(Daily Mail) Nearly every time President Joe Biden appears in public these days, he fuels the chatter: Will aging Joe bow out of the 2024 race? Will he be forced to step aside?
In the latest incident, former president Barack Obama was seen on Saturday reaching for Biden’s hand and seemingly guiding the 81-year-old Commander-in-Chief off the stage at a Los Angeles fundraiser.
And that came after Biden stood motionless and stared blankly for a full minute at a Juneteenth celebration at the White House on Monday, as others sang and danced around him. Eventually, Philonise Floyd, brother of the late George Floyd, noticed Biden’s concerning pause and wrapped his arm around him to help.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates is denying that Biden froze in the viral video, calling it a ‘cheap fake memo’ being spewed by the media.
But it seems no matter how much cold water the Biden campaign or Democratic Party throw on this raging fire of speculation, Americans will not be put off the Great Joe Biden Replacement Theory.
It’s the idea that somehow, some way the President will be swapped out as the Democratic Party‘s candidate ahead of the 2024 election.
‘Dropping out would be a big risk. But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk,’ polling guru Nate Silver wrote on social media last week. ‘Are we there yet? I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask.’
Last week, Biden stood motionless and stared blankly for nearly a full minute at a Juneteenth celebration at the White House, as people around him sang and danced to the music.
Silver, founder of the website FiveThirtyEight, noted that Biden’s average approval rating had reached a new low of 37.4 percent. And chief among voter concerns is Biden’s age, which Silver concluded to be, ‘an extremely understandable concern, [as] Biden looks/acts his age and is a huge outlier to ask for the job until 86 [years old].’
Atlantic columnist Mark Leibovich cruelly stamped the President ‘Ruth Bader Biden’ earlier this month.
That’s a reference to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who once angered some liberals by refusing to retire during Barack Obama’s presidency and subsequently passed away during Donald Trump’s term, allowing the Republican president to nominate a conservative justice.
And James Carville, the political mastermind behind Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns, said flat-out this month that Biden should not have run for re-election.
Now, a last-ditch effort by Biden’s backers to silence his critics inside the party may prove to be his ultimate undoing.
According to Democratic bigwig, Obama campaign guru David Axelrod, the Biden team scheduled one of the earliest presidential debates in history (June 27 on CNN) to prove to naysayers that Joe’s not going anywhere.
But the gambit carries tremendous risk.
While an efficient debate performance by Biden could help rally Democrats behind him – a significant misstep would only stoke more replacement chatter.
Former Clinton advisor and polling expert Mark Penn suggested the CNN debate will be Biden’s last chance to reassure voters he’s fit for the job.
On Saturday, video of former President Barack Obama reaching for Biden’s hand and seemingly guiding the 81-year-old Commander-in-Chief off the stage at a Los Angeles fundraiser went viral.
While an efficient debate performance by Biden could help rally Democrats behind him – a significant misstep would only stoke more replacement chatter. (Above) President Trump and Joe Biden during the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio on September 29, 2020
‘They have deliberately thrown down the gauntlet for an early debate,’ Penn said, ‘and I think that’s gonna be the point at which Americans judge: is he ready for another term or not.’
Now DailyMail.com has learned that if Joe stumbles in that first face-off with Trump or if his polling numbers keep falling, it’ll take a united front of the liberal grandees to make Joe throw in the towel.
‘The only people who could force him out would be Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,’ one Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com. ‘It would have to be the four of them collectively.’
And the process would be high risk.
One consultant theatrically described the difficulty level of replacing their candidate as similar to trying to turn that doomed container ship that careened into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in May.
That sad story ended with a total collapse and six deaths.
But other party insiders concede that the candidate swap could work if everything was carefully planned and executed.
Political columnist Joe Klein theorized in a recent newsletter that if Biden were to stand down, ‘a vigorous young candidate — don’t ask me who — could win over the country with a single convention speech’ in August.’
In Klein’s scenario, the Democratic party savior would deliver an Obama-esque inspirational speech, akin to Barack’s famous 2004 Democratic Convention address, that would quickly bring together disaffected Democrats and moderate independents.
DailyMail.com has learned that if Joe stumbles in that first face-off with Trump or if his polling numbers keep falling, it’ll take a united front of the liberal grandees to make Joe throw in the towel.
