Michelle Obama for President?

Sometimes, the farfetched ideas make sense

I write this bleary-eyed in London. I stayed up into the early morning to watch Joe Biden debate Donald Trump. As someone who was writing, in 2022, that Biden should step aside, I still found his debate performance more catastrophic than I ever imagined it could be. I thought Biden would muddle through and disingenuous pundits would give him the benefit of the doubt. I thought Trump’s own obsessions and manias could, to a degree, negate Biden’s obvious cognitive decline. But as anyone who watched the debate knows, this did not happen. There is almost no one who believes Biden had a successful night. Nate Silver and Sam Kahn have both argued that Biden should step aside soon, preferably at the Democratic convention in August, and they are right. The convention was how nominees were selected until the 1970s; they are not how nominees should be picked, but they are the last and only resort for Democrats now. Otherwise, an 81-year-old Biden is flailing against Trump for five long months. Biden has a path to victory, but it will narrow the more he is forced to face the public. Biden, on the domestic front, has been a successful president, and his infrastructure and green energy policies will bear significant fruit in the coming years. He is also, plainly, not the person who debated Paul Ryan in 2012. That person has been lost to time. His campaign will have to recognize this, and soon.

A convention would very likely make Kamala Harris the nominee. She is the sitting vice president. It’s a testament to Harris’ poor political abilities that Biden has even lasted this long. Had he chosen, for example, Gretchen Whitmer as his vice president in 2020, there would be a strong push within the Democratic Party to get the Michigander to top the ticket. Biden’s team urged him to select Harris in 2020, even after she had performed miserably in the presidential primary, dropping out before the Iowa caucuses. The conspiracy theory that Harris was selected so Biden would not be upstaged during his presidency seems accurate enough. Selecting Harris has guaranteed Biden can still campaign for president this year.

The fantasy is that a Democrat other than Harris would be nominated. Others can step forward but she’ll have a tremendous edge with Biden’s delegates. Is Harris a stronger nominee than Biden? Six months ago, I would have said she is not. Today, just about any sentient, scandal-free Democrat is a better choice; the party needs a candidate who can consistently appear on the campaign trail, talk to voters, talk to the media, and perform adequately on a debate stage. Harris can do all of this well enough. Biden cannot.

Few, though, would argue Harris is the best alternative. For years, various tabloids and rumor mills have been pushing a Michelle Obama candidacy. The former First Lady seems to have no interest in running—and little affection for the Bidens. She hasn’t campaigned for him at all and plainly enjoys her private life. Why wouldn’t she? She’s rich and enormously popular. Like her husband, she’s a major celebrity, and she doesn’t have to live with the burden of the White House anymore. The odds of her entering the political arena are remote. Yet she should, as much as any Democrat in America, begin considering the possibility. A new nominee at the August convention would only have two months to campaign. There is little time to raise name recognition or introduce yourself to voters. There is no slow build-up, no primary season to benefit from—only the white-hot glare of a general election.

Michelle Obama would be up to the task. Trump could attack her for lacking political experience, but he himself had never held office before he ran in 2016. He could dredge up old Obama controversies and conspiracy theories—these, given the passage of time, probably won’t move voters all that much. There is now growing nostalgia for the Barack Obama presidency, given the chaos of Trump and the senescence of Biden. Americans miss having a charismatic, attractive, and hopeful president who was first elected before he turned fifty. Barack Obama himself is still a generation younger than both men running for president now. If term limits for president didn’t exist—they probably shouldn’t, considering Congress isn’t term-limited—there’s an outside chance it’s Barack Obama on the stage last night, running a rescue mission for the Democratic Party. In a parliamentary system, this wouldn’t be unusual at all. Harold Wilson, in the United Kingdom, served in the second half of the 1960s and returned in 1974.

Michelle Obama offers far more upside than Kamala Harris. She is revered by millions. She is a stronger public speaker. Her 2016 convention speech remains the most memorable moment of that night. She can speak forcefully and articulately for the Democratic agenda. She has lived free of scandal, and was a genuine political asset for her husband in the White House. She is more inspiring and captivating than Hillary Clinton, the only other First Lady to make a go at the White House. If she runs, she can take her husband with her, and the many people who miss Barack Obama would happily vote for her. With only two months to campaign, she wouldn’t have to worry about making herself known or even yoking herself much to the Biden administration. She is famous enough to stand alone. This would mean, ultimately, sketching out her own policy agenda and convincing the public she could lead. Trump will be a vicious opponent.

None of this, of course, should have been necessary. If Biden had been less arrogant, he could have announced in 2022 he wasn’t seeking a second term and permitted a normal primary season to play out in 2023 and 2024. There should be no need to talk of backroom convention deals or Obama deus ex machinas. But that’s where we are. Biden did this to himself.