"I’m Behind Him 1000%"

Tryng to make sense of the current crisis, I've looked at two 20th century constitutional crises, the 1936 UK crisis that led to Edward VIII's abdication, and the 1944 crisis of FDR's perilous state of health leading into the November election and his death the following year only months after his inauguration. Both were resolved largely behind the scenes. But I think a closer and more recent parallel is the problem that was posed by Thomas Eagleton, who was the 1972 Democrat vice presidential nominee who was forced to withdraw his candicacy when information surfaced about his medical history.

George McGovern's nomination for president at the 1972 Democrat convention wasn't assured, and his chances against Nixon in November were never bright. Thomas Eagleton, a US senator from Missouri, wasn't on McGovern's short list for vice president, but after Ted Kennedy and Abraham Ribicoff both turned him down, he had to find a willing substitute quickly. He fell back on Eagleton, and McGovern probably didn't even want to ask too many questions of anyone at that point.

According to NPR, after Eagleton was named McGovern's running mate and nominated by the convention,

Within a few days, rumors started to circulate, beginning with a call to McGovern's headquarters in South Dakota.

"The anonymous caller had said, 'Check into Sen. Eagleton's background; he has a complicated medical background,' " Hart says.

. . . Within hours, the McGovern campaign was getting those details. On three occasions in the 1960s, Eagleton was hospitalized for depression and had undergone electroshock treatment.

. . . McGovern, under increasing pressure, asked to speak to Eagleton's psychiatrists. Eagleton agreed to have McGovern speak with two of his doctors.

"McGovern, based on those conversations, makes the medical decision that Eagleton was too much of a risk to have his finger potentially on the metaphorical button," [historian Joshua] Glasser says.

But according to Wikipedia, before he made that decision,

In response to intense pressure from the media and party leaders that Eagleton be replaced, McGovern announced that he was "1000 percent behind Tom Eagleton, and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket".

Wikipedia's comment is,

It backfired badly and became a byword for foolish and insincere exaggeration, and today is often used in irony or sarcasm.

There are several parallels between the Eagleton crisis of 1972 and the current calls for Joe Biden to step aside as this year's Democrat presidential candidate. The first is the conundrum that it was expected, up to Thursday's debate, that Biden would be nominated by an online process prior to the Democrat convention August 19-22, and this would be a purely pro forma event. In effect, Joe was already as good as nominated, so this is a very close parallel to Eagleton's position in 1972, potentially forced to withdraw from a ticket after being nominated.

The second parallel is that questions arose about both candidates' medical fitness for office -- as McGovern apparently put it, whether Eagleton should have his finger on the nuclear button. Nobody's put it specifically that way about Joe, but I cited several links yesterday questioning Joe's capability to deal with Putin, Xi, Kim, or the Ayatollahs given what we saw in the debate.

The third parallel is that the critical medical information for both men had or has been concealed. The NPR account makes it plain that Eagleton and his doctors relied on medical confidentialty to withhold specific data until McGovern insisted that Eagleton authorize its release. In Joe's case, it seems very likely that critical medical information about his condition, his medications, and his prognosis is still being withheld, and it's uncertain whether we'll ever get it.

Certainly one aspect of the current scandal is that staff, advisers, cabinet secretaries, and colleagues over recent months have insisted thst Joe is "fine", when it seems less and less likely that this is the case. But even if what we can assess now from Joe's debate performance is all we'll ever learn, we have the incredibly awkward situation that important papers like the New York Times, the Phildelphia Inquirer, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, as well as important television commentators on CNN and elsewhere, have already called for Joe to step aside -- I'm not aware of anyone mentioning Eagleton, at least not yet, but the parallel is implicit.

If Joe continues his candidacy, it will be with a good part of even the Democrat-aligned legacy commentariat against him, which will be damaging even if they all eventually recant. In that context, we have this report from NBC News, which the Biden campaign so far denies:

President Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David on Sunday, following a nationally televised debate Thursday that left many fellow Democrats worried about his ability to beat former President Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Biden’s trip was planned before Thursday’s debate. He and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to join their children and grandchildren there late Saturday.

So far, the party’s top leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets posted by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.

The piece goes on to say that there's a cautious wait-and-see attitude, but in the days after the debate, it's hard to avoid thinking everyone is stunned. and the consequences haven't been fully thought through. Among the considerations, though, must surely be that the campaign, in the end a likely loser, has four months still to go, while there will be increasing demands for the release of Joe's full medical records, neither of which developments will be good for Joe or his family. My bet, though, is that right now, everyone is 1000% behind him.