Tangle’s Take

I want to commend Isaac Saul’s take on President Biden’s ending his re-election campaign at the Tangle newsletter to your attention. To read the whole thing you need to register to receive the newsletter. Here’s a paraphrase of his bullet points:

• Biden did the right thing.
• We’re getting to watch political talking points being formulated in realtime.
• For the first time in years we’re seeing Democrats trying to attract voters rather than drive them away.
• Their present direction appears to split the difference between the least democratic response they might have made and the most democratic response they might have made.
• We’re in uncharted water.
• The president should have withdrawn earlier.
• He supports an open convention.
• Nancy Pelosi continues to be the most influential Democrat.
• Asking how President Biden is fit to serve but not fit to run is a fair question.
• The Silicon Valley tech-bro elites are becoming more obnoxious by the day.
• When he polled his friends and family about it the main reaction of Democrats was relief.
• The main reaction of Republicans was, basically, it doesn’t matter.
• When he posed the same question on X the main reaction was that VP Harris couldn’t win.
• She’s not a great politician.
• The significant amount of money raised from small contributions over the last 48 hours suggests substantial grassroots support.
• President Biden has been a drag on the Democratic Party for the last several months.
• Trump is now the oldest major party presidential candidate in U. S. history. The track record of old Republicans running against younger Democrats favors the Democrats.
• He thought that a Biden vs. Trump contest probably favored Trump. Harris vs. Trump may be about even.
• What will Biden do for the next several months?
• This will be the first Presidential election since 1976 to not have a Biden, Bush, or Clinton on the ticket.
• Trump would probably have preferred for Biden to remain in the race.
• Does this demonstrate that presidential debate do matter?
• Note that President Biden took this action without our hearing directly from him.
• This has been a pretty eventful couple of months

Those aren’t my observations—they’re Isaac’s. My only observation is that replacing President Biden with VP Harris on the ticket is the Democrats’ only play. Black women are the Democrats’ most reliable voting bloc. How would the Democrats explain passing over a black woman in favor of, say, a white man?

To that I would like to add former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s comment:

I’ve known Obama since 1995. We both come out of Chicago politics. I know how it works. He’s behind the campaign to dump 15 million Dem primary voters & replace Biden with his choice. Classic Chicago Democrat machine politics. Selection over election. The bosses over the people.

In other words there are people other than Republicans who will see it that way.