Editorial: After Biden's debate disaster: The president's tough choice about quitting or continuing

Yes, it was that bad. A devious Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of lies, and all President Joe Biden could offer was a pallid, halting presentation — failing to counter the former president’s falsehoods or make a strong case for his reelection.

The American economy is the envy of the world. Abortion rights are under threat due to Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court. The sitting president is on the right side of public opinion on gun rights, health care and much more — immigration remains a very real vulnerability — yet he was less persuasive than a reasonably well-educated man on the street, offering an all-you-can-eat word salad bar in stumbling answer after mumbling answer.

None of this came as a surprise. Even Joe Biden’s strongest supporters have known for months that he is rusty when unscripted in public. That doesn’t mean he is an ineffective president; by all accounts, he understands complex questions and makes intelligent decisions. He has a strong team around him, both in the White House and in federal agencies.

But an election is a binary contest: A candidate either wins or loses, and that win or loss is based not on some elevated intellectual analysis of the quality of the job he does. The political impressions we sometimes dismiss as mere “optics” are, for millions of swing and low-information voters, decisive. A candidate with massive political liabilities and insufficient political strengths does no favors to his cause, however just.

This was not about a stumble or two. The consistent and holistic impression of the night from Biden was of a man who couldn’t make a coherent argument for himself, his party or his ideals. A man who at 81 is well past his prime is now asking the public to reelect him to serve until he is the age of 86.

Biden has some real accomplishments achieved and he feels that he has been a better president than Trump and would be a better president than Trump even at that advanced age. That is not the question, however. The question is whether he can beat Trump in November.

In the 1960s and earlier, both national parties were strong organizations led by bosses with the power to step in and tell a candidate to step aside. No longer: The president is the head of the party; his power comes straight from the voters. Biden ran essentially unopposed in the primaries and at this late date will be the nominee in November unless he himself makes the affirmative choice to bow out.

It would indeed be a big gamble for Biden to step aside. An open convention would be messy, and whoever was hastily chosen — Vice President Kamala Harris or someone else from a plenty-talented field of governors and senators — would have to scramble to rally the Democratic coalition, much less win over independents and any persuadable Republicans.

But after Thursday night’s debate, it’s equally apparent to those who fear a second Trump term that keeping Biden is also a big gamble.

The choice is Biden’s. The moment to search his soul is now. He must make a decision motivated not by pride, but by digging deep and honestly answering a difficult question: Is he the Democrats’ best option to put up a fight against Donald Trump?

___