The monthslong period in the American electoral system between nomination and election was always its hidden weakness. This year, the trap snapped itself shut upon the national Democrats and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Before the black swan event of the coronavirus arrived, Biden was a plausible if not all that great candidate to run against Trump. An eternity ago, Trump himself was the issue, a man whose persona repelled many millions, and against whom Everyman Biden, while never inspiring, appeared reassuringly sane. Then came the bug, and the crash, and then the great shutdown, and everything changed.
Suddenly, for most people not working in major media, Trump wasn’t the problem anymore. He was one of the many people trying to solve it. His reports to the country weren’t at all like his rallies. There were no applause lines, and there was no applause. Trump appeared more and more sane (with minor digressions), but Biden, in his few public appearances from a TV studio set up in his cellar, seemed vaguer and weaker. A race that was framed until March 20 or so as a battle of Weird vs. Rational became a contest of Strong vs. Weak.
To make matters worse, Biden was suddenly overmatched by Andrew Cuomo, someone as tough as Trump and more eloquent. The governor of the state with half of the national coronavirus cases emerged suddenly as the Democrats’ leader, pushing Biden even more to the side.
Having just secured the nomination, he became a voice of no significance emanating out of his basement.
Almost at once, calls began rising that Cuomo be drafted as the one man who could go up against Trump toe-to-toe. They’re right, of course, but the system gives them no choice in the matter. They can live as they are with perhaps the worst possible candidate for the moment, or they can blow the place up.
Democrats are caught in the trap they constructed one crippling stage at a time. They can blame Mayor Richard J. Daley, who in Chicago in 1968 destroyed the old system for choosing nominees; they can blame George McGovern, whose commission after that created the new system; they can blame Jimmy Carter, who made the Iowa caucus a thing, such that campaigns now start far too early.
In any case, the first thing Democrats should do at their coming convention is to change the rules so that the first primaries don’t start until April and don’t end until late in July. In 1960 or 1968, they’d still have enough time to find a better or stronger or a much younger person, and gently move Biden out of the way. The world in which Biden won his three surprising last primaries no longer exists. They should act accordingly, at least if they want to beat Trump.
