Biden to begin long, bittersweet goodbye on DNC’s first night

President Biden’s decades-long career is reaching its bitter end after he was forced out by his own party in a presidential race he appeared to be losing to his arch political rival.

On the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, a time slot traditionally reserved for lower-level members of the party hierarchy, Biden, 81, will make one of his last major speeches as president instead of accepting his party’s nomination in grand celebration.

The speech marks the beginning of the end of a 53-year career that included four decades in the Senate, eight years as vice president and four years in the White House as commander-in-chief.

Biden ended the presidency of Republican Donald Trump in 2020 but withdrew from the rematch in July after Democrats became convinced by Biden’s weak debate performance that the only way to prevent Trump from re-entering the White House was for their president to step aside.

“It’s the farewell tour when somebody like Elton John goes on the farewell tour,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential studies professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. “[You] assume it’s the last tour but it’s not the last performance.”

Biden is likely to get a hero’s welcome in Chicago.

Political watchers got a glimpse last week of the sort of reception he’ll receive when in a Democratic-stronghold in Maryland, the president was met with a raucous crowd chanting “Thank you Joe” with Vice President Harris by his side.

“People really want to celebrate the president, given the decision he made and all of his accomplishments over the course of his term. It's going to be quite a night, quite a week,” the MSNBC host Jen Paski, Biden’s former press secretary, said Friday on her network’s “Morning Joe.”

Biden is the first sitting U.S. president in nearly half a century to drop his bid for reelection. He’d previously been adamant about avoiding that fate – at one point suggesting only a higher power could compel him to no longer seek the White House for a fourth time. 

Democratic party leaders, most notably former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), eventually sank him, backed by donors who stopped giving money to not just Biden, but down-ballot candidates fighting for any semblance of a congressional majority.

Former President Barack Obama, who Biden served loyally for eight years, did not provide a lifeline, while several ex-Obama aides repeatedly called for him to step down.

The shocking Democratic divisions from late June and July are now largely in the rear-view mirror, with Democrats focused on celebrating Harris and thanking Biden for making the difficult decision to not run for reelection after he’d coasted to a victory in his party’s primaries.

It’s a decision likely to be in the first graph of Biden’s obituary, a historic move that the president’s supporters argue displays his willingness to put his country over his personal gains.

Jim Hodges, the last Democratic governor of  South Carolina, said Biden’s speech has to serve as a balancing act between the awkwardness of no longer accepting the nomination  while offering an out-with-the-old, in-with-the new approach. 

“This warm handoff is a very important piece where we sort of move away from the messy exit that occurred and see Joe Biden offering a full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris,” Hodges said. “It sort of closes the chapter on the last few months.”

While the Biden who takes the stage on Monday is likely to be greeted with loud and unwavering support for his willingness to give up his office, it’s impossible to think the veteran politician is happy with how things went down.

With his mental and physical acuity called into intense question, Biden had for weeks refused to heed calls to step aside. The president embarked on a blitz of major network television interviews, which he’s largely avoided for much of his presidency, to show he could handle going off-script, but those did little to reassure Democrats.

“There’s no doubt he’ll feel sad and I hope not bitter, but sad and disappointed at the very least, maybe for the rest of his life,” Perry said, while adding: “I see this as both a positive for him and the party.”

In the debate’s aftermath, the White House and Biden campaign, who spent months blowing off the notion that Biden’s age was a factor in the election, were peppered with questions about the pressure campaign for Biden to step aside.

Some of those very same Democrats who reportedly made the final push for Biden to drop out are slated to speak at the DNC, including Obama.

But Biden is slated to miss those remarks.

The president will leave Chicago after he delivers his speech, and is staying largely out of the public eye during the Democrats’ coronation of their next leader.

While Democrats will be happy to see him on stage on Monday night, the cold truth is that most also are very happy he’s no longer their nominee. They will want to thank him on Monday, but then they want the spotlight to shine brightly on Harris.

“The president probably recognizes that he would be a distraction if he was working the floor for two or three days,” Hodges said. “I think it’s appropriate that he exit the stage and leave it to [Harris] after his speech.”