I don’t have time to necessarily flesh all this out, but instead of a comment to the previous post, this is more a post in and of itself.
Let’s run down the scenarios.
- The party rallies around Biden.
- The party fights with Biden to get him to step down.
- Biden gracefully steps away and hands the baton to Harris.
- There is a floor fight to choose someone after Biden exits (without or without a “mini-primary” as some have suggested).
I think #4 is simply not going to happen, so shouldn’t be part of any rational conversation. That’s the multiverse of madness option that may be fun to discuss but that’s all it’s good for.
So, the question is, what is the rank order for which we should prefer? “We” in this case being anyone who wants Trump to lose.
Let’s start with the worst one. That would be #2, which is where we seem to be. A semi-private, but actually public fight means that the party is divided and at this point almost guaranteed to have unhappy factions going into the general election campaign that officially starts in just over a month (but which has unofficially been going on for quite some time).
The question becomes, which of #1 or #3 is best? Both are better than #2. I will confess, I don’t know (and nobody else does, either). It is a roll of the dice. Both have downsides. #3 has more potential upside and downside.
Note: one can have a good faith preference for #1 or #3. But having a fight over that good faith preference leads to #2.
The problem continues to be you only get #3 if Biden cooperates. Anything other than his full cooperation leads to #2.
And #2 is the worst possible outcome.
All I can say, is that the Democrats better get this straightened out PDQ, else they are going to guarantee a fifth option: Trump back in the White House.
BTW, if you put a gun to my head and made me choose, at any given moment I might go #1 or #3. But, again, you have got to avoid #2. And I suppose I mostly seem to default to #1 because I don’t see Biden cooperating with #3.
