Primary

Why Democrats Should Primary Biden

It would be good for the party — and the president.

By JACK SHAFER

In the middle of the last century, prizefighters who weren’t fighting frequently enough to keep sharp would schedule tuneup matches with capable boxers to shake the ring rust out of their form. Their managers wouldn’t pick palookas or chumps but boxers who could challenge their guy in a way that would reveal his weaknesses and indicate what part of his game needed more training.

President Joe Biden needs a tuneup. He’s a stiff when speaking at the lectern. When not a stiff, the 80-year-old can be a dolt, saying, as he did this week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “losing the war in Iraq” when he meant Ukraine, or blurting out a senseless, “God save the Queen, man,” at a gun control rally last week. The English language has never been his friend, so it’s logical that his managers, er, his aides, have limited his exposure to the press. No president since the equally doddering Ronald Reagan has held so few press conferences. Not since Ray Leonard’s ill-advised third comeback has a contestant seemed so out of condition for a big rumble.

Biden has challengers, of course, but Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr. aren’t the right ring partners to prepare him for what will be his last electoral contest. With a tepid approval rating that puts him near to Donald Trump at his worst, Biden needs a primary opponent who can prepare him for the 2024 general election, somebody who can make him prove that he can still run the traps and beat whichever Republican he faces. If Biden can’t vanquish a worthy Democrat in primary season, he has no business entering the general.

Who might that challenger be? Because the parties tend to think of their presidents as kings and not mere servants, rare is the politician who will go up against his party leader just for the sport of it. Dethronement of an elected incumbent president by his own party hasn’t happened since Franklin Pierce, so the daunting odds end up canceling out capable candidates. The intraparty argument against primarying the president notes how, in recent decades, such challengers have failed to win and only weaken the incumbent to the point that he loses the general (Ronald Reagan vs. Gerald Ford; Ted Kennedy vs. Jimmy Carter; Pat Buchanan vs. George H.W. Bush). Winning, after all, is everything in politics.

Biden presents a different case. Not every old person who wants to be president should be placed on an ice floe and shoved off to sea. Several octogenarians who still have the gas it takes to operate the White House come to mind. Warren Buffett. Charles Koch. Michael Bloomberg. Nancy Pelosi. Anthony Fauci. Ralph Nader. Sandy Koufax. Well, maybe not Koufax, but you get the drift. But the onus should be on Biden to prove he’s mentally and physically nimble enough to do the job for another term before he’s allowed to run against the best the Republicans have to offer. Say what you will about Trump, who just turned 77, but he seems as competent (read that however you wish) as he was in 2016. The GOP is largely lining up behind Trump, but at least a growing number of ambitious Republicans are forcing him to run a real primary campaign instead of bowing to him. Just listen to Chris Christie raking Trump: He’s a “self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog” who can’t take responsibility for his actions, someone who’s “self-obsessed” and can be likened to Voldemort.

Democrats should have such guts. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is already acting like the president-in-exile, proposing a new gun control constitutional amendment, working to ban gas-powered cars and threatening to arrest Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for kidnapping migrants. Like Newsom, Pete Buttigieg wears his presidential ambitions on his forehead like a bumper sticker. There’s surely not a moment that he’s not thinking about being president, so why not act on those instincts, the same ones that launched him from mid-city mayor to Transportation secretary? To mix sports metaphors, Buttigieg could be Biden’s rabbit in the primary, running so hard and so fast that Biden would pick up the pace and show the doubters his own youthful stamina. Both Newsom and Buttigieg are going to run in 2028 anyway, so why not get going now? They would be doing him a favor by toughening him up.

Remember, thanks to Covid-19, a good portion of Biden’s 2020 campaign was virtual, so 2024 will be more taxing for the president. Besides putting him in fighting trim (or not), primary adversaries would prepare us for the all too real possibility that he’s incapacitated by a stroke, seriously injured in one of his frequent falls or another bike crash, or just dies one evening. It’s not impolite or unkind to plan for the sudden departure of any employee. If Kamala Harris had convinced the country that she could step into Biden’s shoes should he suddenly step out of them, the argument for a primary challenge wouldn’t be so urgent. But when was the last time somebody you trust told you Harris could easily fill those shoes, let alone sprint to the nomination if the hereafter called Biden home before November 2024?

Someone? Anyone? Even Beto O’Rourke or Amy Klobuchar or Cory Booker or Chris Murphy or Elizabeth Warren would suffice. Just any heavyweight under the age of 75 with the pugilistic skills to put the current champion through a hammering 12 rounds. Nobody is owed another term just because they’re completing their first. You should have to fight for the right to lead your party. And your country.