Senate candidate Adam Schiff says Biden should end his reelection bid. He’s right | Opinion

Rep. Adam Schiff, who is all but certain to win a Senate seat in November, has called on President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign.

Good for him. It’s about time a high-ranking California Democrat unequivocally said what so many voters are thinking — that President Biden may not be able to defeat Donald Trump.

“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have very serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Schiff told the Los Angeles Times.

Schiff has been raising concerns about Biden’s electability ever since the debate.

In a July 7 appearance on “Meet the Press,” he shared doubts about Biden’s ability to beat Trump while praising Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I think the vice president would be a phenomenal president. I think she has the experience, the judgment, the leadership ability to be an extraordinary president,” he said then.

According to The New York Times, he went even further during a private meeting with donors held last weekend.

“I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” Schiff reportedly said. “And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House.”

Those are strong words, but it’s highly doubtful that it will move Biden to reconsider.

The president continues to clap back at doubters who were so dismayed by his weak performance in the June 27 debate.

“Look, 14 million people voted for me to be the nominee in the Democratic Party, OK? I listen to them,” he told NBC’s Lester Holt during a Monday interview.

Biden aims to fix the Supreme Court

Biden is moving on multiple fronts to reestablish himself as a viable candidate, including introducing a wildly ambitious platform full of great ideas that have no chance of success in the current political climate.

As first reported in The Washington Post, the president is expected to present a legislative proposal imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices, and a binding code of ethics for the court.

He also is weighing the idea of calling for a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity — an antidote to the Supreme Court’s recent decision that essentially gives presidents carte blanche while in office.

He announced that he would ask Congress to pass a nationwide form of rent control requiring corporate landlords to cap rent increases at 5% or risk losing federal tax breaks.

And in the wake of the attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump, he’s pushing to renew a ban on assault weapons.

These are worthy goals. The partisan Supreme Court is out of control. Gun violence is killing and maiming too many Americans. The lack of affordable housing has reached a crisis level, particularly in California, though whether a nationwide rent control law would help is open to debate.

But these proposals have no chance of going anywhere — at least in the short term — since they would require congressional approval, which won’t happen as long as the GOP has control of the House.

The push to make such major changes appears to be a diversion tactic to distract voters from questions about the 81-year-old president’s age and his fitness to serve another four years.

They look like a last-ditch effort by a desperate man.

Democrats are a party in disarray

Meanwhile, the Republican Party is surging.

Since the assassination attempt, Trump’s supporters are more devoted to him than ever, with some calling his survival a miracle anointed by God.

By contrast, Biden is stuck in a political limbo, trying to convince voters he belongs on the ticket.

And still the Democratic Party hierarchy dithers, creating the impression of a party in disarray.

On the one hand, the Democratic National Committee still plans to fast-track the president’s nomination via a virtual roll-call vote. However, this idea has been postponed at least until Aug. 1, according to POLITICO.

Voters are caught in the middle, left to judge whether Biden is fit to serve, based mostly on what they see on television.

While it’s a fascinating political spectacle — a level of intrigue that almost rivals the “Game of Thrones” — the longer this goes on, the weaker the party appears.

This needs to end, one way or another.

To compel Biden to step aside, more Democrats must follow Schiff’s lead and openly force the issue, rather than engaging in a whisper campaign.

If Democrats would rather stick with a wounded candidate who is trying to divert attention away from the one thing he cannot control — his age — then they have no choice but to line up behind President Joe Biden.