I see Josh Marshall’s tea leaves moving strongly towards Biden dropping out. Here’s what I see as a good solution. Bear with me.
It seems pretty clear that Joe is declining and has declined physically enough so that there are real and legitimate concerns that he won’t be able to effectively campaign. Presumably he could still do his presidential duties. I see the NYT and WaPo pressure for Biden to go as legitimate, explained by their close contact with the DC/White House scene.
So Biden resigns and Harris becomes president, and as soon as possible. The DNC does all the necessary actions to nominate Harris and get her on the ballot everywhere. Biden becomes “president emeritus” or “senior advisor” or whatever and continues to work behind the scenes and with diplomacy — everything except campaigning. Harris and lots of others run a fierce campaign focused on Trump, democracy, reproductive freedoms, Supreme Court, etc. The campaign should be especially direct and vicious about Trump’s crimes and all around evilness. I think we win easily and we win big.
Who becomes the next VP? Biden could be (switching jobs with Harris) which would have the benefit of avoiding having a divisive fight over that. I don’t have the answer but I wish we could minimize the energy spent on the competition over who is the next VP (and probably president).