Months ago, I said that Joe Biden was not going to be the Democratic candidate in 2024 and people told me that I was wrong. I wasn’t. When I made that prediction, it was not that I felt that Biden was not able to fulfill his responsibilities as president, but it was clear that he was getting older, and the idea that he would be a safe candidate for four more years seemed misplaced.

I didn’t know how his withdrawal would come about. I certainly didn’t forecast the disastrous debate with DJT. I also didn’t assume that Kamala Harris would be his successor. At the time, I thought that there would be a internal Democratic debate to come up with a candidate and my favorite would have been Cory Booker, but (among other things) Booker didn’t seem too interested in the job.

After the debate, when it looked like one way or another Biden would have to drop out, I was pleased to see everyone rally around Harris, because it was clearly too late, and politically dangerous, for an internal debate within the party, which would have clearly involved everyone’s weaknesses being put out into public for the Republicans to use in the campaign.

The next question of course was who was Harris going to select for her running mate. Again, like yesterday, maybe she has selected someone by the time you read this, but I will pretend that she hasn’t. The field narrowed to eight candidates. All seem qualified. So the question is which candidate would help her the most. And helping her the most means helping her win the purple swing states. Two candidates are from open states (Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Kelly of Arizona), and they seem to be the ones being talked of as having the inner lanes. And Shapiro particularly has his detractors, from his co-Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman to those who don’t trust him on Gaza to Jewish voters who are afraid of a Jewish candidate and so forth. Kelly is obviously a man of many talents, but of little executive experience.

When all of this discussion started, I suggested that Andy Bashear of Kentucky would be a good candidate – a two term blue governor of a red (if blue grass) state, I thought he had the administrative experience, sufficient charisma, and – at least as far as I know – no real enemies. He was the candidate who would offend no one, and who – although he came from a red state – could attract Republican or at least independent voters in all of those important midwest states that are up in the air, and maybe southern states as well. He is one of her six choices, and although the media has not been focusing on him, he is consistently ranked well by the gambling sites. So we shall see. Or, perhaps, we have seen.

But another question arises. Will Biden resign his presidency? Should he? For those of you who see me on Facebook, as well as on this blog, you might know that I have been in an active discussion with one (actually more than one) of my west coast cousins, who leans (shall we say) to the right. His position is that Biden is today unfit for office and either should resign or should be subjected to action under the 25th amendment to the Constitution. I have maintained that nothing has occurred yet to lead me to conclude that Biden isn’t fit for office, even if his ability to communicate has been compromised. That we don’t know that he has been diminished in any other way. But…..

Sunday night, CNN had an hour long program on Biden’s capacity, filled with examples of problems in his speaking, as well as in his movement, and filled with interviews of his allies in the Democratic party talking about what they have noticed recently. This, I will say, has me rethinking my position.

But there are problems with this, as well. For one thing, as vice president, it is easy for her to be given no, or few, assignments over the next three months, so that she can be a full time campaigner. If she were all of a sudden a p7thresident (our first female president to be sure), that would really cut down on her campaign time, and that might well offset any advantage she would have as an incumbent.

If Biden left the presidency before the January inauguration of the next President, there is another issue to dwell upon. We would have no Vice President, and that means that if anything happened to Kamala Harris before she (or DJT) is inaugurated, our president would be Speaker Mike Johnson. That is something we really don’t want to see happen.

Yes, the 25th Amendment does provide a mechanism to select a new Vice President, but it requires approval of both Houses of Congress. Can you imagine the Republican led house approving someone to fulfill this role two or three months before an election?

On balance, let’s just sit tight. The time is short.