When President Joe Biden decided to drop out of the Presidential Race last Sunday, he put Pennsylvania into the spotlight for a lot of reasons.
Before last week, the last time that I had spoken to State Sen. Sharif Street was during an event at Mt. Airy Church of God In Christ in Northwest Philadelphia.
Street, the chair of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party, was at the church with President Joe Biden. It was part of a Pennsylvania campaign swing designed to show folks in this Battleground State that the President wasn’t actually dead.
(Yeah, I know. That’s pretty sarcastic, even for me. But when you make decisions based on a presidential debate that I still think that people put too much stock in, you get the good sarcasm.)
During an interview after the visit, Street told me that he had spoken to the President and that he seemed solid, so stepping away didn’t seem to be in his plans. In fact, Biden himself told everyone from NBC’s Lester Holt to the guy scooping his ice cream at his favorite shop on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware that he wasn’t stepping away.
So, when Biden sent out a letter to everyone saying he was going to be stepping away, I reached out to Street again. I wanted to find out what the Pa. Dems chair knew, and when did he know it?
Unlike the Parker Administration, which tends to tell City Councilmembers what they’re doing in their districts via the Philadelphia Inquirer, President Biden gave the state party chairs a heads-up, Street said.
“I got a text message with the letter from the President or the person who sent it out for him,” he said. “I got about 15 minutes to digest it before my delegates started calling. That allowed me to gather my thoughts. I have to give credit to President Biden for giving us a little lead time.”
But I also wanted to know why the President changed his mind. As someone who follows politics, it’s probably best that you take the late Harry S. Truman’s advice and buy a dog if you’re looking for a friend.
However, Street’s response showed me that ageism played no small part in Biden’s decision, something that also came out during his address to the nation last week.
“I believe that the president heard the American people who had concerns about his age,” he said. “Despite my one one-on-one interaction with him, people were concerned. So he did what he thought was in the best interest of the country. This allows [Vice President Kamala Harris] to run on their shared strong record without being burdened by his age.”
By now, you know what’s happened. Biden endorsed Harris and her Presidential campaign. There have been lots and lots of Zoom calls raising lots and lots of money for her campaign. Democratic Party chairs from around the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have coalesced around Harris.
And for reasons I’ll never quite understand, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is trying to force Gov. Josh Shapiro onto the ticket. That’s another column for another time.
But one thing that Street said kinda stuck with me. He said that young people were more excited about Harris’s candidacy and that would get them to the polls. I guess that having two old guys in Biden and Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump wasn’t exciting enough for them.
Now, the last time folks demanded “excitement” in politics, we ended up with the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” as president and a million people died from COVID. But I won’t get into that.
What I will say is that I hope that this “excitement” translates into a robust turnout that focuses on the entire ticket, not just the top of it.
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