Even before US President Joe Biden stepped away from the podium in Atlanta at the end of the first debate with former President Donald Trump, analysts of various hues were gunning for him. It was in an expectation that he will “fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee”.

But his meek and lacklustre performance only reinforced the hitherto held opinion in many quarters: the 81-year old may be a good man but not quite up to it.

Variously described as a disaster, horrific and a train wreck, President Biden has come under some scathing remarks with a section calling upon Democrats to pick someone else to defeat Trump on November 5, stressing among other things that this could be the best thing the President could do for himself and for the country.

Incidentally, the call for Biden to quit did not find traction from Republicans and Trump as the Grand Old Party and the former President may have to settle uncomfortably for a much younger and aggressive Democrat, not necessarily the sitting Vice President Kamala Harris.

But for a person who has been in Washington for five decades and seen the highs and lows of his political career, Biden was not about to take the calls for leaving lying down. An aggressive Biden pumped up his supporters in North Carolina saying “I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know — I know how to tell the truth! I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.” And the punchline: “And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Potential substitutes

Perhaps the saving grace and consolation for the incumbent President came from the clutch of Democrats whose names were bandied about as potential replacements — Governors of Pennsylvania, Michigan, California and Illinois.So has Vice President Harris. And former President Barack Obama threw his weight behind Biden stressing “Bad night happen. Trust me. I know”, in a reference to his own performance against Mitt Romney in 2012.

In fact one of the theories that some in the Republican camp have been pushing is that the Democrats are up to a surprise by springing a new candidate — perhaps even Michele Obama — prior to or at the time of their Convention in Chicago in August.

To some in the group urging Biden to step down, the reference has been Lyndon Johnson who on March 31, 1968 declared that he would “neither seek nor accept” the Presidential nomination of his party. But the contexts are quite different. America was involved in the mess of the Vietnam war and in the aftermath of the Tet offensive in January 1968, Johnson’s popularity and Washington’s role in the war had taken a hit.

Also, Johnson quit some seven months before the elections. Biden is being asked to follow the Texan’s example barely with four months to go.

Time factor

Time matters and not just for campaigning but also ballot certification deadlines in states. For example it is pointed out that Ohio laws require that Presidential candidates be formally nominated 90 days prior to election.

If Democrats are unable to do this by the time of their Chicago Convention, they risk ceding the Buckeye State to the Grand Old Party. In a Presidential race that is being billed as tight and close as that of 2020, no party would want to start off losing any state.

Anything can happen between now and September 10 when the second debate is set to take place. If Atlanta was to set the stage it was in an expectation that President Biden will aggressively take on the untruths and convince voters he had enough material to hold on for another four years. That did not happen; and Biden is aware of it. But it is naïve to think that he can be pushed out of the race, for it is only he who decides to stay or leave.

The writer is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and United Nations

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