Well exactly and winning is not about being old.
It’s not about future performance. It’s about being able to win.
America hasn’t ever even elected a female president!
The Biden vs. Obama presidency would be an interesting historic discussion. IRA vs. ARRA. Staying in Afghanistan vs. bloody retreat. Budget caps deal vs. sequestration etc...etc... I haven't put enough thought into it to have a strong opinion.
I felt like Biden was likely to lose before the debate. 2020 was too close and his standing was worse. I do still wonder if everyone had pretended the debate was fine, would it have just gone away in the public conscious. I think there is a good chance that it would have, though the polls in swing states maybe suggest that isn't the case. I think the bigger problem is, he was losing before the debate and he needed it to shake things up. (His team felt similarly or they wouldn't have scheduled the early debate).
Folks running down ballot didn't think the bad debate was something that could be ignored. They felt like saying that things were fine would undercut their own legitimacy and so Biden was pulling them down. While Manchin just wanted to stick Biden because he could, folks like Sherrod Brown don't come out unless they really feel threatened. Their job is to get elected, so I put some stock in their reactions.
If you asked me to pick a Dem to lead a ticket to take on Trump, Kamala wouldn't be in my top 10 (even withot fantasy picks like Oprah). As for historic precedents, we've also never voted for an 80 year old, or an incumbant whose approval is in the 30s. I don't like where we are but since I had already written Biden off and was terrified about the House and Senate, I'm cautiosly optimistic that this could be a net positive. But I don't feel good about it.
And then if we want assign blame for the situation I assign it to Biden and his team for refusing to acknowledge they had a problem. Even worse they hid the President for 18 months, attacked any press who wrote about it and generally stacked the deck by changing the primary order. But if you think that Biden was the best chance of winning, then I can see how Pelosi and Schumer get the blame.
Regardless, no one can blame Bernie, AOC or progressives this time. This is purely the neolibs fighting it among themselves. The joys of late stage capitalism.
