When You've Lost George Clooney...

The actor makes a strong public case for replacing President Biden as the Democratic nominee.

Jul 10, 2024

Last month actor George Clooney co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Joe Biden. The event reportedly brought in $30 million for his presidential campaign. Today the New York Times published an op-ed by Clooney (a lifelong partisan Democrat) calling on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, and for the Democratic party to nominate a different candidate.

Clooney made his personal affection for Biden clear. “I love Joe Biden,” he wrote. “As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.”

Then he dropped the political hammer:

“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

The CNN debate Clooney is referring to was a political game-changer. Biden’s troubling performance that night has since drawn calls, including from political allies, for the president to recognize the state of his mental and physical health, accept that he’s unfit to serve for another four years, and allow an alternate candidate to be nominated at the Democratic National Convention next month. The polls have only bolstered such concerns, showing significant Trump gains including in key swing-states.

But Biden has remained defiant. Egged on by his family, he’s vowed to stay in until the bitter end — an end that may be more bitter than people realize. Biden’s already downplaying the significance of a second Trump term, framing a potential loss to the former president (who he’s long claimed is a “threat to democracy”) as being acceptable as long as he gives it the old college try.

That alone should infuriate Biden supporters, and anyone else who believes Trump poses a unique threat to our Constitutional order.

Yet, most of the Democratic establishment has remained supportive of Biden’s wishes, at least in public (though few sound convincing in that support). Others, including some Democratic senators, are finally showing some backbone and beginning to peel away from the pack.

I think Clooney may oddly carry more political weight and influence than any of those people, not just within the Democratic Party but with Biden himself. That statement may sound absurd, considering Clooney’s ultimately just an actor, but Biden, for all that “Middle Class Joe” talk, has long struck me as a man who craves acceptance, especially among the elite Hollywood class. The same is true of lots of Democratic politicians. They want to be part of the “cool” crowd — one of the boys. And if there were a modern version of the iconic Rat Pack, Clooney would be the guy leading it.

Today’s Frank Sinatra felt called upon to write that Times piece, and drop some truth bombs on his fellow Democrats:

“… our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before.
…
We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

I think his words may make a difference, and I hope they do.

I have very little in common with the Democratic Party, so I’m not typically invested in their nomination process. But I wholeheartedly believe that both major political parties should be putting forth strong, competent candidates who are, at minimum, fit to serve in public office.

Heading into November, we currently don’t have that choice. Biden withdrawing from the race might change that.