The #1 Question Everyone Should Ask When Considering Democratic Presidential Candidates

The answer makes it obvious who the best candidate is for this moment

Amid all the current anxiety and discussions around immutable things such as age, there are really only a few questions that are worth asking to figure out who the best possible Democratic Party presidential candidate is. These questions are generally true for any presidential election cycle, regardless of party or personalities. Many of them relate to a candidate’s personal abilities or capabilities to do the job of president. Intelligence, communications skills, and experience would be on the list of subjects being considered.

Age has very little to do with it; the question is rarely going to be “Who is the youngest?” Although age and experience can be strongly associated, it’s not necessarily so (see Trump 2016). And actually, experience can be seen as a liability in modern politics, especially with the perpetual negative popular sentiments regarding elected officials. The longer you have been in government, the more likely it is that you may be perceived as being part of the problem (i.e., the “Swamp”). A new fresh perspective from someone without government experience can be seen as a positive. In more recent times, this has taken a militaristic turn towards a desire to see someone “blow up the system”. The nature and degrees of all these variables ebb and flow with the times, they are ever-changing in their perceived positives and negatives, but the variables themselves have remained somewhat constant.

This election year’s handwringing over age is very unique for several reasons. For one thing, the most likely candidate, Joe Biden, is the oldest presidential candidate in history. In addition, the 2024 election is considered one of the most, if not the most, consequential ever with the highest possible stakes. So any slight weakness in any characteristic is being highly scrutinized to the point where no one would ever possibly meet all ideal criteria as the perfect candidate to meet the current moment.

The traditional characteristics tend to be about ability to do the job. But there is one important element when deciding on presidential candidates that has nothing to do with governing ability: electability. While sifting through all the salesman pitches during the primaries about the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, we often have to be brought back to earth to consider the name of the game, which is winning the election.

This election cycle, very few are doubting Joe Biden’s ability to govern (although even that is being questioned by a segment of the electorate due to his age and perceived growing “incapacities”). They are more concerned about his ability to campaign, which is really another form of electability. The more you can travel and speak across the nation, the more vigorous and energetic you seem, which will theoretically fire people up to vote for you. The election of 2020 was very unique due to the rampaging Covid pandemic, so campaigning took on different forms. Biden won despite not doing all the travelling and rallies that he might have otherwise done.

This time around, however, it is fully expected the Biden will run a “normal” campaign, with all the trials and tribulations associated with them. No, it is being demanded of him that he run a “normal” campaign, complete with interviews, rallies, travelling, etc. The question for Biden is, does he have the stamina, energy, and endurance to campaign effectively and get elected in the most important election of our lifetimes? This is where a lot of the fretting and concern is coming from. We want to be highly invigorated and excited by our preferred candidate, and it is worrisome that this time around we may not be so energized.

This is where we need to do a cost-benefit analysis and look carefully at risk. Why are many people so open to taking a risk on other potential candidates? Since the original concerns have to do with age or age-related matters such as energy and stamina, it has to be assumed it’s because some other candidates have that energy and stamina for a campaign that these people crave. Or, more accurately, other candidates can get people excited about coming out and voting.

But even this consideration is somewhat deceptive. Just because someone is young and energetic doesn’t necessarily mean that they will transmit this energy to the electorate and get them out to vote. It can be argued that Ron DeSantis was young and energetic, but he failed spectacularly in his bid for the Republican Party’s nomination. Hardly anyone came out to vote for him, despite millions and millions of dollars paid. Vivek Ramaswamy was the youngest and most energetic candidate of the Republican bunch and only mustered a small fraction of the primary votes.

Every election cycle is unique and has its own intrigues. And for this this cycle, in my mind, the most important question to ask right now of all the other options for Democratic presidential candidates is this: Who is the most vetted?

Which one of the candidates has been so prodded, examined, and scrutinized so as to be as completely an open book as humanly possible, so that surprising revelations are minimized to the fullest? We can answer that with other corollary questions, “which one has been an elected official for the longest time, been on more campaigns than anyone else, and been in the public eye longer than anyone else?”

Obviously, the answer is Joe Biden. He was a Senator for 36 years, first elected in 1972 at age 29. He previously ran for President twice before 2020, and was Barack Obama’s running mate in their successful 2008 and 2012 campaigns. He’s been on the national political stage for over 50 years. You don’t survive this long and reach such pinnacles of political power without a full background check. And after such checks, the conclusion is that there is nothing scary about anything in his past. The worst one can say is that he may have plagiarized a few lines in some speeches in the 1980’s, and possibly in law school. But this has been fully adjudicated in the press in his first presidential run in 1988, and although he stopped his campaign due to these revelations, they have not been a hinderance to him since.

There are a few other ugly or uncomfortable things that have come up as well. He was accused of sexual assault by Tara Reade in 2020, but she has since been discredited, and now resides in the more friendly confines of Russia. He had been a bit too “touchy-feely” with women at times, some of whom have expressed discomfort, although no one outside of Reade has suggested he had done anything worse than that. He subsequently owned it, apologized, and offered to learn and improve himself in this regard, which he has apparently done, because this is mostly a dead issue. He has a long history of making verbal gaffes. He continues to make them, but they just happen to seem worse now that he’s older. His gaffes haven’t really worsened, just the perception of them.

And as president, he has been under constant scrutiny by the Republican-controlled House, who have been unearthing anything they possibly can to show that he has shady business dealings. Anytime “evidence” of his supposed wrongdoing emerges, it’s usually laughed off as not actual evidence of anything, or the source of the evidence is an admitted liar, or the Republicans themselves promoting such evidence are proven to be lying. When powerful people try this hard to find something, usually something can be found, and then it’s just a matter of whether or not it’s worth the effort to prosecute someone, either criminally or politically, through impeachment. Since they are desperate to impeach Biden, the fact that they haven’t yet and likely will not is very telling.

Nothing has ever been found that has stuck to him in over 50 years, and he’s never actually lost an election in which he was an actual candidate. There’s is obviously a pattern here. This might be the boring and safe answer, but that’s fine. These times call for a boring and safe candidate. Any suggestions at making the Democratic Party more exciting by running a brokered convention are greatly misguided. The Democratic Party can differentiate itself to its benefit from the chaotic Republican Party by being the stable, safe option.

Let’s consider other options, such as Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Gretchen Witmer, etc. All of these are younger and very talented individuals and will likely be strong leaders in the Democratic Party for years to come. But they have not undergone the level of scrutiny and opposition research attacks that Biden has. This alone means it’s not worth the risk to put them in the position of being the party’s candidate. Once they are the candidate, they will be subject to a litany of accusations and examinations unlike anything they have ever been subjected to, and there’s no telling what may be out there that will damage them. Even if accusations are false, the effort and time it would take to assuage fears about such damaging information, or disinformation, could mute the energy from which it was originally assumed they would benefit.

Any energizing of the base would be dampened by potentially damaging and surprising revelations that might be revealed. Other candidates are at best “known unknowns” at this time. And of all the times to test them, this simply is not that time, for the same high-stakes reasons that some think it’s worth the risk to try something new. I would argue that trying something new is the worst approach for the 2024 election.

Assuming Trump wins the nomination, the Republicans will have a candidate that not only has never been fully vetted, but is constantly being vetted now, in real time, through civil and criminal investigations and trials, and the results are not going well for him. In fact, they are probably the worst results in history of a presidential candidate. He would be considered an absolutely terrible bet by most reasonable and logical people. Unfortunately for the Republican electorate, reason and logic are not highly valued commodities at this time in history. They took a risk on him in 2016 and won the bet. But that was the only time they won. They’ve lost ever since, and in the long run will continue diminishing their brand as a result.

It’s a simple case of who you would rather be right now, a Democrat or Republican. Why would you match risk with them? Why not just stay the course and let them ruin their own prospects publicly in real time? Why take any attention away from that? Why produce drama and headlines of your own, when they will do their share of that themselves? It literally makes no sense to go that route.

Biden is the safe and boring candidate, just like he was in 2020, and just like he has effectively governed during his presidency. And because of this, he is and continues to be, the obvious choice to win again in 2024. This moment in U.S. history requires a safe and boring candidacy. It’s the most exciting option of all.