Politico’s senior media writer, Jack Shafer, wrote a piece in which he contended that President Joe Biden should face a challenging Democratic primary opponent and that if he cannot defeat such a figure, he should not be elevated to compete in the general election.
“President Joe Biden needs a tuneup. He’s a stiff when speaking at the lectern. When not a stiff, the 80-year-old can be a dolt, saying, as he did this week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ‘losing the war in Iraq’ when he meant Ukraine, or blurting out a senseless, ‘God save the Queen, man,’ at a gun control rally last week. The English language has never been his friend, so it’s logical that his managers, er, his aides, have limited his exposure to the press,” Shafer wrote in his piece titled “Why Democrats Should Primary Biden.”
Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are currently running in the Democratic primary, but Biden is way ahead and appears poised to easily clinch the nomination again.
“Biden needs a primary opponent who can prepare him for the 2024 general election, somebody who can make him prove that he can still run the traps and beat whichever Republican he faces. If Biden can’t vanquish a worthy Democrat in primary season, he has no business entering the general,” Shafer wrote.
Biden, who is already the oldest president in U.S. history, would be 86 by the end of a second term in office.
Shafer said that “the onus should be on Biden to prove he’s mentally and physically nimble enough to do the job for another term before he’s allowed to run against the best the Republicans have to offer.”
“Besides putting him in fighting trim (or not), primary adversaries would prepare us for the all too real possibility that he’s incapacitated by a stroke, seriously injured in one of his frequent fallsor anotherbike crash, or just dies one evening. It’s not impolite or unkind to plan for the sudden departure of any employee,” he wrote.
“If Kamala Harris had convinced the country that she could step into Biden’s shoes should he suddenly step out of them, the argument for a primary challenge wouldn’t be so urgent. But when was the last time somebody you trust told you Harris could easily fill those shoes, let alone sprint to the nomination if the hereafter called Biden home before November 2024?” Shafer asked.
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