Maddison Gomez March 13, 2023
Mona Charen, syndicated columnist
In late 2019, Politico asked a senior Biden adviser about the candidate’s age. “If Biden is elected,” said the anonymous advisor, “he will be 82 in four years and he will not run for re-election.”
That was then. Although Joe Biden never waived a second term, thereby avoiding Teddy Roosevelt’s 1904 blunder that immediately made him a lame duck, it was widely assumed early in that term that he would be an “interim” president. No longer. Today all signs point to another run.
While traveling in Africa last month, Jill Biden was asked if the reelection decision had been made and if only the time and place to make the announcement remained to be chosen. “Pretty much,” the First Lady replied.
The structure of the President’s Union State of the Union address, with its “let’s get the job done” refrain, suggests a candidate, not a farewell speech from an outgoing president. Most of all, the president’s linchpins on two issues that could be political vulnerabilities — crime and immigration — point to a campaign mentality.
Voters, even particularly Democratic voters, have been sending messages about the importance of crime in recent years. They elected former police officer Eric Adams to the New York City mayor’s office, ousted progressive Chesa Boudin and Marilyn Mosby from the San Francisco and Baltimore district attorney’s offices, and refused to re-nominate Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot as mayor. The mayors of Atlanta and Seattle also opted not to seek re-election due to public concerns about high crime rates. It was notable, therefore, that just days after Lightfoot was ousted, Biden announced that he would not veto moves by Congress to overturn proposed changes to the District of Columbia criminal code.
After two years of brutal headlines and low polls over the throng of asylum seekers at the border, Biden has tightened rules on would-be immigrants, requiring them to ask for asylum in the first country they reach, rather than choose only theirs Application to be made in the United States. The government has coupled this with mounting humanitarian probations from four particularly hard-hit neighbors — Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The result has been a 38% drop in encounters at the border since the policy was passed in January. The deportations are increasing – but so are the legal admissions. And while immigration will remain a divisive issue in national politics, reducing the chaos at the border crossings is clearly in Biden’s political interest.
So he shows a certain skill. What he couldn’t do is change the actuarial tables. If re-elected, Biden will be 86 in 2028.
Maybe 86 is the new 76. People are living longer and better than ever. Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Cry Macho, debuted in 2021 when he was 90 years old. Rupert Murdoch, at 91, continues to preside over a vicious media empire. Warren Buffett, the fifth richest person in the world, runs Berkshire Hathaway at 92 and takes advice from 99-year-old board member Charlie Munger.
And yet it’s not crazy that voters are concerned that the man they’ve elected could die in office, which is far more likely for an 83- or 85-year-old than a younger person. And then there is the question of strength and mental acuity. Biden has shown no signs of dementia and likely never will (90% of older people don’t), but that doesn’t mean he’s as perceptive as he used to be. A recent poll found that 68% of voters think Biden is too old to run for another term. Another found that even among Democrats, only 37% would like to see him for a second term.
When he was younger, Biden made an unwise decision that is haunting him now — promising to nominate an African American woman for vice president. That promise drastically limited his options and left him burdened with a vice president who has proved deeply disappointing, not to mention unpopular. It may not be justified. Maybe she just had a few pitfalls that were overdone. But negative views seem to have hardened, and because of the racial dynamics of the party and the country, he can’t replace them on the ticket – only adding to people’s fears of a second term.
Biden can’t drop Harris, but she could retire. People rarely put the good of the country ahead of their own ambitions, but it truly seems that Harris would be a hero if she were to step down in favor of a more acceptable alternative for the vice presidential post in 2024.
With the GOP still spiraling insane, Democrats are the only hope for rationality in the near future. And a Biden/Klobuchar or Biden/Whitmer or Biden/Booker ticket would be a much safer bet.
EDITORS’ NOTE: Mona Charen is Policy Editor for The Bulwark and host of the Beg to Differ podcast.
