Biden’s Debate Debacle: Can He Remain in the Race?

I grew up in a political family in which my father, after his military service, became the executive director of the Kent County Republican Party (basically metro Grand Rapids) during the period when the local congressman, Gerald Ford, rose from the House minority leader to vice president and then president when Richard Nixon resigned. I’m far from new to politics, and I might know a thing or two about what problems political parties face when trying to decide how to convince a sitting president that the best thing he can do for the country is to leave office.

It takes a lot to surprise me, but what I never expected to see was an article by the editorial board of the New York Times calling on the sitting Democratic president to drop out of his race for re-election.

Here’s the conclusion reached in yesterday’s editorial: that Democrats should “deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November. It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.”

Here’s the direct link to The New York Times editorial: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/biden-election-debate-trump.html