© Eliot Clauss, April 8, 2025 (drafted August 27, 2023)*
* I drafted this in August 2023 but did not offer it for publication then because most of my Democratic contacts thought it too far off the wall to be seriously considered by the Democratic Party and candidates. My mistake, though whether I would have gotten any agreement is highly questionable. Someone once told me “Having the right idea too early, is called being wrong.” Still, we Democrats clearly need new and refreshing ideas like mine to overcome the depths to which the Democratic Party has sunk. But crisis breeds opportunity and Democrats can and will rise again. It just better be soon. No matter when it happens it will still take a generation or more to recover from our country’s current condition, for which we are all responsible.
Our country, in August 2023, more than a year before the next Presidential election, needs a democratic presidential primary for at least three reasons. But no one wants to listen.
First, to give voters what they want and need. Voters want a younger and more vigorous leader and should be able to choose between the octogenarians – President Biden or former President Trump — and candidates who speak to voters’ yearning for inspired leadership and younger blood, people who give them hope for the future.
The Republicans are offering has beens, never beens and wanna bees with limited experience and judgment and no coherent reasons why any of them should be elected. Democrats are currently offering Biden or nothing. That is a mistake, especially when the Democrats have a number of younger, visionary and inspiring leaders warming the bench.
Second, voters yearn to vote “for something and someone”, not just to choose the candidate they dislike the least. Voters want and the nation needs leaders with a deep understanding of the challenges we face as a nation and in voters’ daily lives and a vision and a plan to move the nation forward. Voters want and the nation needs leaders who put the nation’s needs ahead of their own.
Third, to avoid the presidential version of the RBG catastrophe. By overstaying her time on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg helped destroy much of what she stood for and worked for. RBG gave Republicans the opportunity to undermine the Court’s legitimacy with Justices who are out of touch with our times and whose allegiance is to a conservative ideology at odds with the Court’s history and precedents. President Biden should not make a similar mistake.
By welcoming a primary for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination Democratic hopefuls such as Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gretta Whitmer, Gavin Newsome, Amy Klobachar, Jamie Raskin and others can argue and demonstrate their leadership chops and policy ideas. This would enable voters to contrast Democratic candidates with the raft of Republican Presidential candidates who still can’t decide whether to lead their party out of perdition or audition for second place in a Trump second term.
A Democratic primary will showcase the ideas and inspiration of a younger generation of leaders who have the vision and the staying power to lead our nation for this generation and the next. A primary will also enable candidates to listen to voters more carefully and develop policies and plans for bipartisan ways to address voters’ common concerns on key issues such as public safety, border security, immigration reform, voting rights, the importance of equal justice under the law, and international challenges such as climate change, Russia and China.
A Democratic primary will enable voters to decide if they believe President Biden or some other Democratic candidate would be best suited to challenge whomever Republicans nominate. While doubts may be overstated about Vice-President Kamala Harris’ ability to take over for President Biden should the need arise, Biden could also leave the choice of Vice-President in 2024 to Democratic primary voters. He can do this by urging all Democratic hopefuls to agree that whomever among them comes in second in the primary shall be the party’s nominee for Vice-President.
Should some candidate other than President Biden win the nomination, that may have the benefit of allowing the Democratic Party and the nation to transition to a younger generation of leaders. Post election President Biden can still provide valuable service and guidance to the next President and the nation by serving as Secretary of State or in some formal or informal advisory role. This would provide continuity and stability to the next administration and leaders around the world.
President Biden says he wants a second term to “finish the job.” President Biden is enough of a realist to know that no President can finish the job of “restoring the soul of our nation” in just four more years. By helping to pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders President Biden could make a bigger and bolder contribution to the long-term success and stability of our nation than by clinging to office for a second term.
Without Biden to beat up during the general election Republicans will have no message at all to convey to voters, since so far they have remained fractured and clueless when it comes to plans or policies to lead our nation forward, as the Republican primary debate on August 23 demonstrated in spades.