7/4/24
Far be it for yours truly, or anybody, to accuse a
politician of prevaricating or President Biden of not realizing what he is
saying, but, assume for a moment that all of Mr. Biden’s protestations that he
has no plans to drop out of the presidential race are somehow untrue.
Should Mr. Biden really
be on his way out of the race, his, or the Party’s, timing would come into
question. If Mr. Biden is indeed getting
out of the race, why doesn’t he just do it now? Depending on how conspiratorial one wants to
get, there could be a number of reasons.
One possible reason for the delay involves party nominating
rules. if Mr. Biden leaves the race
before being formally nominated, what was supposed to be three-day celebration of
the wisdom of choosing such a titan of modern statesmanship as the Democrats’
standard-bearer would turn into something actually meaningful, something we haven’t
seen since 1980, or maybe 1968: an open
convention. However, if Mr. Biden
leaves the race after being coronated at the United Center, his
replacement would be decided by a series of deals and schemes concocted by Democratic
party elders, a return to the smoke-filled rooms of the past, though were we to
deal with actual smoke-filled rooms in 2024, the smoke might have an entirely
different origin than was the case in, say, 1948, but I digress.
Yours truly is of the admittedly unconventional view that
an open convention would be good for the Democrats. As I said in my last, nearly instantly seminal,
post (THE
DEMOCRATS SHOULD DUMP PRESIDENT BIDEN, BUT…, 7/1/24), an open convention
would be something most potential viewers have never seen. It would be exciting, maybe even
riveting. Viewership of the conventions,
which have become more sleep-inducing than a speech by a Fed chairman, has done
a convincing imitation of the Hindenburg over the last forty or so years. But not a post-Biden withdrawal 2024
convention. Decisions would be made. Drama would be everywhere. Rumors and innuendo would fly. The people would love it and watch intently;
it would be the ultimate shiny object. The
Dems would be getting all the publicity, and, despite what you might be told
and despite all the falsehoods you have heard about the ’68 convention’s horrific
consequences for the Democratic ticket that year, the old adage about there
being no bad publicity would apply to an exciting, brawl of a Democratic
convention. People would soon be asking
“Donald who?”
Another advantage of an open convention for the Democrats
in 2024 is that it would be easier for the Democrats to dump Kamala Harris
from the ticket, or at least to keep her in the second slot on that ticket,
under such circumstances. (A further
discussion of Vice-President Harris in this context will be grist for a latter post,
so keep reading my posts.) An open
convention provides a degree of plausible deniability, as in “We didn’t drop
Kamala; it was the will of the people as transmitted through their duly elected
delegates” or some such drivel.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one’s point
of view, my well-reasoned thoughts on the desirability of an open convention is
not, well, conventional wisdom. The
Democratic powers-that-be don’t want to take a chance on a messy, disorderly,
or worse, convention, though it’s starting to look like such an outcome is
inevitable, which is grist for yet another mill. So they would probably like to see President
Biden be nominated before stepping aside so they then can go about doing their
wheeling and dealing to choose the candidate they want. As yours truly has pointed out before, the
Democratic Party, despite its nearly fraudulent name, is the less democratic of
the two major parties. It could be
plausibly argued that the proverbial fix was in for the Democrats in 2020,
2016, 2008, 2000, and 1968, and I’ve probably skipped a few election years in
that series. Why should this year be
any different? If yours truly is right
in my assessment of the wishes of the elders of the Democratic Party, it would make
sense to delay Mr. Biden’s withdrawal until after the Chicago convention.
Another reason to delay revealing the truth about Mr.
Biden’s candidacy is the desire to make Donald Trump’s selection of a
running mate more difficult by forcing him to make that decision without
benefit of knowing who his opponent would be.
Mr. Trump would have more latitude in this choice if he knew he would be
facing Mr. Biden than he would if he were choosing a more formidable (as in “just
about any other”) candidate.
A third reason to delay Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from the
race, should that be the intention, also involves Mr. Trump’s choice of a
running mate. Delaying the withdrawal
until, say, 15 minutes after Mr. Trump announces his running mate, would steal
the 72 hours or so of nearly undivided attention such a selection usually
brings. Mr. Trump makes his selection,
everyone is excitedly focusing on that choice, 15 minutes later Mr. Biden
withdraws, and people forget about Mr. Trump and what’s his, or her, name.
Before we start having too much fun with this, recall what
I wrote near the end of my last
post:
“Will the Democrats remove Mr. Biden? The prospects decrease with every day that
last Thursday fades into the proverbial rear view mirror.”
Last Thursday is fading fast, so the chances that Mr. Biden
sticks on the ticket are increasing.
However, one, or maybe two, more “bad days” will seal Mr. Biden’s fate,
so we have to be thinking of what comes next.
In my next post, I will start naming names, as many of my
readers have requested. But it’s Independence
Day, my wonderful wife and I are off to a celebration of our nation’s birth,
and I am trying to keep these posts short.
So the real fun will have to wait a few days…unless developments render
speculation regarding a replacement moot.
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