That’s probably the intention of the Democrat Party at this point. Will it work? If you define ‘work’ in this case as ‘backfire massively’, yes, it’ll work great.
You young ‘uns are waiting for me to define ‘stalking horse’, aren’t you? This is why glare smilies exist, you know!
Smilies are emojis. You are holding a dozen universities in your hand but looking up stalking horse is too much trouble? I’m not even touching the fact that you didn’t know what smilies meant.
Sigh. Stalking horse is basically bait. The premise is the same as the old bait and switch scam. The Democrats will offer up Biden as the front runner and let him sweep the primaries. Biden will then reluctantly bow out of the race – because the Democrat leadership will threaten him with impeachment if he doesn’t. Once Biden is out of the way, the Democrat Convention will select a new candidate, with the superdelegates making dang sure it’s their preferred candidate. No nasty voters get a say.
By the by, it doesn’t say anything good about the Democrats that a senile old man can sweep their primaries.
Now the theory here is that the new candidate will be able to beat Trump. Failing that, the new candidate will be up against whatever the Republicans come up with because miraculously the Democrats finally get Trump to drop out.
That last one at least stands a chance of getting the Democrat candidate elected. Okay, you have to use quantum probability and pretend there really is a multiverse, but that’s still a chance, infinitesimal though it be.
No, I’m not defining infinitesimal. Look it up!
The first theory is just stupid. Quantum probability can’t save it because there is no such dimension in the mythical multiverse where cheating your base gets you a winning candidate. This wouldn’t work if the Democrats had a popular candidate to run, which they don’t. If they had that, Biden wouldn’t be winning their primaries now. People get kinda upset when they trudge out in the snow to vote for their senile candidate only to have a candidate they like less substituted in at the last minute.
Those people vote. Those people are likely to either stay home or worse, vote for Trump purely in revenge on election day. We’re talking about Democrats, not Republicans. Odds on favorite, the Democrats lose enough of their own party votes to get Trump into the White House without Trump picking up the independents he otherwise needs.
Independents are even more fickle. They won’t feel betrayed since they don’t vote in primaries – or shouldn’t – but they will be ticked if the Democrats pick the wrong candidate to run. They, too, will either stay home, or more likely in the case of independents, vote Trump.
Let’s consider what the Democrats will have to offer if not Biden:
Kamala Harris: Couldn’t win a state in the 2020 Democrat Primaries. Her popularity has gone down since then. I’m being nice and not laughing… where you can hear it.
Gavin Newsom: Oversaw the first ever population decline in California and only barely survived a recall effort. California is the only state the even kinda likes him. PLEASE run this guy, Democrats! Pretty please? We’ve never had a full sweep and this would give Trump a great chance of taking all fifty states! Pulease!
Dean Philips, RFK, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard were the only Democrats that could have beat Biden and the Party made danged sure that didn’t happen. Philips was a long shot, granted. RFK, Jr. was a viable choice but the party hates him, thus the Bernie Sanders treatment. Gabbard has similar issues and her only real path forward is to move to a middling conservative state and run as a Republican.
Well, she did leave the Democrat Party so who knows.
The Democrats have so lost the plot that I doubt it matters anymore. What they should be doing is throwing their entire war chest at taking the House and getting a solid majority in the Senate. Shy a miraculous October Surprise, the election is Trump’s for the taking. Frankly, an October Surprise would likely backfire just at badly as every other nonsensical thing the Democrats have tried and actually propel Trump even higher in the Electoral College vote count.
Translation: the Democrats can’t win unless the Republicans all literally stay home. While some Republican commentators are worried about cockiness affecting turnout – as they should be – Trump’s base is so insanely energized and Biden’s so demoralized that I doubt this happens.
But vote anyway, gang.
Truth is, this is still too early. Eight months is a looong time in politics. Biden could stop putting his foot in his mouth every five minutes. The economy could have a major upswing. The border could miraculously take care of itself. The Democrats could find a candidate that stood a snowball’s chance on a lava flow of winning. Anything can happen.
A lot probably will happen. But so far the Democrats only shoot their own feet when they aim at Trump so I’m not confident that they will pull yet another rabbit out of the hat. You can’t cheat in a landslide because you get all kinds of caught.
That’s the final reason I doubt they will actually replace Biden if he isn’t willing to go. Biden will be in the White House when the Democrats need cover and if he and his team are ticked off, well, Biden won’t be running in 2028. He can afford to kick over the chess board on his way out.
The Democrats can’t afford getting caught flatfooted. Their chances of surviving as a coherent or even an incoherent party past a Trump victory are low. Without Biden running cover for them on the way out of the White House, those chances go to zero.
The chances of hostile Congressional and Department of Justice investigations into any and all election shenanigans go to 1000%.
Either way, replacing Biden promises to be political suicide and hysterical comedy. Get your popcorn here!
