Joe Biden’s move is start of real US presidential campaign

Belated as it is, Joe Biden’s decision not to recontest the US presidency at the November 5 election gives the Democratic Party a chance to transform the battle with Donald Trump into the vigorous contest of policy and ideas Americans need. So does the free world at a time of strategic dangers. If the campaign is to rise to the level of domestic and foreign policy debate US voters are entitled to expect, as we have pointed out for more than a year, the Democrats must make good use of every day until their national convention. This starts in Chicago on August 19. Vice-President Kamala Harris, anointed by Mr Biden as his preferred successor, starts the internal party race, if there is one, as frontrunner. She now needs to show she has the strength and gravitas not only to beat Mr Trump but also to excel in the most important job in the Western world. How, for example, would she answer complex economic questions? How would she tackle anti-Semitism and the Ukraine war?

It is a good sign that Ms Harris wants to “earn and win” nomination rather than use her position to take it for granted. Few vice-presidents get the chance to shine. Her chance is now. But she bears serious responsibility, as do the President’s closest aides and liberal-left media, for covering up his cognitive decline for many months.

After his long and distinguished career in public life, Mr Biden’s record as President has been ordinary. His response to the Hamas terrorist atrocity on October 7 last year has been generally sound. In Australia’s region, he has recognised the importance of the AUKUS security pact and co-operation across the Asia-Pacific. He has strengthened US alliances with Japan and South Korea. But his support for Ukraine has not been enough to force Russia to the bargaining table. His domestic legacies are marred by a spending blowout that has fuelled inflation and climate policies that have favoured vested interests. After Mr Biden slammed Mr Trump’s immigration policies in 2020 as cruel, un-American and counter-productive, his own administration’s failure to secure the border with Mexico has been abysmal, and more than 11 million undocumented immigrants, mainly from Central and South America, have entered the US on his watch. That record will be a significant liability for Ms Harris. Keeping out illegal immigrants was the one major job Mr Biden assigned to her. She failed, becoming a figure for ridicule after she avoided even visiting the border, testily telling an incredulous television reporter she could not understand the importance of doing so. “I haven’t been to Europe … and I mean I don’t understand the point you’re making,” she said in a remark that will hound her. It is a serious weakness on one of the most contentious issues of US politics that Mr Trump will pound home.

At 59, Ms Harris is 19 years younger than Mr Trump, 78. Assuming she becomes the Democratic nominee, she could flip the generational argument against him. But in endorsing Mr Trump’s chosen running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, 39, Republicans also have begun generational renewal. Ms Harris already has made history as the first black and first female vice-president in US history. Her progress, from being raised by a single mother who immigrated to the US from India at age 19, is remarkable. After growing up in Berkeley, California, Ms Harris was the first woman to serve as the state’s attorney-general, a job in which she built a reputation for being tough on crime. She gained little support from progressive Democrats as she sought to punish parents for their children missing school, prevent the release of prisoners from crowded jails and defend the death penalty, despite being personally opposed to it. She was elected to the US Senate in 2016 and drew attention for her aggressive questioning of Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. She tried to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 but dropped out before the primaries. Mr Biden was impressed by her law enforcement credentials.

But as Vice-President, Ms Harris has done little of distinction. She has an awkward manner in public that may not help her on the hustings. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found voters viewed her as unfavourably as they did Mr Biden. But she will be helped with many voters simply by the fact she is not Mr Trump. On Sunday, Mr Trump’s bombastic reaction to Mr Biden standing aside was most unstatesmanlike, suggesting his near-death experience has not changed his style: “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.” Mr Trump will need to lift the quality of his arguments. Senator Vance and others have raised legitimate concerns about US adversaries taking advantage of Mr Biden’s remaining time in the White House as a “lame duck”. On that point, Republicans should take the high road and make it clear they would back Mr Biden if he were forced to use military force to defend US interests. “This is what leaders of past generations would have done,” as The Wall Street Journal argued.

After more than 50 years at the heart of power in Washington, rising to
vice-president under Barack Obama, then President, Mr Biden has been patriotic in recognising, begrudgingly, that it is time to go. His political career began in 1972, at 29, when elected to the US Senate. He served through the period from the end of the Vietnam War through the collapse of the former Soviet Union to 9/11, the rise of global terrorism and the war in Iraq. As chairman of the Senate’s powerful foreign relations and judiciary committees, he made frequent visits to the world’s trouble spots. He also led the legislative drive that eventually succeeded in passing the historic Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Though a longtime fixture in Washington, he sought to maintain the image of an outsider. As a senator, he commuted by train from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington, a distance of 160km, to see his sons daily. But tragedy has never been far from him. Weeks after he won election in 1972, his first wife, Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, died in a car accident. He married second wife Jill in 1977 and in 1988 had to undergo surgery for two brain aneurisms. Tragedy struck again in 2015 when his elder son, Beau, on the cusp of a political future, died of brain cancer.

Time is tight in terms of US politics, but the election is still more than three months away. In Australia, that would be double even a mammoth campaign. Mr Biden’s decision marks the end of the scrappy, phony war. The real contest starts now.