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Could lame-duck Biden derail Democrats’ campaign?

Damage limitation is the Democrats' tactic. Credit: Getty

August 12, 2024 - 3:30pm

Over the weekend, footage circulated that showed President Joe Biden stretched out in a chair on a Delaware beach. Since dropping his reelection bid, Biden has further withdrawn from the public eye. Democrats were clamouring for him to be more vigorous when he was still in the race for the White House, but many of them might be hoping that he stays on the beach now that he has become a lame duck.

Or is it maimed duck? Normally, a lame-duck president’s political party tries to gently usher him off the stage, but Biden’s exit has been much more abrupt. In one of the most ruthless displays of raw power-politics in recent American history, his fellow Democrats essentially ejected Biden from his own reelection bid. He groused on CBS’s Sunday Morning programme that it was indeed congressional Democrats who pushed him aside, and the fact that he has been defenestrated by his own party will shape the rest of his presidency.

Last week, CNN reported on what the Biden team projected would be the “four pillars” of the final months of his presidency: “[T]he continued implementation of key legislation; lowering costs and growing the economy through additional moves on student debt relief and efforts to bring down prescription drug prices; defending personal freedoms and civil rights by calling out hate and extremism; and ensuring US strength, security and leadership in the world.”

Both the overall contours and the particular details of this approach are revealing. Notice that the White House here is not talking about big, legislative wins. Instead, it’s focused on executive rule-making, messaging strategies, and foreign-policy endeavours.

The specific executive actions laid out by the administration correspond to two prongs of Harris’s campaign. Biden’s continued efforts to erase student-loan debt target the college-educated base of the Democratic Party (especially younger voters), and the populist proposal to bring down prescription drug prices echoes Harris’s own attacks on high medical costs. “Calling out hate and extremism” seems a continuation of the “soul of the nation” strategy that has shaped so much of Biden’s message as president. He even leaned into that theme in his Sunday Morning interview, saying that Trump was a “genuine danger to American security” and accusing “Maga Republicans” of having “little regard…for the political institutions” of American democracy. (Ironically, he lobbed this charge just after attacking the Supreme Court as “out of whack.”)

Chaos abroad has undermined Biden’s claim of a “return to normalcy,” and the Israel-Hamas war has divided the Democratic coalition. If Biden can achieve a breakthrough in Israel or Ukraine, that could theoretically help Harris. However, the Middle East in particular has often disappointed presidential legacy gambits, as Bill Clinton knows only too well (July 2000’s frantic Camp David Summit ended in frustration).

On many domestic issues, though, Democrats may hope that Biden provides messaging nudges at most — more to draw contrasts with Trump than to set the political agenda. Even more than most vice presidents who have seized their party’s presidential nomination, Harris has tried to distance herself from her former running mate. Part of Harris’s campaign reset involves positioning herself as a de facto non-incumbent in order to avoid being tied to Biden’s unpopular record.

If Biden dominates the headlines with some expansive executive action, that risks dragging Harris into a debate about whether she supports him or not. Already, Harris has endorsed Biden’s Supreme Court “reform” gesture — a move that might charge up the activist Left (which wants to take a wrecking ball to the courts) but could also drive away moderate voters wary of more radical disruption. Additional policy markers from Biden could present more political headaches for Harris.

Presidents conventionally use their lame-duck period as a time to try to solidify their legacy. Biden has defined his presidency in opposition to Trump, so his legacy is partly tied to November’s election results. His allies might view a Harris win as the ultimate vindication of the Biden years — and, now that Biden has dropped out, a Harris defeat could at least allow for the bitter balm of could have been (if only everyone had listened to Joe!). In the meantime, the waves keep lapping the shore of Rehoboth Beach, as the Biden presidency is slowly, inexorably swept out to sea.


Fred Bauer is a writer from New England.

fredbauerblog

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T Bone
T Bone
4 months ago

As I understand it from numerous Partisan Media outlets, the Democrats have found that an unnamed, generic candidate almost always outpolls a known candidate. So by keeping Harris from taking any questions off script until mail voting starts and letting the Legacy Media spin narratives, she can run as a Generic Candidate in a referendum on Trump. Its a similar strategy to 2020.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
4 months ago

Biden is the least of the Dems’ worries. They have shoved him aside for a political lightweight who is even more unpopular than Joe. She also has the border millstone, though the left will ignore that and everything else because party uber alles.

Martin M
Martin M
4 months ago

I can’t help feeling that the Republicans are being a bit inconsistent. When Biden was the candidate, they went on and on about how he was senile, and couldn’t be trusted to do the job. Now that he has dropped out, they go on about how the Democrats have “ejected him from his own reelection bid”.

Mark epperson
Mark epperson
3 months ago

I certainly hope so. The Dems have muzzled Harris and Waltz but Joe still has a voice, maybe. And he could screw it up.