Monday, July 18, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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With President Joe Biden’s poll numbers cratering, there’s talk that some Democrats don’t want Biden to seek a second term in the White House.
Barring an act of God, they’re not going to get their wish. It took Biden a lifetime to become president. He’s not going to just step aside, even if he’s clearly lost a bit on his fastball and even though he’ll be pushing 82 in 2024.
Biden’s falling approval ratings, coupled with rising inflation and fears of a midterm congressional wipeout for his party, have made things so dire that we hear a lot of talk about former President Jimmy Carter these days. And no sitting president wants to be mentioned in the same breath as Carter.
Carter rode into the White House as a white knight Washington outsider after the Watergate scandal had driven President Richard Nixon from the White House and damaged the Republican brand to the point where some thought that the Grand Old Party wouldn’t survive.
Four years after beating Nixon’s vice president, Gerald Ford, in 1976, Carter left the White House as one of the most unpopular presidents in American history.
Carter had become so disdained within his own party that Sen. Ted Kennedy ran against the sitting president in the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries.
Kennedy, of course, was the last in the line of sainted Kennedy brothers who sought the presidency.
President John F. Kennedy, looking forward to his 1964 re-election bid, was killed by an assassin in Dallas. Robert Kennedy was murdered as well, after winning the California presidential primary in 1968.
Even though Ted’s own brand had been badly damaged by Chappaquiddick and personal scandal, he still had that magical Kennedy name and was still seen as the bright and shining hope for the Democratic Party.
The presidency was viewed as almost a Kennedy birthright. It wasn’t a matter of if Teddy would run, but when.
Carter was hobbled by the Iranian hostage crisis, spiraling inflation and his own stubborn refusal to work with his fellow Democrats in Washington. Carter went from being a Beltway outsider to being an island unto himself.
Even so, Carter handily beat Kennedy in the primaries. Despite Carter’s failures at home and abroad, Democratic voters wouldn’t turn him out. They refused to just surrender the White House.
Carter lost the presidency to Republican Ronald Reagan in one of the most lopsided elections in history. Carter may have lost anyway, but the Kennedy challenge certainly made a bad situation worse.
It should be a lesson for all those who now want Biden to stand down in 2024 or who would like to see him challenged in the presidential primaries. Who in their right mind willingly gives up the White House? Who in their right mind goes out of their way to further damage a sitting president?
It might be different if there were some stellar alternatives to Biden. But the bench is pretty thin. There certainly is nobody with a glittering, Kennedyesque aura.
Vice President Kamala Harris? She’s almost as unpopular as Biden himself.
Hillary Clinton? The two-time presidential loser brings people out to vote against her in numbers comparable to former President Donald Trump.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg? He’ll have to explain what he’s been doing to solve the airline crisis we’ve seen over the past several months.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom? Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer? Maybe.
How about former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo? Remember when he was presidential timber? It was only two years ago or so. Maybe former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will take another run at it.
Democrats got their wish in 2020: Biden beat Trump and became president. Now some would throw him over the side. They should think twice.
Tom Wrobleski is a columnist for the Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance.
