“Biden is now out, Obama and Clinton will choose the replacement” –

Andrea Riccardi

July 10, 2024

James Carville, the “guru” of Democratic consultants, the political strategist who in 1992 was the architect of the success of Bill Clinton’s electoral campaign, intervenes in the “siege” of Joe Biden by launching the idea to conquer the last resistance of the current president. In an article in the New York Times, Carville does not mince words: “Mark my words: Joe Biden is out of the 2024 presidential race. Whether he is ready to admit it or not. His requests for support from Democrats in Congress on Monday will not unite the party behind him.” Even if Biden says he will remain in the race, for Carville it is now “only a matter of time before Democratic pressure and public and private polls lead him to abandon the race.” So for him the race is over “and the sooner Biden and Democratic leaders accept that, the better. We must move on.”

So Carville warns Democrats once morest making the mistake Trump and Republicans hope they will: choosing a replacement behind closed doors, whether it’s “Vice President Kamala Harris or whoever else is the presumptive Democratic nominee.” Carville warns that the choice of who will replace Biden in the race for the White House will have to be “out in the open, the exact opposite of what Donald Trump wants us to do.” Harris and seven other smart, dynamic leaders will then showcase their skills in public debates “before a formal vote of all delegates to the Democratic convention.” Carville writes that he isn’t worried regarding the short time available, because “we have enthusiasm and momentum on our side,” and, quoting Winston Churchill, advises: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

The “guru” of American electoral campaigns reveals his formula for choosing the new ticket “in a highly democratic and innovative way, not in the back rooms of Washington or Chicago”. For Carville, the Democratic Party must organize four historic “Town Halls” (public debates) between now and the Democratic National Convention in August: one in the South, one in the Northeast, one in the Midwest and one in the West. Then he suggests “the two most obvious and qualified people in the world to facilitate substantive discussions: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton”. The public debates moderated by Clinton and Obama, for Carville, will attract major television and will be like a “Super Bowl with Taylor Swift in the stands. Young, old and everyone in between will tune in to see history being made in real time”. For Carville, it will be up to presidents 42 (Clinton) and 44 (Obama) to select the eight main contenders from a pool of those who would like to run, including Kamala Harris “who will certainly receive a well-deserved invitation”.