Before the presser:

“He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign official said. “He will never recover from this.”…“No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path,” said a second person working to elect him.

After the presser:

Biden vaulted over the lower-than-the-Earth’s-core expectations.

The most read word I have seen since the presser is “defiant.” Not good – “defiance” (anger) is symptomatic of age-related cognitive decline. Exceeding hyper low expectations is not an accomplishment. Are we sure it was “just a bad night?” Maybe last night was “just a good night.” Besides, one bad night is one too many for POTUS. Objectively, reasonably, there is no hope for Biden. Democrats are now trying simply not to be embarrassed.

My senior year in high school, we were a very, very good football team. Number one in the state, all that stuff. There were two games that season that we won 49-0 and 50-0. By half time our opponents were buried. Our coach, a good Christian man, did his very best to avoid embarrassing them – starters spent the second half on the bench (not to mention a good bit of the second quarter), the third string saw massive playing time, and yet the score continued to rise, the embarrassment was unavoidable.

What do you do when you are that deeply embarrassed? Well, I have been on the zero side of such scores in my life as well. When the embarrassment comes you either hide in shame or you own your mistakes and try to do better next time. You don’t try to find victory in an overwhelming loss – you just lose, and vow to do better next time. You beat them next year. Richard Nixon resigned and spent the rest of his life rebuilding his reputation as a statesman.

Well, there is no next year for Joe Biden, hence his recalcitrance. He is an embarrassment for Democrats – a big one. But there is no victory here with Biden in the mix. Yesterday Jim Geraghty pointed out there is only one mechanism open to Democrats – convincing the convention delegates to turn on Joe. To do that – a massive effort – they have to get very busy, very quickly. The time for equivocating is done. the time for action is now. The headlines this morning make that seem unlikely.

Look, Trump is Trump, divisive at best, easier to beat than most. But if he does what he has been doing, keeping his mouth shut and letting Biden destroy himself, he also seems inevitable. There is no good path forward for the Democrat party as a whole with Biden in the mix, and he does not look like he is going anywhere. Thus the embarrassment in unavoidable.

If I were a Democrat strategist, which frankly I am glad I am not, I’d be trying to figure out how to lose gracefully. No whining, no excuses – just take our lumps and vow to do better.

The post Time For Democrats To Lose Gracefully. appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.