Biden’s failure in debate fuels Democratic voices demanding change of candidate | USA Elections

The first debate of the 2024 presidential election has put Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in deep crisis. The failure of the President of the United States to try to demonstrate that he is fit to face a second term has boosted Democratic and progressive voices who are demanding a replacement to face Donald Trump on November 5. Biden’s loyalists are closing ranks, but the doubts that already existed have become a clamor after his disastrous performance this Thursday in Atlanta, full of lapses, hesitations and incomplete sentences. However, Biden appeared ready to bounce back at a rally on Friday: “I want to win the November election,” he said. “I’m not a young man to state the obvious. I don’t debate like I used to, but I know how to do this job,” he added.

With as energetic a speech as possible, Biden was able to counter the storm of criticism he received after the debate that questioned his suitability. “Every Democrat I know is saying this is bad,” Ravi Gupta of Obama’s campaign team tweeted after the debate. “Just say it publicly and start the hard work of making it to the convention for the selection process. I would rather vote for a corpse than Trump, but that’s a suicide mission. It might be a blessing if we get it in June instead of September. But it would only be a blessing if we do something about it,” he said.

This is the Democratic Party’s big dilemma. Whether to keep betting on an 81-year-old president, whom voters consider too old for the position, or hastily look for an alternative candidate. Biden has the necessary delegates to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, to be held from August 19 to 22. Replacement is only viable if Biden voluntarily withdraws and an open convention is held. The last example in bad memory for the Democrats is when Lyndon B. Johnson resigned from re-election in 1968 and the candidates chose Hubert Humphrey at the Chicago convention, who failed to run against Richard Nixon. This year, the Democratic convention is again in Chicago.

Biden is keen to keep fighting and recover for a second face-off with Trump on September 10. But those two and a half months are going to be very long, with videos of the skids of the first duel circulating at full speed on social networks. Critical Democrats hope someone will convince him to contest the election, whether it is the First Lady, his closest allies or former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Jill Biden accompanied the president to a rally in Raleigh (North Carolina) this Friday and assured that her husband is the most suitable person for the position: “What you saw in the debate yesterday is Joe Biden, a president with his integrity and character, who told the truth, while Trump told one lie after another. Then, at a fundraising event in New York, she returned to the incident that happened on Thursday: “Let’s talk about last night’s debate, because I know it’s on your mind. As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man. And after the debate last night he said, ‘You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that good.’ I said, ‘Look, Joe, we’re not going to let 90 minutes define the four years of your presidency.’

In Raleigh, Joe Biden, in better shape but still coughing, tried to calm criticism amid chants of “four more years” from his followers and reading a speech from a screen. “I know I’m not a young man, to put it bluntly,” he admitted. “I don’t move as freely as I used to. I don’t speak as fluently as I used to. I don’t debate as I used to. But I know what I know: I know how to speak the truth, I know right and wrong, I know how to do this job, I know how to get the job done. And I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up,” he insisted.

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The president said Trump had “broken the record for lying in a debate” and reiterated, as he had said before him, that he had the “morals of a stray cat.” “I’m here because I want to win the November election and if we win in North Carolina (the state where he lost by the smallest margin in 2020) we will win the election.” The public was devoted. “The only convicted criminal on stage yesterday was Donald Trump,” he said, casting his opponent as a threat to democracy, while attendees chanted: “Lock him up!”

Obama also took a shot at his former vice president. “Bad debate nights happen. Believe me, I know,” he tweeted, referring to the bitter defeat he suffered as a re-election candidate in a debate against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. “But this election is still a choice between a man who has fought for ordinary people his whole life and a man who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth, who knows right and wrong and will tell it straight to the American people, and someone who will blatantly lie for his own benefit. Last night did not change that and that’s why there’s so much at stake in November,” he said.

Lack of an alternative candidate

The lack of a clear alternative candidate has always hindered the possibility of a replacement, but names like Vice President Kamala Harris are being heard again; California Governor, Gavin Newsom, or Pennsylvania Governor, Josh Shapiro, among others. All three of them came out to give their support to Biden after the debate. “It started off weak, but ended strong,” Harris tried to pacify Josh in an interview on CNN. “You can’t turn your back on someone for a (poor) performance. What kind of party is this?” Newsom told MSNBC. “Joe Biden had a bad debate night, but Donald Trump was a bad president,” Shapiro said. He added, “I would say to all the people who are worrying right now, start working and stop worrying.”

Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is even better placed than Obama to attest that face-offs aren’t everything. “I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate. No one knows better than me that a tough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record,” he tweeted. He won election in November 2022 after a disastrous debate against the Republican nominee in which he appeared with the after-effects of a stroke and was barely able to understand questions and deliver his speech.

The debate awakened a torrent of sympathy for Fetterman for his difficulties. Biden tries to minimize the damage and repeat the event. “My father had an expression. It said: ‘Champion, it’s not about how many times you lose. It’s about how quickly you get up.’ “I’m told there’s even a song about it,” he tweeted this Friday with an excerpt from his Raleigh speech with the theme. Tub ThumpingFrom Chumbawamba.

However, many Democratic congressmen fear that a bad result for Biden will drag them down, as all representatives and a third of senators are at risk of re-election on the same day as the presidential election. Many have publicly expressed their concerns about the poor debate in Atlanta. Still, neither congressmen, governors nor other officials have openly questioned Biden’s candidacy. They have been former campaign managers or people who are not in the party apparatus.

“I think panic has set in,” David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to former President Barack Obama, said on CNN. “And I think there’s going to be discussions, I don’t know if anything will come of this, but there’s going to be discussions about whether this should continue.” “This was the worst performance in the history of televised presidential debates,” former Republican strategist and Biden supporter Tim Miller said in the press room after the debate.

However, the Biden campaign’s communications director denied to reporters Friday afternoon on Air Force One, the president’s plane, that any move had been made to replace Biden: “There has been no conversation about that. Democratic voters chose Joe Biden, nominated him. Joe Biden is the nominee,” Tyler said, according to a transcript provided by the White House. Tyler acknowledged that Biden “didn’t have a good night on the debate stage.” He added, “But we prefer a bad night than a candidate who has a bad vision of where he wants to take the country.”

Media pressure

Pressure also comes from progressive media and columnists. “Time to go, Joe,” was the headline. the Atlantic Mark Leibovich. He argued, “Biden must step aside for his own dignity, for the good of his party and for the future of the country.” “Joe Biden is a good man and a good president. He should withdraw from the race,” headlined Thomas Friedman. the new York Times. In the same medium, Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman, one of his loyal followers, also said: “The best president of my adult life needs to retire.”

Perhaps the biggest blow was a harsh editorial from the New York newspaper: “To serve his country, President Biden must leave the election race,” it headlined. “In Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he is prepared to meet the difficult demands of the office he seeks to hold for another term. However, voters cannot be expected to ignore what is obvious: Biden is no longer the man he was four years ago,” it said. “Democratic leaders are better equipped to offer a clear, compelling and empowering alternative to a second Trump presidency. The party has no reason to risk the country’s stability and security by forcing voters to choose between the shortcomings of Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden,” it added.

When Biden began his race for the Democratic nomination in 2020, he met with the editorial board new York Times, That I wouldn’t bet on that. The newspaper recommended two candidates as the best choices for the presidency: Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. In response, Biden He tweeted a video that went viral of the security guard who accompanied him in the elevator on his visit to the newsroom: “Honoured to have Jacqueline’s support.” Exactly a year after that tweet, Biden was sworn in as President of the United States after defeating first his Democratic rivals and then Donald Trump. Biden wants history to repeat itself.

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