Biden: Better than Trump but not as good as Andrew Cuomo.
I like Joe Biden. I like his steady temperament, his good nature and his practical approach to politics. I also think the Democrats should dump him and nominate Andrew Cuomo for president.
Because as much as I like good ol’ Joe, I also think his campaign is taking on too much water and we cannot risk another four years of Donald Trump. Dumping a presumptive nominee at the last minute is pretty strong stuff. But this is a unique moment. We have the most incompetent, ill-equipped and dangerous president in our history “leading” the country during a challenge that probably ranks behind only the Civil War, the world wars and the Great Depression.
And I see three problems with Biden.
First, he’s just too damn old. The guy would be 82 when (if) he completed his first term. He’d be the oldest president in American history. Age isn’t necessarily disqualifying. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are both septuagenarians but are also vigorous, Sanders even after a heart attack. Nancy Pelosi, at 80, is doing more than fine. The 87-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a force of nature. But Biden has clearly lost a step. He comes off as frail, doddering, not quite in the game. That would be bad enough in normal times, but it could be electorally deadly during a crisis.
Second, the Hunter Biden thing isn’t going to go away. We’re all focused on the virus right now, but once the campaign really gets underway we’ll be reminded that Biden’s son got a $50,000 per month position on a Ukranian gas company board of directors simply because of his last name. The odious Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson could be the point person on the attacks. There’s just no other way to honestly describe it. It may not have been illegal but it was pretty darn swampy. It doesn’t stack up to the flat-out corruption of Trump and his family, but when we’re comparing the Bidens’ corruption to the Trump family corruption, well, we’d rather not.
Third, there’s the Tara Reade accusations. Let’s not be hypocrites here. If you believed Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh then, if you’re going to be consistent, you pretty much have to believe Reade’s allegations against Biden. The situations are similar enough. Allegations made decades after the alleged event with no corroborating third-party witnesses and conflicting and hazy statements provided by the accuser.
But in some ways this is actually worse for Biden because he has set himself up to be held to a different standard. Biden led an Obama administration effort to all but force universities to accept a lower standard for proving allegations of sexual assaults on campuses. If Biden was willing to sacrifice due process for the accused on the altars of Democratic identity politics and campus political correctness, shouldn’t his accuser be held to the same lower bar when it comes to proving allegations against him?
I actually think liberals unfairly rushed to judgment against Kavanaugh, but now they’re in a bind with regard to Biden. I agree with liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd who wrote, “Liberals always set standards that come back and bite them.” It’s not so much that I believe Biden is guilty (I don’t know what to believe), but if this results in diminishing support for Biden, even by a little bit, that could be enough to flip another close election.
I know this is a long shot, but play along with me for a bit here. In the exceedingly unlikely event that Biden steps down or is pushed aside, who to replace him with? I would be for Andrew Cuomo and I can’t believe I’m writing that. Up until the current crisis I’ve never liked the guy. He came off as a New York pol, all tough guy bluster. It was probably unfair, but I thought he was capable of making political opponents “swim with the fishes.”
But I’ve been watching his daily press conferences and the guy has performed incredibly well. He presents himself as commanding, compassionate, smart, responsible and even inspiring. All those things in wonderful and stark contrast to Donald Trump.
Sometimes America gets lucky and produces exactly the right leader for the times. George Washington to set the tone at the start, Abe Lincoln during the Civil War, FDR during the Great Depression and World War II. Cuomo might not be a man for all seasons, but he may be the right man for this moment.
I even wrote him in for president in the Wisconsin primary last month and that was before the Tara Reade allegations were getting much attention. If Democrats get serious about Cuomo right now that would give every news outlet in the country time to do a deep dive into his record and his past. If there are skeletons in his closet as bad or worse than Hunter Biden and Tara Reade, let’s get them out now. If Biden’s baggage turns out to be lighter than anyone else’s, well okay then, we’ll just have to ride the horse we’ve got.
Cuomo and Biden are political allies and, apparently, good friends. Cuomo isn’t looking to unseat the presumptive nominee. But the simple imperative is to defeat Trump and to replace him with someone better. Joe Biden, for all his faults, would be better. But, assuming he can stand up to tough scrutiny of his own past, Andrew Cuomo would be much better and, it appears right now, maybe even more electable.
