Debate Surprise

(Variety photo)

I fell asleep before the debate started. (I'm ten years younger than President Biden and start fading in the early evening, so I give him credit--and President Trump, 78, too--for putting themselves out there at 9 p.m. Eastern.)

Waking after the debate, I flipped between MSNBC, Fox, and CNN expecting to get the usual commentary from partisans about how their candidate won. For the first time in memory there was very little spin from one side, which acknowledged that their candidate did poorly.

Instead we were treated to some Democrats calling for President Biden to drop out of the race. The biggest obstacle is the President himself.

President Biden’s halting performance against Donald Trump left the Democratic Party in turmoil, with allies ranging from lawmakers to wealthy donors discussing Friday whether the 81-year-old should remain on the ticket even as a defiant Biden pressed on with his re-election campaign.

The 90-minute debate, watched by tens of millions of Americans, put Biden’s age, his biggest political vulnerability, on display like no other moment in his presidency. He stumbled over words, stammered through answers and trailed off without finishing sentences, forcing Democrats to publicly confront an issue that many had largely dismissed and some had fretted over privately.

Biden has no plans to drop out of the race, according to one of his senior advisers, and the president remains committed to the planned September debate with Trump. He returned to the campaign trail Friday, acknowledging his age but insisting he remained the right man to take on Trump....

Biden would need to step aside from the race in order for Democrats to replace him, given that he controls most of the party’s delegates headed into their August convention.

I had thought that the biggest pre-convention news was going to be on the Republican side, with former President Trump's hush-money sentencing on July 11th and the designation of his running mate. To almost everyone's surprise the Democratic convention could well be more entertaining.