When Lloyd Doggett called on Biden to stand down, it was one old pro talking to another
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett says he didn't seek approval from congressional leaders in his party when became the first major Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to end his bid for reelection, but if the Democratic hierarchy had been looking for someone to put that message on the table, the veteran Austin lawmaker would have been a very logical choice.
For one, Doggett is not some newcomer eager to become the face of the next generation of Democrats. In fact, he and Biden have been in politics for nearly the same amount of time, which is 50-plus years. Biden entered the U.S. Senate in January 1973 at 30, the minimum age to serve in the upper chamber of Congress. Doggett won a special election in August of that year to win his seat in the Texas Senate. He was about six weeks shy of his 27th birthday.
Also, Doggett has considerable standing in Congress, where he has served since 1995. Only 18 of the U.S. House's 435 members have more seniority, and among Democrats he's tied for 15th among the longest-serving members.
And finally, Doggett has no need to worry about being primaried, at least in this election cycle, since he was easily renominated in March. And he has no need to worry that his outspokenness will cost him in the Nov. 5 election. His district is about as blue as any in the red state of Texas, and he won it with nearly 77% of the vote in 2022.
But having said that, there's still a bit of pot-kettle dynamic associated with Doggett expressing concern about Biden's vigor and acuity at age 81. Doggett himself will turn 78 just under a month before the election, a fact he acknowledged in media interviews after his announcement Tuesday. And in those interviews, Doggett said Democrats need to look to someone younger to lead them in what is shaping up as a pitched battle with Donald Trump heading into fall.
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One of the problems, however, is that the field of well-known younger Democrats is thin. Two of Biden's most durable opponents for the 2020 nomination were Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Warren just turned 75. Sanders will be 83 in September.
An exception, of course, would be Vice President Kamala Harris, whose 60th birthday comes about two weeks before the election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 56 might be another, but his approval ratings are upside down in his bright-blue home state.
It's fair to point out that at 78, Trump is not exactly the epitome of youth, even when compared with Biden. Just two weeks before the debate, several business leaders noted that in a meeting with them, the former president was "remarkably meandering," and one noted that “Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about."
That private event, however, was not televised and those who spoke about it with reporters did so under the cover of anonymity.
It wouldn't be too difficult for anyone who might be inclined to point out the ironic component of Doggett's call for a younger Democratic presidential nominee. After all, he is in his 15th campaign for reelection to Congress. Before that, he served 12 years in the Texas Senate.
While the Democratic bench nationally might not be overcrowded with up-and-comers with broad name recognition, the party's slate in Austin is wide and deep. Travis County boasts no fewer than four Democratic members of the state House and one state senator. Austin's mayor is a Democratic former state senator and has been a fixture in local politics since the 1990s — and is still more than a decade younger than Doggett.
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Were Doggett to step aside, any one of them would immediately be seen as a worthy and capable successor, as would a handful of City Council members, the Travis County judge and probably a few others.
But Doggett is a political survivor. As a young state senator in 1979, he joined the group of liberal Democrats called "the Killer Bees" who broke quorum by hiding out in a West Austin garage to kill a bill favored by conservative Democrats, which was designed to help former Gov. John Connally win the 1980 Republican presidential primary in Texas.
After losing a race for the U.S. Senate to Phil Gramm in 1984, Doggett rebooted his career by getting elected to the Texas Supreme Court four years later. In 1994, a wave election for Texas Republicans, he forsook the state's highest civil court and decide to run for an open — and safely Democratic — congressional seat anchored by Austin.
At least three times, Republicans tried to bury his congressional career by slicing and dicing his district to make it less hospitable to Democrats, and each time Doggett outfoxed, and has outlasted, many of those same GOP antagonists who'd thought they had him cornered.
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In the survivor sense, Doggett has something else in common with the sitting Democratic president. Recall that Biden's campaign for the White House in 1988 and in 2008 both ended in faceplants. And when he finally won, he did it the hard way.
Biden came in a dismal fourth in the Iowa caucus to kick off the 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination. In what was thought the make-or-break New Hampshire primary one week later, Biden came in fifth.
He rebounded in miraculous style once the 2020 primary race moved to South Carolina, which he won and did not look back.
Since the disastrous presidential debate June 27, which surfaced the Democratic fears that Doggett articulated, Biden and his team have been scrambling to recreate the formula that resurrected his 2020 campaign and propelled him to the presidency.
Doggett, and the handful of other prominent Democrats who have since echoed the Austin congressman's call, have little faith that another miracle will materialize in Biden's favor.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Why Lloyd Doggett will face little blowback for his remarks about Biden
