Prexy follies: Who do you like if old Joe drops out?
No joy in the Mudville that is American politics after the dismal debate? The doddering president and the perfectly awful alternative? Let’s instead revel in the possibilities that this situation presents us with.
Let’s not bow down to the supposed inevitability of the Democratic Party continuing down the path of nominating President Joe Biden for another term when clearly he should retire from the race.
Yes, it would have been better if, as your columnist suggested years ago in this space, Biden had immediately upon his election declared that he was a one-term president who would step aside come 2024 and allow his party the time to decide upon a younger, more vigorous standard-bearer. There would have been zero shame in that, and his presidency would have been the happier for it. The president declined my advice.
But a better future is still out there for our nation, and we should seize the day. Hardly an eccentric opinion. From The Guardian, the paper of record in Britain, from where I write: “In a Morning Consult poll, 60% of respondents, Republicans and Democrats, said the president should be replaced by his party for November’s election.”
So, we’re good with that.
Now, all we have to do is coalesce around who should be the next president.
We can immediately dispense, as should she, with the notion that the candidate might be the vice president. She should move on to some presidency of a university, waiting for better approval ratings.
But is our country finally ready for a woman president? Hope so. In that case, we should welcome Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a superstar who has concentrated on healthcare and infrastructure during her tenure. Brilliant. Works well across the aisle. A lawyer and an effective legislator. “Fix the damn roads!” is her political motto from the Motor City. And she’s 52! “Why wait for 2028?” should be her motto now.
Rather stick with what’s worked before — a guy? We’ve had entirely guys in the White House over the centuries, and it’s worked out all right, more or less.
Then how about the junior senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy? He’s 50 and vigorous. Went to Oxford. He’s one of the harshest critics of Russia in the United States Senate.
And over the last eight years he’s been a leader in accusing our country of complicity in the war crimes committed by the Saudis in Yemen, saying: “Thousands and thousands inside Yemen today are dying … This horror is caused in part by our decision to facilitate a bombing campaign that is murdering children and to endorse a Saudi strategy inside Yemen that is deliberately using disease and starvation and the withdrawal of humanitarian support as a tactic.”
He wrote that because of the Saudi murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, “it should represent a fundamental break” in Saudi Arabia–United States relations. As a newspaperman, I think he’s got my vote right there.
Out to dinner in England on Independence Day eve, I heard four American voices at the next table. “Who do you like if Joe drops out?” I ventured.
“Well, two of us you’ve got wrong,” as GOP members, one affable fellow from St. Louis said. But they didn’t like the former guy, either, and felt frustrated as Republicans. “Maybe Sherrod Brown?,” the Democratic senator from Ohio. “But I’m only saying that ‘cause it would open up a seat for a Republican.” The other couple, a White woman and a Black man, spoke wistfully of the Michelle Obama pipe dream.
Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico? We like a Westerner. Sen. Amy Klobuchar? Sounds good to me. Most anyone but the ones we’ve got.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.