OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
James
Carville: Biden Won’t Win. Democrats Need a Plan. Here’s One.
July 8, 2024
By James
Carville
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/opinion/biden-democratic-nominee.html
Mr. Carville
is a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s in
1992, and a consultant to American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC.
Mark my
words: Joe Biden is going to be out of the 2024 presidential race. Whether he
is ready to admit it or not. His pleas on Monday to congressional Democrats for
support will not unite the party behind him. Mr. Biden says he’s staying in the
race, but it’s only a matter of time before Democratic pressure and public and
private polling lead him to exit the race. The jig is up, and the sooner Mr.
Biden and Democratic leaders accept this, the better. We need to move forward.
But it can’t
be by anointing Vice President Kamala Harris or anyone else as the presumptive
Democratic nominee. We’ve got to do it out in the open — the exact opposite of
what Donald Trump wants us to do.
For the
first time in his life, Mr. Trump is praying. To win the White House and
increase his chances of avoiding an orange jumpsuit, he needs Democrats to make
the wrong moves in the coming days — namely, to appear to rig the nomination
for a fading president or the sitting vice president or some other heir
apparent. He needs to be able to type ALL CAPS posts about power brokers and
big donors putting the fix in. He needs, in other words, for Democrats to blow
it.
We’re not
going to do that.
We’re going
to nominate a new ticket in a highly democratic and novel way, not in the
backrooms of Washington, D.C., or Chicago.
We’re at the
stage where we need constructive ideas for how to move forward. Representative
Jim Clyburn and the Times Opinion columnist Ezra Klein have spoken about a
Democratic mini-primary, and I want to build on that.
I want to
see the Democratic Party hold four historic town halls between now and the
Democratic National Convention in August — one each in the South, the
Northeast, the Midwest and the West. We can recruit the two most obvious and
qualified people in the world to facilitate substantive discussions: Barack
Obama and Bill Clinton. They may not represent every faction under our party’s
big tent. But they care as much about our democracy as our nation’s first
president, they understand what it takes to be president, and they know how to
win.
Town halls —
high-stakes job interviews for the toughest job in the world — would surely
attract television and cable partners and generate record numbers of viewers.
Think the Super Bowl with Taylor Swift in the stands. The young, the old and
everyone in between will tune in to see history being made in real time.
How will
potential nominees be chosen to participate in the town halls? There is no
answer here that will satisfy everyone, but hard choices must be made, given
the tight timetable, and I think leaning on the input of former presidents
makes good sense. So I would advise Presidents 42 and 44 to select eight
leading contenders out of the pool of those who choose to run, with Ms. Harris
most definitely getting a well-earned invite.
I believe
the vice president would be a formidable opponent for Mr. Trump. She has spent
the past four years crisscrossing the country and the globe, serving the
American people. She has a hell of a story — one that more people should know.
She stood up for ordinary Americans against big banks. She locked up sexual
predators. You want the prosecutor, or you want the criminal? Not the worst
question to put to the American public this November.
Maybe
Presidents 42 and 44 can make the candidate selection even more democratic by
consulting the nation’s 23 Democratic governors in the town hall selection
process. Governors deal in the practical, not the theoretical. But I’m not a
details guy. I say we leave it up to 42 and 44.
To be clear,
we have a lot more than eight Democrats who could beat the pants off Mr. Trump.
But if we don’t limit the town halls to a manageable number of people, we’ll
get sound bites, not substance.
Town halls
will give Americans a fresh look at Ms. Harris and introduce them to our deep
bench of smart, dynamic, tested leaders. In addition, Democratic delegates will
get to further grill and stress-test these leaders in public and private
meetings before a formal vote of all the delegates at the Democratic
convention.
A word about
those delegates: I trust them to reach a majority decision at the convention
after a public and substantive process like this one, and you should, too.
Sure, we’ve got some folks on the fringes, God love ’em. But an overwhelming
majority of Democratic delegates are pragmatic patriots. They work hard and
care deeply about their communities and our country. They come from small towns
and big cities and everywhere in between.
I’m not
worried about our delegates. They’re in it to win it.
I’m not
worried about our talent. We have a staggeringly talented new generation of
leaders.
I’m not
worried about the money. Americans will be fired up by this open process, and
many are already fired up to beat Mr. Trump.
I’m not
worried about time. We have excitement and momentum on our side.
And our
opponent? The one born with a platinum spoon but no moral compass? The
pathological liar? The felon? The predator found liable for sexual abuse? The
wannabe dictator? The Putin lickspittle?
I’m not
worried about him, either.
It’s been an
agonizing time for those of us who think President Biden more than earned a
second term but isn’t going to win one. But now we’ve got to move on.
Although my
friend Rahm Emanuel usually gets credit, I’ve heard more often that it’s
Winston Churchill who is said to have advised, “Never let a good crisis go to
waste.” A superdemocratic process — the opposite of what Mr. Trump and his MAGA
minions would do — is how we’re going to honor that wisdom in our own “Will
democracy prevail?” moment.
James
Carville is a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, including Bill
Clinton’s in 1992, and a consultant to American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC
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