Prominent figures on CNN, MSNBC and ABC's "The View" suggested that now may be the time for President Biden to step aside.
In 1991, when I was just a few years into my career as a journalist, I experienced a stroke of life-changing professional luck. The 1992 presidential campaign was ramping up, and a host of eager candidates were vying to take on President George H.W. Bush, who was running for his second term.
I was a 20-something off-air political reporter for ABC News, waiting to find out which candidate I would be following on the campaign trail. I would remain embedded with my designated candidate for the duration, until he (no shes were running) lost, dropped out, or won the whole shebang.
Naturally, I was hoping for someone interesting, someone who would go far in the race, or at least, someone who would make a little news.
WHERE ARE THE JOES? SCARBOROUGH, BIDEN LAY LOW AFTER EMBARRASSING DEBATE
Would it be the populist Iowa Senator Tom Harkin? The idiosyncratic former California Governor Jerry Brown? The Republican conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, launching a hell for leather anti-Bush challenge? The commonsense former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas?
ABC’s assignment desk handed out our roles. I was tasked to cover the Governor of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton.
What followed was a fascinating year that took me to nearly every continental state in America. I saw in granular detail the inner workings of a fledgling campaign, and watched it grow. I witnessed the power and wisdom of American voters, and what it took to earn their support. I apprehended the need to go out in the field, away from hermetic news offices in New York and Washington, D.C., to see firsthand the house parties and rope lines, debate spin rooms and local newscasts, the rallies large and small.
FILE - In this Dec. 20, 1996, file photo President Clinton holds Socks the cat as he and first lady Hillary Clinton host Washington area elementary school children at the White House where the president read "Twas the Night Before Christmas." (AP Photo/Ruth Fremson, File)
I observed the young Bill and Hillary Clinton as they fought back from tabloid scandal, primary losses, bad news cycles, embarrassing gossip, and malignant rumors, until they finally vanquished Bush, Ross Perot, and a handful of their own demons and skeletons to nab the brass ring.
Out on the Clinton trail, I also observed some of the greatest political reporters of the modern era, up close and in action.
As Bill Clinton became the hot topic, the besmirched Icarus, the Comeback Kid, the frontrunner, the Democratic nominee, and eventually, the president-elect, more and more reporters of note, rising young stars and prize-winning legends, crowded onto the bus to cover his stratospheric rise.
Renaissance Man Johnny Apple, deliberative Dan Balz, cultivated Todd Purdum, shrewd Adam Nagourney, perceptive Joe Klein, the great Gwen Ifill.
I spent time with them, shared meals and conversation, watched their off-the-cuff interviews with the principals and the staff. I learned from them. I respected them. They were civilians and citizens, individuals with specific experiences and personal beliefs, but they remained impartial, prudent, and fair. They told the facts, even as they draped their words with detail and poetry. They cataloged mundane, day-to-day events, while keeping an eye on history. They felt beholden to the American people and took that responsibility seriously, distilling and explaining policy positions, clarifying spin, and staying direct and detached, all while holding the powerful accountable to the public interest.
As reporters, they had intimate access to a person who would end up being the leader of the free world. Who was he? What were his thought processes? What were his failings, and his strengths? How would he lead if elected? Was he resilient? Honest? Thin-skinned? Brave? Nimble? Wise? Those questions might be........