We have long preferred viewing the upcoming November presidential election as more of a referendum on two sets of policy choices than on President Biden and former President Donald Trump themselves. And we were looking forward to a campaign in which their respective policy choices were ventilated and compared against each other – that is, defended by their proponent.
Now that President Biden will not be the Democratic candidate, the question for us, and we suspect for the Trump campaign as well, is whether or not his successor – at this writing it appears it will be Vice President Kamala Harris – can effectively be held responsible in place of Mr. Biden as the standard bearer.
President Biden’s shocking performance in the presidential debate jolted his bid for reelection and surely fatally compromised it. Indeed, most Americans now recognize that he does not have the mental or physical capabilities to serve as president – even those partisan diehards who were in denial called for him to abandon his reelection bid. It was actually painful to contemplate him in a room contending with foreign leaders or even his own generals or subordinates, all at the top of their games.
A person of his sadly apparent diminished capacity should certainly not be entrusted with the responsibilities of so high an office as President of the United States. Yet, as we recently noted here, it is important to also keep in mind that President Biden has had well-earned, historically low approval ratings and was, according to most polls, facing the strong possibility of electoral defeat on the issues. Indeed, he has yet to adequately explain, among other things, his dangerous flip flops on Israel, the illegal migrant crisis and open borders scandal, the soaring inflation and national debt, the inexplicable coddling of Iran and its terrorist proxies, the regulatory stifling of business growth and energy exploration, and the development and the political weaponization of the legal system.
And of course, of concern to many of us, was his support for the corrosive moral relativism of the woke agenda.
So, as we see it, President Biden had much to address and perhaps answer for in the run up to November 5th. But now that he is to be replaced as the Democratic nominee, does he take all that baggage with him, allowing the new designee to skate by? That is, depending on who a replacement would be, will we be prepared to say that he or she should not be held responsible for and called upon to defend the Biden policies – or at least explain any differences they might have.
If indeed, Vice President Harris is that choice, the question has a relatively easy answer. On several occasions after the Biden withdrawal, she lauded his legacy and said she was proud to have been his partner. On one of them she said, “Joe Biden’s legacy of accomplishments over the past three years is unmatched in modern history.”
At all events, in our view, voters must be given a chance to either vote for or against the Biden agenda and his successor nominee should not be presumed to come in with a clean slate.
