Reality check: You can’t just switch candidates

Democrats are in a tizzy. After spending years shamelessly lying about Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline, they’ve been forced to confront the reality that the emperor has no marbles.

So they’re going to switch him out, just like that. So simple; so easy.

So ridiculous.

The reality of the matter is far more complicated. Even if those actually in charge (what Axios now calls the “Biden oligarchy”) were convinced that they could lose, and even if they wanted to surrender their power and their money, that money can’t just be switched over, not without torpedoing the campaign’s entire media strategy.

First, Biden campaign operatives are unconvinced by the media meltdown. They still truly believe they’re the best chance of beating former President Donald Trump in November.

“But what about California Gov. Gavin Newsom?!” the pundits might shriek. But the White House is more clear-sighted on the reality of the party’s bind with Kamala Harris. The 2020 search for a competent and senior black woman willing to serve as vice president basically turned up a conspiratorial perennial loser from Georgia and the Californian who called Biden a racist and came in dead last in the party primary.

The party would have to pay full price, essentially torpedoing the ad-buy strategy.

The party chose the latter, and while the contract might not be signed in blood, it’s sealed with the race politics so central to the modern Democratic Party. Are Democrats “going to deny the nomination to the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected V.P.?” longtime D.C. journalists Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei ask. “Hard to see.”

But even the people paid to like Kamala Harris do not like Kamala Harris. And for all the freak-out about the “gently alive corpse,” no one thinks she has a better shot of winning.

Second, power (and money). The Bidens are not the Clintons. They haven’t had a quarter-century of trading power for money. There won’t be a long line of million-dollar speaking fees in Joe’s future, the books aren’t selling, the surviving son is facing prison, and stepping down in embarrassment won’t change those realities — even if it is dressed up as “serving his country.”

Of course, the family members are far from the only people making money on this operation. Do the gatekeepers who have sneered at Harris for four straight years think she’ll keep them on the payroll? Even in the Fantasy Land scenario, do the campaign ad-buyers think Newsom won’t bring in his own team of loyalists?

This brings us to the third problem: money. The campaign can’t simply transfer its money to another candidate. The Federal Elections Commission caps transfers from campaign to campaign at $2,000.

Sure, the Biden camp could transfer it to the Democratic National Committee (though not a PAC), but only campaigns are eligible for the lowest unit rates on advertising. The party would have to pay full price, essentially torpedoing the ad-buy strategy.

Of course, a new fantasy candidate could raise a bunch of money real fast, but even then there are handicaps. Individual donors can give $3,300 to a candidate in a primary and then another $3,300 for the general, but if there is no primary, that number is stuck mighty low.

So could Democrats just leave the Biden campaign in charge of the money and let him spend it on ads for the new candidate? Maybe. But that means whatever white knight (or black or South Asian) they have in mind will have a jilted lover in charge of the piggy bank. And then you run into the problems of coordinated expenditures, which are capped at $32,392,200. Reality is fun stuff.

In effect, this strategy would lead to leaning almost entirely on outside groups to hold the line and own the airwaves with no input from the campaign. Not exactly an ideal place to be.

Remember: The Democrats made this deal. In fact, they made both of them — back in 2020 when the only serious candidate on stage not calling for open borders and defunding the police was a 78-year-old white guy already fluctuating between hoarse whispers and old-man yelling. So they sprinkled the cupcake with Harris, leaned on the corporate media to sell it to the people, and lived comfortably and warmly for a few years in the little bubble they’d created.

Thursday night shook up their snow globe, and in a panic, a whole lot of Democrats have put their hopes in more fantasy. Reality is at the door.

Axios: Behind the Curtain: Biden oligarchy will decide fate

The Spectator: The Democrats will struggle to throw Joe Biden overboard

Glenn Beck: Joe Biden keeps refinancing his home

Splinter: Top 5 potential Democratic presidential nominees

Blaze News: What replacing Biden might look like (and who's standing in the wings)

The Federalist:Can Democrats just dump Biden and move on? It’s not that simple

The Transom: You built this hell yourself, Democrats

Blaze News: Bill Ackman calls on nation to rally behind Trump; calls Newsom a 'disaster’

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IN OTHER NEWS

The big Friday (and Monday) at the Supreme Court

Monday is the last day for the release of Supreme Court rulings. That means we’ll be getting word on the future of Trump’s trials, specifically whether some of the former president’s actions in response to election shenanigans and on Jan. 6, 2021, qualify as official actions, immune from prosecution.

Friday was also a big day at the Supreme Court. In the biggest blow against the administrative state in decades, the court struck down the Chevron precedent in a 6-3 vote.

If you’re not familiar, the 40-year-old doctrine allowed federal agencies to interpret broad, vague congressional statutes themselves, making them a law unto themselves. It was a terrible precedent, and it’s finally over.

But that's not all! The same morning, the court said the feds can’t keep using an old Enron bookkeeping law to throw J6 trespassers in prison for years. The ruling doesn’t set them free, but it gives them a cudgel to appeal in the decidedly liberal D.C. courts. It’s the first big rebuke to the Department of Justice’s extremely aggressive overreach and is good news — but don’t expect it to be the last of this sordid tale.

Oh, and cities and towns no longer have to provide free housing to the homeless to enforce public camping rules. This seems basic enough, but California’s Ninth Circuit had long maintained that you can’t police vagrants and drug addicts and the criminally insane on your streets and in your public parks unless you built enough shelters for all of them. This is obviously crazy to normal people, and the Supreme Court agreed. So too did Gavin Newsom, whose national political future will still have to tango with the dystopian disaster the Golden State has become.

The Federalist: Supreme Court strikes a blow to the administrative state