The Democratic strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the White House has a plan to replace President Joe Biden on November's ballot — with the help of Biden's former boss.
In an op-ed column for the New York Times, James Carville said it was "only a matter of time" before Biden would be forced to drop his reelection bid due to his disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump.
"The jig is up, and the sooner Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders accept this, the better. We need to move forward," he wrote Monday. "But it can't be by anointing Vice President Kamala Harris or anyone else as the presumptive Democratic nominee."
Instead, the party should "nominate a new ticket in a highly democratic and novel way" by holding a series of four town hall-style meetings involving potential candidates across the country, Carville said.
"We can recruit the two most obvious and qualified people in the world to facilitate substantive discussions: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton," he wrote.
The two ex-presidents could also be tasked with making the "hard choices" necessary to select the potential replacement candidates before the scheduled Aug. 19 start of the Democratic National Convention, Carville said.
"So I would advise Presidents 42 and 44 to select eight leading contenders out of the pool of those who choose to run, with Ms. Harris most definitely getting a well-earned invite," he wrote.
Carville — famed for coining the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid" during Clinton's winning 1992 campaign — said the plan would "give Americans a fresh look at Ms. Harris and introduce them to our deep bench of smart, dynamic, tested leaders."
"In addition, Democratic delegates will get to further grill and stress-test these leaders in public and private meetings before a formal vote of all the delegates at the Democratic convention," he wrote.
Carville acknowledged that the weeks since the June 27 debate "have been an agonizing time for those of us who think President Biden more than earned a second term but isn't going to win one."
"But now we've got to move on," he said.
