CHICAGO — It will not be the convention President Joe Biden planned.
A month ago, Biden was poised to conclude the Democrats’ party by accepting the nomination with bold pronouncements about how his second term would build on the successes of his first. Instead, he will open the convention Monday to make the case that Vice President Kamala Harris is the one to carry the torch.
It is a turnabout that Democrats are greeting with jubilation, melancholy, lingering hard feelings and, for some, outright anger.
The complicated dynamic has left convention planners and party leaders delicately navigating a display of respect to an outgoing president while building on newfound exuberance within the party over Harris’ ascent.
Democrats are expected to honor him in their remarks throughout the week, using what they see as an act of selflessness as an inspiration for the party to rally behind Harris and push to defeat former President Donald Trump.
With his remarks set for Monday, Biden is positioned to be the one who bridges the divisions.
It will be “a great opportunity to seize this moment of unity for the party,” said Bill Russo, who worked in Biden’s vice presidential office, on his 2020 campaign and in the State Department. For longtime “Biden people,” a message of unity coming straight from Biden “will help cement it,” he said. A Monday slot, Russo said, also “gives him a place of prominence and respect, kicking off the programming for the week.”
The extraordinary personal and political sea change Biden experienced in the last month is unlike that of any other president in recent history. He has gone from being a firmly entrenched leader of the party to relinquishing power voluntarily, without voters or term limits compelling him to do so in a rare move in modern politics.
His decision has set the campaign on a new trajectory. Harris has risen in the polls, drawn crowds of 10,000 or more in battleground states, attracted hundreds of thousands of new volunteers and exploded fundraising.
But Democrats say the party’s deep gratitude for Biden’s decision is overwhelming and predict the United Center will thunder with an extended standing ovation when he takes the stage.
“He’s going to get a truly hagiographic and valedictory convention,” said Wade Randlett, a longtime Democratic fundraiser. “I expect there to be borderline deification of President Biden at the convention, with, like, 100 speakers in a row saying, ‘Oh, my God, Joe Biden is so great.’ And that will boost his stock in general.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said, “I and others recognize what courage and love of country that he exhibited in making this very tough decision.”
A Harris campaign aide said: “He’ll not be able to speak there will be so much applause. People in the Democratic Party value him more now than ever.”
Even at Biden’s most trying times in office, Democrats agreed he delivered accomplishments, including guiding the nation out of a pandemic and passing a massive infrastructure package. After a devastating debate against Trump in late June, however, doubts about Biden’s ability to run a vigorous campaign swelled. Calls within the party for his exit from the race steadily grew.
In early July, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., reportedly tried to assemble a group of Democrats to ask Biden to drop out of the race.
“I don’t know anyone during those challenging weeks who didn’t start with the premise that Joe Biden has been a great president and we owe him a lot,” Warner said.
In a show of gratitude for Biden’s contributions to the party, a series of tributes is planned during the convention, including from Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.
Coons said that in recent conversations, Biden has already shifted to planning how he wants to close out his time in office.
“He was already looking ahead, talking about what he could accomplish in the last six months of the term and how he could have the biggest impact. He was asking what are things I thought we needed to do, and he spoke positively about the Harris campaign,” Coons said. “He’s excited to campaign. I think he’s going to campaign hard in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.”
Chris Korge, national finance chairman of the Harris Victory Fund, said demand was through the roof for entry Monday night, when party members want to show “their incredible respect for Joe Biden.”
“People realize what Joe Biden has done as president over the last four years, and that is the foundation for why and how Kamala Harris will be the 47th president of the United States,” Korge said. “People see how selfless it was for Joe Biden. I’ve heard this from so many people who feel like he decided not to run — it wasn’t because he didn’t think he could win — he thought this was the right time for him, and he made the decision to let the next generation move forward.”
Some still harbor strong feelings about how circumstances unfolded. They include first lady Jill Biden, who has privately expressed dismay over how some Democrats treated her husband.
“I’ve talked to 100 early Biden people, from House members to senators to National Finance Committee members, who think he got totally screwed,” said a source familiar with internal discussions, who requested anonymity to reveal private conversations. “It was unfair and unwise and unjust. Those people who did it will not have this moment in history reflect well on their own behavior. … I have a lot of hard feelings toward people who were pushing Joe out, but Kamala Harris is not one of them. She was not Judas at all.”
Chris Dodd, a former senator from Connecticut and longtime Biden friend who had just spoken to him by phone, said Biden was forward-looking and wasn’t focused on carrying grievances.
“I’d be shocked to hear that Joe Biden, the person I know, is walking around holding grudges against people,” said Dodd, who has a 50-year friendship with the president. Dodd said he hopes the tributes that flood in Monday touch on Biden as a person as well as commemorate his time in office. “In 50 years of public life, I can honestly say I don’t know if I’ve ever met anybody in public life who was as decent, as kind, as thoughtful a human being as President Joe Biden.”
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