The Democrats Biggest 2024 Problem: Biden

 One number, more than the Democrats' declines or Trump's triumphs,  stood out to me: those who voted on the need for change preferred Trump by 74% to 24%.
  This is not to dismiss Kamala Harris' shortcomings or Trump's strengths, but the change number can be traced to Joe Biden, more specifically his refusal to step aside until it was almost too late. The election tarnished his political legacy, policy achievements and devastated his party. 

   If he had bowed out in 2023, there could have been an open primary, as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the New York Times, and the winner wouldn't have had to cede the change issue and run as a continuation of Biden's unpopular policies.
   This is painful as for a half century Joe Biden has been a noble public official, the man who rid the country of Donald Trump, rolled up impressive legislative victories and would have been an admired senior statesman. In his 80's, it was a fool's errand to seek reelection; under pressure he got out, but it was so late he was an albatross. 
   The tragic miscalculation that he could run for reelection in his 80's was a decisive factor in the 2024 election. It was driven by the President's unpopularity and Democrats' inability to distance themselves. For all the analysis of Trump's win realigning American politics, his standing with voters was underwater right up to election day.  

  Exit polls showed 28% of voters said change was their most important consideration and it's a safe bet it was high up there with others.

  Harris actually ran a pretty good campaign, maybe a B-plus.  She dominated Trump in their one debate, raised a record amount of money, and had an excellent campaign close.
  She suffered from her 2019 Presidential run in embracing a left wing agenda that belied her record.  It would have been better to pick a stronger running mate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. That probably wouldn't have changed the outcome except Democrats wouldn't have lost a U.S. Senate seat and a couple congressional contests in the Keystone state. 
   But her biggest problem was being seen as a continuation of the Biden-Harris record. A majority of voters thought they were better off during the Trump years. 
    She made a huge blunder when on a daytime television show she said she couldn't think of anything she would have done differently from President Biden. 
  Actually, her real lost opportunity was this summer and the Chicago convention speech, the first good look voters got of the nominee.  Early on she praised President  Biden's "extraordinary" record and character. That was appropriate.
   What she failed to do later in the address was something along the lines of: "We enacted some good policies, but there are places we need to do much better. My Administration will be different," and then lay out particulars.
   I don't know if that would have worked but it would have given her a more credible case that she represented a vision for the future while her opponent was about glorifying the past. 
  Much better would have been if Biden had stepped aside last year and there were a contested primary. Perhaps Harris would have prevailed or maybe someone like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Any winner would have embraced not the Biden record but a mantle of change.
   The President and some of his associates are bitter. They accuse Barack Obama's allies of orchestrating a Dump-Biden Movement and claim the incumbent more likely would have won last week. 
   First, more than any Obama aide, it was James Carville, the top Bill Clinton strategist (my podcast partner) who most effectively was beating the drums a year and a half ago for the 80 year old incumbent to retire.  In the general election, top Democrats in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia all predicted a tight contest but told me Biden would have lost decisively.
  The Biden team's real anger is directed at Nancy Pelosi who applied her remarkably effective velvet hammer to pressure the President to finally bow out in July after an embarrassing debate with Trump. Biden aides privately disparage the former Speaker, the most able politician of our age, and the President pointedly stiffed her at Ethel Kennedy's funeral a few weeks ago. 

  Pelosi did him a huge favor, sparing him an even more humiliating defeat. 
  This saddens me. Biden should have had a fond farewell. I hope he goes back on a pledge and decides to pardon his son, Hunter, before the Trump retributionists take over.

  As a personal postscript, I am not a Monday morning quarterback on Biden. In several columns and podcasts over the past year and a half, I implored him not to run. In 2018, when many were writing him off, I wrote a column on how he could win the Presidency, while suggesting he pledge to serve only one term.