WHEN YOU STRIKE at a king, you must kill him, according to the old adage. Or, as Omar, the notorious Baltimore stick-up guy on “The Wire,” put it, “When you come at the king, you best not miss.”
No matter the context or exact wording, the meaning is clear: When you look to topple the most powerful figure around, you better hope you succeed, because the consequences of failure could be dire.
That is at least part of the dynamic at play in calls for President Biden to abandon his reelection campaign following last week’s disastrous debate performance in Atlanta. And it’s not just that those calling on him to quit the race could face payback if he stays on and wins. Those critics have no interest in further weakening Biden if he remains the nominee.
What makes the situation particularly fraught – and different from other power plays – is that it’s not Biden’s enemies who are going after him but, in some cases, his strongest allies.
Consider the plaintive cry of Steve Lynch, the South Boston congressman, the day after the disaster in Dixie.
“I think we have some decisions to make as a party. We’ve got to have that discussion immediately,” Lynch, a moderate Democrat who was among the first members of Congress to endorse Biden in 2020, told the Wall Street Journal. “I love him. He’s such a good and decent man, but that performance last night was dreadful.”
Whether Lynch has come to his own decision on the question isn’t clear. His office did not return a message on Tuesday.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first Democratic member of Congress to call on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. The Texas congressman pointed out his district was once represented by Lyndon Johnson. “Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw,” Doggett said of LBJ’s exit from the 1968 race under the weight of the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. “President Biden should do the same.”
Hoping to stanch the bleeding, Biden is meeting today with Democratic governors, including Maura Healey.
Two Democratic Massachusetts state legislators, Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Mike Connolly, have called on Biden to step down from the ticket.
Sen. Jamie Eldridge isn’t quite there, but he came close in an interview on Tuesday. “I do think Biden should consider whether it’s best to step aside and have an opportunity for Democrats to consider whether there is someone who would increase the chance we’re victorious against Donald Trump,” said Eldridge. “I’m not calling on him to do that, but I do think it’s an important moment for Biden to consider that and for Democratic national leaders, the so-called powerbrokers, to think about this.”
The liberal Democrat was a Bernie Sanders delegate at the Democratic national conventions in both 2016 and 2020, but there was no hint of schadenfreude in his voice as he pointed out that Biden was already trailing Donald Trump in polls of key swing states that he won four years ago. “I think that there’s a perception that somehow if you express concern about Biden that you’re saying that he has not been a good president, and I think he’s been a very good president,” Eldridge said.
Congressman Jake Auchincloss has been more than just a loyal Biden supporter. Given that the race will be decided by a fairly small slice of swing voters, the Newton Democrat has been a strategic player, readily going on Fox News to make the case for Biden initiatives and mix it up with conservative voices.
Auchincloss said he rejects the “false equivalence” some were drawing after last week’s debate, that “one is too old and one is crazy and a bad choice for America.”
“Donald Trump is the worst president in American history with clear designs to undermine democracy in a second term,” Auchincloss said. He said Trump “lied every 90 seconds” in Thursday’s debate.
As for Biden’s performance, he said, “I don’t think the president was effective in conveying his own competence as commander-in-chief or in rebutting Trump’s streams of falsehoods.”
“We can’t ask 50 million Americans to not believe what they saw and heard, which was a president who appeared diminished,” said Auchincloss. “I agree that he has a strong record to run on, and I agree that his presentation matters, too, and I think the campaign should not be dismissing people who are concerned about it as hand-wringers.”
What of the calls for him to step aside?
“I don’t think public conjecture on this is helpful from my seat,” Auchincloss said. “There are no smoke-filled rooms. He won the primaries. This is a decision that needs to come from Joe Biden in consultation with the best analysis possible of the path forward. I’m fighting hard to defeat Donald Trump in November. That’s what I can control.”
Stopping a Trump return to the White House is something all Democrats agree on. The difficult question they now face is, which of the imperfect choices offers the best hope of doing that?
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