Democrats pray Joe Biden won’t be another Jimmy Carter

US President Joe Biden has announced he will run for re-election next year. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden says he wants to finish the job – but many Americans think the job will finish him. Despite poor poll ratings and voter fears that he will be overtaken by declining faculties, illness or exhaustion before a second term ends in 2029, numerous factors convinced the oldest president to run again and his party to fall into line.

Those who know Biden say he is convinced that he is the best person for the job and that, at least until recently, he did not give his age a second thought beyond some presentational plastic surgery before his 2020 run.

This reflects the huge ego needed to be US president and the reluctance shown by almost every incumbent to give it up. Woodrow Wilson wanted to stand again after suffering a stroke and had to be blocked by senior party figures, while Franklin Roosevelt covered up terminal illness to run for his final term. Only six incumbents have decided not to run for a second term.

US president Jimmy Carter and Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980 before a televised debate.

For the first time Biden referred, unprompted, to his advanced years in a speech in Ireland this month, saying: “I’ve never been more optimistic about the future than I am today, and I’m at the end of my career, not the beginning.”

In a sign he intends to make a virtue of his political longevity in his re-election campaign, he added: “The only thing I bring to this career after my age – as you can see how old I am – is a little bit of wisdom.”

Biden’s standard response to questions about his age and fitness for the job is “watch me”. This signals that he wants to run on his record, of which he is proud. He has been more successful domestically than many predicted, given the difficulty of passing measures through the finely balanced Congress. Four big spending bills stand out: the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief American Rescue Plan; the $738bn Inflation Reduction Act, with huge climate-change investment; the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill, funding projects that waited many years for congressional approval; and the $280bn Chips Act for domestic semiconductor production.

He is sticking with Kamala Harris as his running-mate because he has to; it would be political suicide in the Democratic Party to replace the first black, female vice-president, especially as there are no obvious black female alternatives and the black vote is so crucial.

Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy in 1987. Picture: Getty Images

So why aren’t any heavyweight, younger, Democrats standing against him? The party has been badly bruised by previous primary contests against incumbents. Lyndon Johnson bowed out rather than face a widening field of rivals in 1968, but the example seared into Democratic memory is Ted Kennedy’s challenge to Jimmy Carter in 1980.

That was seen as weakening Carter against Ronald Reagan in an epoch-changing election leading to 12 years of Republicans in the White House.

No Democrat wants to be the next Ted Kennedy, nor do they want Biden to be the next Carter – a decent guy who is unable to convince enough Americans that he is up to the job.

Another calculation is the extraordinary political durability of Donald Trump. Biden believed he was the only Democrat who could beat him in 2020, reminding Americans that there was a calmer and more collaborative politics before Trump came along.

This is a trickier task to pull off after a term in office that has not led to a reduction in the apocalyptic terms of political debate, although research by Gallup supports Biden’s insistence in his launch video that, “I know America. I know we’re good and decent people.”

Former US president Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

In 2004, Gallup polling showed that 35 per cent of Americans identified as Democratic, 33 per cent Republican and 31 per cent independent. Today, both parties are down to 25 per cent and “independents” are up to 49 per cent. There has been a polarisation, but this finding backs up Biden’s instinct that many Americans do not like the extreme political climate.

What it amounts to is a good chance that Biden will repeat his 2020 defeat of Trump, should he be the Republican candidate, as seems most likely.

However, other polling suggests that another candidate perceived as less divisive and controversial than Trump – even one who echoes much of his agenda, such as Ron DeSantis – is likely to beat Biden. That’s despite his launch video portraying the Florida governor as a “Maga extremist” just like Trump.

The Times