Well, Joe Biden finally made it official. With a pre-recorded video that likely took an extraordinary amount of takes, Joe Biden officially announced his next bid for the presidency. But make no mistake, this campaign isn’t Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, it’s Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Joe Biden’s advanced age and obvious cognitive decline are obvious to anyone and everyone and are likely the two key reasons why even Democrats didn’t want him to seek reelection. Heck, even the mainstream media was speculating who might replace Biden on the top of the ticket in 2024… during his first year in office.
“With Mr. Biden facing plunging poll numbers and turning 82 the month he’d be on the ballot, and Vice President Kamala Harris plagued by flagging poll numbers of her own, conversations about possible alternatives are beginning far earlier than is customary for a president still in the first year of his first term,” the New York Times reported in December 2021.
Flashback: The Media Is Already Contemplating Who Will Replace Joe Biden in 2024
This is not the first time the age and health of a presidential candidate has been called into question, either. In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain, the Republican nominee, faced enormous criticism about his age, which was 72 at the time. Many people questioned whether he was too old to effectively serve as president.
His advanced aged gave increased scrutiny to his choice of a running mate, Sarah Palin, who despite being a popular governor, was deemed too inexperienced for the job. We were treated to endless coverage of how, if John McCain were elected, Palin would be “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” What they were insinuating was obvious: John McCain was too old and could potentially die while in office, resulting in Palin ascending to the presidency.
It was a rather silly argument to make as Sarah Palin had more executive experience than Barack Obama when he was elected, but the media went into overtime creating the narrative that Palin was a ditzy cheerleader in order to undermine McCain’s campaign. The Obama-Biden campaign did too.
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” Obama spokeswoman Adrianne March said in August 2008. “Gov. Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil, and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies. That’s not the change we need; it’s just more of the same.”
The Obama-Biden campaign saw John McCain’s age as a major liability, fearing that if elected at 72, the nation could be burdened with an unprepared Sarah Palin as president. However, the Biden-Harris campaign is now asking us to disregard the glaring risks and trust that Biden, who is even older, less mentally sharp, and significantly more frail than McCain was in 2008, can withstand another term in office. He can’t. It’s obvious.
But it’s not about him. Joe Biden has long believed that he’s the most electable Democrat who can stop Trump from getting reelected in 2024. So this campaign isn’t about Joe Biden, it’s a Trojan Horse campaign for Kamala Harris, the most incompetent but least popular vice president in the history of polling.
Kamala Harris looms ominously as the successor to the presidency, waiting patiently a heartbeat away, knowing that she can’t get elected on her own, but maybe Joe Biden can win it for her.