot? Let's put aside the possibility of death or a health decline so stark that Biden is unequivocally unable to perform. Neither seems likely in the year and a fraction before the election. The likeliest possibility is a campaign conducted mostly from the White House and other unchallenging places, catering to the president's limited stamina and proclivity for cognitive lapses.
As growing numbers of Democrats grow nervous about those things, it becomes clear that there is really only one way Biden is not running next year, and that is a decision by him to remove himself. There is currently zero evidence that this could happen.
The president and his administration grow defensive when presented with age questions, which now regularly come from the media culture that so breathlessly worked to elect him. Biden speaks of the additional wisdom his years confer; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, nearly three years his senior, says "he's a kid to me"; Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre parries reporter inquiries with the insistence that he's fine and we're all making far too much of this.
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Does this look like an administration about to pull the plug?
One wonders how Biden might fare if Democratic primary voters had a tenable alternative. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. seems to have a larger fan base in the Fox News audience than among actual Democrats, and Marianne Williamson is simply not a plausible option.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom surely would be, and he has spent the last few months saying and doing things that seem aimed at a national constituency. Observers may ask and worried Democrats may plead: Why doesn't he run?
It's simple. Mounting an intra-party challenge to an incumbent president burns bridges with elected officials and donors. It's also likely to fail. In the roughly 50 years of the modern primary era, even damaged administrations like those of Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and George H.W. Bush in 1992 swept aside high-caliber challenges from Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, and Pat Buchanan respectively.
Then, in November, they all lost. Newsom may well want to be president someday, but not via the risky, bloody route of taking on even a diminished Biden.
If there were the slightest whispers of a voluntary Biden exit, it's not as if he has long to think about it. His decision to seek the presidency into his eighties has frozen out what might have otherwise been an energized field of hopefuls. If such a decision seems unlikely in general, it seems nearly unthinkable in the next few months, the only time frame that would allow fresh campaigns to ramp up.
So yes, visitors from another planet landing and watching coverage unbiased might look at Biden and say, "Wow, there is no way this guy can be on the ballot." But as soon as they familiarized themselves with the way our elections work and every signal given off by Team Biden, they would come to the same conclusion we should all begin to embrace: it looks like Joe-versus-somebody next November 5.
Mark Davis is a talk show host for the Salem Media Group on 660AM The Answer in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and Townhall.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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