All The King’s Horses, And All The King’s Men

Pelosi has told people Biden 'should step aside': reporthttps://t.co/VnkbAcWgYZ

— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 11, 2024

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is privately telling House Democrats that she believes President Joe Biden should step aside as the party's 2024 nominee.

Nancy Pelosi is a very good politician. But either she’s slipped; or this report is bullshit.

If Biden goes back on his public statements now, and withdraws from the race, it will shatter the Democratic base that elected him as their candidate in the primaries. It will also bury his presidential legacy the way LBJ’s was eclipsed by his decision to not run. Six decades later and LBJ’s accomplishments are still not fully appreciated. That’s not a small consideration for a President.

Biden would destroy his credibility (LBJ faced a convention, not the modern primary system) and take away almost any good faith he had engendered. Kamala Harris is good enough politician to restore that loss. I don’t think Nancy Pelosi is, either. She’s certainly not a national political figure, not in that sense. In the end, she’s just a Representative. He’ll, I don’t think Bill Clinton had the political chops to salvage the disaster if Biden quits now; or even if he’d quit the day after the debate.

This idea is as detached from reality as Donald Trump is. If Nancy Pelosi is promoting it, she’s not the politician I took her for. That doesn’t mean she isn’t; a lot of politicians mistake their local expertise for national political expertise. The presidency, especially, is a unique political position, and if all you take account of is a tiny group of donors or political figures, you are doomed to national favor. Dewey didn’t defeat Truman because Truman campaigned effectively, and Dewey didn’t.

I don’t really think Pelosi is naive enough to think campaigns don’t matter, that only polls and punditry do. Whether she does or no, it doesn’t mean voters do.

Biden quitting now would be the last shot of the circular firing squad. And that failure would be Biden’s legacy. I don’t think Trump is that inevitable. I also don’t think he’s any kind of a campaigner.

It’s a long time to November.

(Besides, this story is from Politico. It’s well-grounded in “some people say” even dismissing Pelosi’s public statements as not being her real sentiments:

The speaker emerita, who has publicly said she supports whatever Biden chooses, denied pretty much all of this reporting through a spokesman last night, including that she told anyone Biden should step aside. “Publicly and privately, Speaker Pelosi has acknowledged the concerns that many have expressed in recent days but has repeatedly said that she fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do,” a spox said in a statement to Playbook.

Politico likes the first part of that statement, but tacitly dismisses the second. Because the convention hasn’t happened yet, and in the silly season of summer the political press needs a new horse race.)