Memo to the DNC: You share the blame for Biden’s bait-and-switch
The loyalty of millions of voters is being sorely tested by the failure of the Democratic National Committee to hold the president to his implicit campaign pledge to serve one term
By Larry Edelman Globe Columnist, July 1, 2024
If the Democratic Party were a publicly traded company, the mishandling of the presidential nomination process by its board of directors — the Democratic National Committee — would likely have sparked a revolt by investors. Here’s how an activist investor might respond.
To: Jaime Harrison, chair, Democratic National Committee
Re: Thanks for nothing
A lifelong Democrat, I’ve voted for each and every one of our party’s presidential nominees since 1980 — sometimes enthusiastically, other times not. I think I’ve pulled the lever for exactly one Republican in an election at any level: Bill Weld, for governor of Massachusetts. And he might as well have been one of us. (Even the Globe endorsed him in 1990.)
But my loyalty — and the loyalty of millions of Democrats like me — is being sorely tested by the failure of you and the rest of the DNC leadership to hold President Biden to his implicit campaign pledge to serve one term.
“Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said in 2020 while campaigning in Detroit with Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”
Many voters backed Biden four years ago not because he was their favorite Democrat in the primaries. We did so because he looked like the best bet to beat Donald Trump.
His game plan was clear: win, return some sense of normalcy to a country exhausted by COVID and Trump, then step aside for that new generation of leaders when the next election came around.
OK, Biden never said the words “one term only.” But c’mon, Jaime, that’s what we all understood to be the deal when we jumped on the bandwagon. It was the concession Biden knew was necessary to win over voters deeply uneasy about handing the White House to the oldest person ever.
The Democratic Party isn’t a company, but you are in the business of winning elections. Biden is the CEO, so I get it: he has a lot of power.
But I see you and the other DNC leaders as board members. Your responsibility — your fiduciary duty, if you will — is to protect the interests of all Democrats, not just the president’s.
You failed miserably. If this were a company, an activist investor would launch a proxy fight to replace you all.
The past three years were the time to develop a succession plan. To give the party’s younger stars the green light to build national profiles. To confront the hard truth that the vice president probably isn’t POTUS material.
And, most important, it was the time to persuade the soon-to-be-octogenarian CEO that a younger, more energetic candidate would offer an even stronger alternative to Trump.
Instead, you went along with the high-risk decision by Biden to try to cheat time. You ignored millions of Americans who complained he was too old for the office. Ezra Klein of The New York Times summed it up nicely on Sunday, writing that the party is “giving the American people an option they do not want and then threatening them with the end of democracy if they do not take it.”
It’s an awfully cynical way to treat customers/voters.
The high price of your recklessness was made painfully apparent by the debate debacle. Biden cemented everyone’s worst fears about his ability to campaign effectively — and run the country if reelected.
Now the party has two options, neither appealing. You can stick with a severely wounded candidate and pray enough voters just can’t go with Trump. Or you and others can try to convince Biden that after doing an admirable job, his crowning service to the country would be to bow out.
I’m disappointed that Biden chose to run again. I’m mad as hell that you, the Democratic establishment, stood by and let it happen.
Win or lose in November, you should all resign.
Larry Edelman can be reached at
[email protected].
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/01/ ... ebate-dnc/
