My column that urged Joe to do what he did

Jean Chretien and Joe Biden.

This isn’t the first time I’ve talked about how they were similar. Their similarities, in fact, were such that I was persuaded to support the latter because of my many years of work for the former.

Consider: both politicians were older than most of their competition, and were often dismissed as ‘yesterday’s men’ as a result.

Both regularly mangled grammar and syntax – Biden because he had a childhood stammer which he overcame, and Chretien because he reportedly does not speak either official language.

Both men came from large and poor families in small towns. Biden, from Scranton in Pennsylvania – and Chretien from Shawinigan in Quebec.

Both men spent many decades in government before getting the top job. Both were regularly underestimated by their opponents, and they greatly benefited from that. Both had disdain for the elites in their respective parties.

And, this: both were fighters. Meaning, if you pushed them, they would push back.

When Paul Martin’s thugs commenced trying to push Chretien out, he dug in his heels, and ran again – winning an unprecedented and massive third majority government in 2000. And when the Martinites kept pushing, Chretien said he would leave – 18 months later. Team Martin went on to lose the majority, and then lose government.

For weeks we have been witnessing something similar with Joe Biden.

Full disclosure: I volunteered for Joe Biden in 2020, getting out the vote in a dozen different states. I was proud to do so. But after I saw his performance in the first (and almost certainly only) presidential debate with Donald Trump, I knew – as someone who has great affection for him – that Joe Biden should not run for a second term. It wouldn’t be good for him, for America, or for the free world.

Lots of Democrats immediately had the same view. And, in the intervening weeks, they went public with their desire to push Joe Biden out. Veteran members of the US Senate and the House of Representatives said Joe should go. More mutineers were stepping up to the microphones every day.

A Covid-stricken Biden responded by retreating to his beachfront home, and refusing to engage with his critics. His staff told the media that he wasn’t going anywhere, and likened the naysayers to bedwetters. He was going to run again as the Democratic presidential candidate, they insisted.

This is where the Biden and Chretien similarities end.

Chretien left with a 60 per cent approval rating. He left on the date of his choosing. He left his party in good shape, and he left the country with a balanced budget. He left the way he wanted to.

Biden, meanwhile, has been unpopular with American voters, and he was getting more unpopular by the day. He was dragging his heels and dragging his party down. He was putting himself, and his ego, before the interests of his party and his country – something he promised never, ever do.

The writing was on the wall, as they say. But Joe Biden seemed to be the only person in America who couldn’t read it – or refused to look.

I have worked for older veteran politicians who sometimes talk funny and are underestimated. I know the species. If you take a swipe at them, you’ve got to be prepared to get it back, twice as hard. They really, really don’t like to be pushed around.

But in the end, Jean Chretien knew when to leave, and he left on his own terms. Joe Biden didn’t know it was time to leave.

Until today.

 

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