Several of Colorado’s Democratic Party insiders say they are through coddling Joe Biden. His reelection campaign effectively ended with his disastrous June 27 debate performance. There’s no sugarcoating it.
“There were essentially three things he needed to do in that debate,” said Curtis Hubbard, principal at OnSight Public Affairs, a political consulting and public policy firm in Denver. He needed to present a vision for the next four years. He needed to remind people that Trump is a liar, a convicted felon and a threat to democracy. And he needed to ease people’s anxieties about his age.
He failed completely on the first two, he said, and “catastrophically” on the third.
“You had a guy who lied blatantly for 90 minutes,” Hubbard said, “and he was deemed winner of the debate. I mean how f—ing bad is your performance.”
So, if Biden withdraws, are the party leaders capable of pulling off a change this late in the campaign? I mean, we’re talking about Democrats.
One Democratic leader who has served as a past convention super delegate said, “It’s bananas” to think the Democrats “will join hands and anoint a new candidate they all can agree on” in the next month. It won’t happen.
Hubbard remains unequivocal: they have no choice.
“It’s important to remember that it was the Biden campaign that pitched the debate this early in the process. They knew what was at stake. Then he went out and sh** the bed. So, it’s on them.”
We’re not switching horses, said the former super delegate. “Joe Biden is our horse. There’s no other option.”
But others disagree strenuously.
They say the Democrats need to face facts and persuade Biden to pass the torch, take a valedictory lap at the convention in August and retire to Wilmington to write a memoir.
Hubbard compared the situation to the painful conversations so many of us have had with elderly parents when it’s time to take away the car keys.
“It’s not easy, but you have to do it before a tragedy happens. In this case, if Biden stays in the race, we risk the election of a criminal fascist who has now been given a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Supreme Court.
“This is not hyperbole.”
Another Colorado Democratic Party insider who spoke on condition of anonymity noted that the Biden campaign’s response in the 72 hours after the debate on its own was revealing.
If they really had confidence in their candidate, the consultant said, after a bad debate you would “flood the zone,” getting the candidate on morning news shows, late-night talk shows, interviews with newspaper editorial page editors and barnstorming the country.
Biden doing a couple of scripted events and then spending the weekend with his family at Camp David was not a good look.
What many of the Democratic leaders were doing after the debate, Hubbard said, “was asking people to shut their mouths, cover their eyes and ears” and pretend they didn’t see what happened on national TV. “It was gaslighting.”
He said he was surprised by the morning-after “circling the wagons” by party leaders instead of encouraging an “honest conversation.”
OK, but it’s late in the game, and a presidential campaign is a huge undertaking even when a candidate has years to raise funds and prepare. That reluctance to abandon the candidate at this point is understandable, right?
Sure, Hubbard said, it will be tough to make such a radical move, but “it cannot get any worse than it is right now.”
Biden’s chances of beating Trump were 50-50 going into the debate and only got worse. Post-debate polls have just started to dribble in but worries about his age — even among loyalists — have exploded. A poll released on Wednesday found Biden had slipped to six points behind Trump.
And while there are no easy answers, there is a clear path forward.
Never mind the long list of potential Democratic standard-bearers, many insiders say, the likeliest and most viable candidate is the vice president, Kamala Harris. She would inherit Biden’s war chest and his 50-state campaign apparatus. She’s been tested on the campaign trail for a year. The delegates could be expected to transfer their support from Biden-Harris to a Harris-Somebody Else ticket.
“Enthusiasm in this election is at rock bottom,” Hubbard said. “It was even before the debate.” If Biden drops out, “it opens the door to possibility, promise, even the kind of hope for the future that harkens back to Obama in 2008.
“The choice no longer would be just voting for the lesser of two evils” as it is now in so many voters’ minds, he said. “It would be good versus evil.”
The consensus among many insiders is that beating Trump is “more likely” with a new candidate than with Biden, who they say has failed to provide a clear vision for the future.
A new candidate would inject optimism and energy into what has become a moribund slog to election day.
Still, the experienced convention super delegate worries that Harris can’t win in a country as racist and sexist as the U.S. in 2024.
“We couldn’t even elect a white woman in 2016,” the insider said.
The others admitted that bigotry among the voters in the MAGA era is a real issue, but they envisioned a number of scenarios that could emerge to neutralize the problem.
One intriguing possibility is that far-right bigots could be counted on to hit the streets “carrying their torches” and so offend the rest of the country that a backlash would propel Harris to victory.
Also, the flip side of the concern about white racism, Hubbard said, is that Democrats need the support of African American voters to win. “If Kamala Harris can rally them, it could be really powerful.”
A key element would be who becomes her running mate.
It will have to be someone who can win in the battleground states, they all said, and “it would have to be an attack dog like no other,” according to Hubbard. “We need someone who can call BS, break through the lies and not allow Trump’s constant lying to be normalized.”
On this everyone agreed.
And the insiders said the party has to be better about highlighting Biden’s successes — for the sake of the president and anyone who might take his place on the ballot.
President Biden has been “highly successful by any measure,” one insider said.
“He’s done more for the environment than any president in the last 40 years,” another said.
Ultimately, history will judge him favorably, but as with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, his legacy could be destroyed by Donald Trump if he insists on trying to stay in the job too long.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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