Oh boy, what a difference a day makes, huh?

Not really. It just looks that way since we are always working from less than perfect information.

Okay, I normally just incorporate the educational parts of my commentary in the whole. Kinda like burying the medicine in a spoonful of sugar, albeit snarky sugar. Today, I’m going to divide this post into three parts instead. I’ll start off with the political analysis and the second part will be the issues around the way Biden stepped down. Part Three will be the what went wrong with my prediction about Biden staying in the race. For those who don’t want to stick around for Part 3, the short answer is nothing went wrong, it’s just the risk you take when you predict things you don’t actually control.

Okay, let’s get this party started.

Part One: Now What?

Now the Democrats either pull off the coup of the century or crash and burn. Yes, it was a kind of coup and may turn into a real one. Republicans are not going to sit idly by and let Biden remain in office. If he’s not fit to be the Democrat nominee then he’s not fit to be president. Harris is going to be under immense pressure to activate the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and remove Biden from office.

Is this nasty? Oh heck, yeah. I am no fan of Biden’s but I can’t help but feel sorry for a feeble old man who is being back stabbed by those he is closest to professionally. No, I’m not saying he should have stayed in the race. He should have resigned from office a couple years ago. But he didn’t. Instead he won his party’s nomination for president by a landslide and his party leadership is stealing it from him because they care more about winning than about him or the country.

In case anyone is wondering, the whole process the Democrats have been engaged in since last year is textbook anti-democratic. It will only get worse from here as the party continues its desperate bid to not self immolate. Constitution be darned!

So, where were we?

Assuming Biden legitimately withdrew – which is most likely the case but the question remains open until he gets on a podium in front of cameras (See Part Two!) – then Harris is stuck with the glaring hypocrisy of leaving an incompetent man in the presidency when his own party doesn’t think he is capable enough to run for a second term. The howling has already begun and will quickly drown out the faint praise from the Democrats of Biden’s patriotism for withdrawing from the race but not the office.

Edit: I didn’t even get this recorded before news broke that leading Democrats may have threatened to remove Joe Biden from office if he did not quit the presidential race. If so, it means Harris will not be invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment as Biden’s withdrawal was contingent on his remaining in office. It also means Harris is both corrupt and complicit. The Office of the President exists for the benefit of the United States of America and her people. It is not a tool for a political party to use to settle its internal conflicts.

We return you to your blog post, already in progress:

Biden won’t catch most of the heat from the hypocrisy. Harris will. Biden has a pass in that he’s not competent enough to notice the conflict. Harris is now running for president and she gets no passes at all. She, as Vice President, has the power to begin proceedings under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to remove Biden.

If she does it, she shows herself as strong and putting country before party. If she doesn’t, she looks weak and partisan. But if she does it, the Democrats are going to be stuck with weeks of bad media as the proceedings highlight the questions about why Biden wasn’t removed long since. If she doesn’t, the Democrats are stuck with weeks of bad media about who the heck is actually president.

Any sliver of hope she has of winning disappears if she doesn’t use the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. But if she does use it, her party will eat her alive. It’s okay if she takes bad press but not if her actions turn a spotlight on the underside of the Democrat Party. She could squeak out an electoral victory and be completely unable to govern.

Don’t think for an instant the Republicans don’t know it. They’ll hound her every bit as hard as the Democrats hounded Biden out of the race. But worse for Harris, the Democrats know it, too.

And they don’t want her as the nominee.

Never mind that she is literally on the winning ticket and has served as Vice President. She’s not regarded as likeable and her polling numbers have always been abysmal. She didn’t win a single primary in 2020 having dropped out in 2019 because she was too far behind to continue. That’s exceptionally bad and her service as VP has only made it worse. Her chances of beating Al Bundy would be poor; her chances against Trump approach nonexistent.

Sure, the Dems see the polls. Heck, they have better polls than the silly stuff the media hawks. Harris performs slightly better than Biden. ‘Slightly better than a train wreck’ coming off a successful Republican convention and going into an open Democrat convention that was already expected to be interesting in all the wrong ways is not exactly the path to victory.

Nor will it help the down ballot congressional races. Remember, those Dems only care about their own electoral hides as we’ve seen with the nasty way they disposed of Biden.

All that means Harris is on her own as a kitten between two hungry wolf packs.

I’m not a fan of Harris, either, but sheesh. Alligator wrestling has to be safer than being a Democrat nominee nowadays.

Before you feel too sorry for her, she’s still got cards to play. Biden’s war chest is available to her and not any other candidate. The Biden delegates may well fall in line and vote for her. And the Democrats only have four weeks to push her out of the race before the convention. She’s vulnerable but not nearly as weak politically as Biden was for staying in the race.

Just depends how bad she wants the top job. From her actions over the last three weeks, I’d guess pretty danged badly.

I will say this much for Harris. Publicly, she’s been loyal to Biden in ways no other leadership has. Oh, it’s probably somewhat self serving but still, she went to bat for her president and I have to respect that.

It’s going to cost her. She knew the truth and she didn’t tell the American people. You know, the folks she actually works for? That’s a vulnerability the Republicans can drive a truck through. This new Republican Party shows every sign of being willing to get in the trenches and fight. Harris can’t count on the old milquetoast Republicans to back off and wring their hands in the background. She will be getting hit with the hard questions straight out of the gate.

And her party will be passing out eggs for the Republicans to throw. The leakiest White House in history is about to become a fountain. Every misstep Harris ever thought about taking is going to become public to go along with her already legendary gaffes. The Democrats do NOT want a Harris nomination and they don’t want a Harris presidency. If they did, they’d already be clamoring for her to use the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

Forcing out the token black female looks bad to the Democrat base. So much better if the Republicans can do it, preferably before August 19th. A Harris presidency will look like what it is, a coup. A Harris nomination means a likely loss and if they did squeak out a win, they are stuck with her for four years. Yeppers, much better to let the Republicans do the dirty work this time.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, the Republicans can’t force her out. Oh, they will make her political life total hell for the next six months but they have no leverage to get rid of her. The Democrats are going to have to pressure her to step aside or run a blistering nomination battle at the convention. Having her bow out is best for them but Harris has made it perfectly clear she’s not doing that. They could force her to accept a VP like Newsome or some other up and comer but that hurts her chances of actually governing should she win so Harris won’t go along quietly for that. Option Three is a nuclear convention.

To be fair, the Democrats have messed up so badly that they may get a nuclear convention regardless. A lot of sharks smell blood in the water. Obama pointedly did not endorse Harris while the Clinton’s did. That bit of theater may signal a division in the leadership or be taken as such a signal. Pelosi lost a LOT of political capital ousting Biden. The down ballot crowd is probably more than a little rankled at her leadership letting things get this bad. She’s powerful but not invincible.

She ain’t young, either.

The young Dems, the insane base and the skittish donors are now almost certainly at odds. Plenty of gas on that woodpile.

Anyone got a match?

Or then again, maybe not. Democrats appear at the moment to be rallying around Harris. Which would be the smartest thing they’ve done in a couple of years. They need a consolidated, unified party instead of the backbiting clown show they currently have. Picking a lane and going for it would be the smart move.

We’ll see how long it lasts. They’re Democrats so a week, maybe?

Edit: If the allegations of Biden being forced out with threats of removal from office are true, this changes the dynamic for Harris and the Democrats. They cannot afford a grueling floor fight in the convention and will be pulling out all the stops to prevent it. Oh, this is still a clown show – only morons would have set up something this destructive just to force Biden out. They had the Twenty-Fifth Amendment back at the beginning of the primaries so why wait until massive damage was done to the Democrat brand? If they manage to salvage this disaster, it’s not 4d chess. It’s pure dumb luck.

We rejoin your blog post already in progress:

Harris is already under fire for her role in the Biden health scandal and that will only get worse. Either intentionally or unintentionally, Biden is already making it worse. Which brings us to Part 2.

Part Two: Where’s Biden?

Presidents aren’t supposed to play Where’s Waldo when they are doing big stuff like deciding not to run for re-election. They REALLY shouldn’t do those things via Twitter and a letter on personal letterhead. This is the 21st and a quarter Century! We don’t have to have press conferences in rooms full of equipment. A smart phone and a Zoom call are sufficient to let the American people see their president sign a stupid letter or post a tweet.

Instead, Biden has been MIA for days and there are no photos of him actually signing the letter or videos of him explaining why he’s stepping aside. The official word is that he has COVID, which he has had previously (there goes the entire vaccine theory), and is recuperating in Delaware. I know Delaware is a bit stodgy but I’m pretty sure they have cell service and internet.

So, where is he? More to the point, how sick is he?

That last one has massive implications. Did the Democrats take advantage of his illness to ‘resign’ him from the campaign? Is his physical health also failing? Is he even remotely capable of discharging the duties of his office?

Did Harris just claim the nomination from a defenseless, dying old man?

We do not know. We are getting information only from the White House and that limited to ‘he’s getting better’. Better than what, exactly?

No, it’s not a conspiracy theory – those don’t actually exist – it’s a set of valid questions that the people have a right to ask. The timing is suspicious and not just because I didn’t think Biden was likely to drop out. He’s had three weeks but he finally succumbs to the pressure once he’s sick and out of the public eye in Delaware? He steps aside with just a tweet and a note, no video or photos?

Gee, why would that be suspicious?

I’ve already seen the ‘is Biden dead’ question surface on social media. While that seems incredibly unlikely, Biden’s return to his hermitage is ill timed at best and highly suspect at worst.

If the Dems want any chance at legitimacy going into their convention, they’d best haul Biden out in front of a camera now. He doesn’t have to give a speech, just look into a lens for two minutes and affirm that he is indeed stepping down and will provide more information when he’s doing better. The longer he is out of the public eye, the more people are going to wonder what exactly made him change his mind when he did.

When information is lacking, people tend to fill in the blanks. This is one time when the Democrats absolutely do not want people filling in the blanks on their own. You end up with congressional and criminal investigations when you let these kinds of questions stew too long.

Harris has been doing pretty well in front of the cameras the last 24 hours. She is not usually so practiced. Maybe she’s rising to the occasion or maybe she’s really been practicing for the last week or two. Either way, she’s not a good public speaker and unlikely to keep up the polished look for very long. With Biden MIA, she’s going to quickly become the center of attention in ways that will not be fun.

Where is the President, VP Harris? Who’s acting as president in his absence? Has the president invoked the incapacity clause of the the Twenty-Fifth Amendment? Are YOU Acting President now? If not, who is running the government while Biden recovers? If he can still work while recovering, why can’t he do a quick live stream?

In all likelihood, Biden is just sick. Surely, the Democrats wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide something worse, right?

Oh, wait, they’re Democrats.

This better end quickly or it most certainly will not end well.

Maybe we should put Biden’s picture on a milk carton?

Edit: Biden phoned in to a Harris rally. His voice sounded strong. No video, no pictures, just audio. I haven’t heard much in the way of questioning this but audio large language models are a thing – I’ve considered them myself rather than recording these blogs personally. Faking audio is the easiest ‘deep fake’ possibility. Biden is too sick to appear on camera but he sounds fine as he phones in to a political rally? Whatever is going on with him, this hiding from the public is just weird.

Moving right along…

Part Three: Excuses, Excuses

I try to face up to my mistakes. Sometimes it’s hard because I’m not sure I made a mistake. But that doesn’t mean my conclusion wasn’t incorrect. I thought Biden was likely to stay in the race. Two days later, he drops out.

Oopsie!

Okay, seriously, the conclusion was wrong but was the analysis? Am I just unwilling to own my miscalculation or am I right to second guess whether or not I made a mistake?

I hate it when I’m self conflicted. Oh well, here’s my best shot.

I don’t think I’m just being defensive. This has been a fast moving set of events and I did caveat that I didn’t know for certain so it’s not like I have a reputation at stake. Sure, I can be as pigheaded as the next gal but I really don’t think that’s what I’m doing right now. Biden’s withdrawal is just plain weird, something even people who expected him to step down have acknowledged.

I think my analysis was as correct as it could be going into the weekend. We only work with publicly available info so any commentator is going to be stabbing a bit in the dark. Still, Biden’s staff was adamant that he was staying in and they were caught by surprise when he withdrew. I think that is indicative of some sort of change occurring on Saturday or early Sunday.

I strongly suspect the change was in Biden’s health. I do not think he signed the document – and there are a number of others that find his signature questionable. That doesn’t mean he didn’t authorize it. I have nothing to go on for conjecture about that at this time. I suspect his health took a severe turn for the worst and he authorized the withdrawal, or his wife did on his behalf.

I do not think it was for the ‘good of the country’. I think the danger of Biden being unable to resume office was used as a cudgel to force the resignation from the campaign.

Edit: This is, of course, different if Biden was in fact threatened with removal. Not sure how different simply because we haven’t enough information yet.

The next bit remains the same, if not even stronger. We’re back from our unpaid non-promotion!

I am very, very glad I am no longer a Democrat. I should have left that party thirty years earlier.

I think my original analysis that Biden would stay in was correct on Friday but circumstances changed such that my conclusion was invalid by Sunday. Nostradamus, I ain’t.

Sure, I had hedged my bet. I knew Biden was under enormous pressure and that people in declining mental capacity can be unpredictable. But I still did hazard my guess and at this time I’m standing by that original analysis even though my conclusion proved incorrect.

Yeah, I know. I sound like a politician.

Why does it even matter? Wouldn’t be the first time – or the last – that I’ve been wrong. But part of why I write all these usually unread commentaries is to help people better understand the political sausage so it isn’t so danged scary when humans do what they do best and blow everything up. Sure, most of that is technical stuff like why polls aren’t trustworthy and averages are stupid. But commentary is very much part of the political pie.

You don’t need to trust commentaries. You need to evaluate them. To do that you have to understand that commentators are just people with some knowledge and a lot of opinions and hopefully, a knack for analyzing the political world. People get things wrong. Sometimes cause they just goof. Sometimes because their biases get in the way. Sometimes because they don’t have enough information. Sometimes because they have way too much information. Sometimes because they outsmart themselves and sometimes because they develop a bad case of the stupids.

But once in a while, it’s because things change too quickly or without their knowledge. You need to know that not because you should sympathize with the plight of the poor, unpaid (buy a tee shirt, will ya?) commentator but because all of that applies to your analysis, too.

Yes, your analysis. When you research to find out more, or think things through and eventually draw conclusions, you’re doing analysis. So what if it’s not professional level work? It doesn’t need to be. But you do need to be able to trust your conclusions and know when to discard them. Watching commentators flail around is a good way to learn a trick or two about when to trust your thinking and when to rethink the thing.

As you learn to evaluate the commentators and the information they use, you also learn to evaluate your own thinking. Thinking is a skill we desperately need and so rarely teach. It’s often not fun. Trust me, spending a day considering if I screwed up or am I just an idiot or did circumstances really change that fast is not my idea of fun. But that kind of constructive self critique builds better thinking skills, hopefully making me a better commentator.

Who knows? Next time, I may even get it right!