Bi de Leon: President and LA Councilman Following the Same Path?

At the Harold Stassen Tavern on the Island of Misfit Pols, former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez is most likely right now sitting at the end of the bar and slowly and gently and methodically banging her head against the brass rail, saying over and over “why did I quit? why did I quit?”

Her fellow councilman Kevin de Leon – he was caught on the same oh so shocking! recording planning to re-make the city council based on race – didn’t quit and now has a very very good chance of getting re-elected in November.

And Joe Biden seems to be following the same playbook.  Despite the debate and post-debate performances, he just seems to be keeping to dig in further and further, a tick that cannot be removed with a blowtorch.

Even earlier Wednesday, Biden seemed to say – in front of thousands of people he has to convince he can keep running the free world at the NATO summit – that he “realized he was whatting? the NATO secretary general’s wife?”  He may have said “talking” and he may have said “to” as well but not by the look on the guy’s face – and that’s the husband – and he apologized for saying it, so even he realized it sounded at the least problematic. 

Senility, meet Freud.

So, if these two folks have a shot at staying in office, Nury should order another drink.

For de Leon – a serial LA politician, think the Hillside Strangler with a public pension – the calculus last fall was clear.  He said what he said on the leaked tape . He’s never denied the slurs, let alone the actually more important part of the conversation: being part of a backroom group trying to figure out how to lessen LA city council Black representation.

The decision was: stay or go.

He chose to stay.

Both Martinez and de Leon faced massive public backlash when the recording was released (the third council member, Gil Cedillo, was less damaged by the tape – he had already lost his re-election bid.)  Martinez, a rising star/up and comer/future of the California Democratic Party-type politician opted out. First she quit as council president and when, according to the mob that was hounding her and de Leon, that that wasn’t enough she resigned from the council entirely.

In other words, unlike de Leon, she chickened out and chose to leave.  

At the time, de Leon’s decision to tough it out and let, paraphrasing, the voters of his district decide if he should stay in office seemed beyond tone deaf and, from a political standpoint, a non-starter.

And then in the March primary he came in second and it was close – primary winner Ysabel Jurado only beat him by one percentage point. Considering the money de Leon can draw on and the fact that a very large chunk of his district’s voters are clearly not holding the incident against him and he can win. He can get re-elected, especially when he publicly asks that Pershing Square (it’s in his district) be re-named for former slave and noted (and legitimate great person) LA figure Biddy Mason, a purely and grossly and de Leony political move to (by the way– all voters of every race know when they are being used and/or pandered to) placate black voters if there ever was one.

That brings us back to Joe Biden.

He is currently ramping up what he sees as his base – labor and/or Black woman voters (sorry woman in Wisconsin)  and simply refusing to budge.

That it’s just fingers in ears, well, probably Jill’s fingers in her ears, may be true but he does know a few things.

First, if he leaves now under the shadow senility, even without finishing his term, it would be the most humiliating way for a president to ever leave office –Nixon included.

He will not do that. He cannot face that, not after an entire lifetime of getting the job he has always wanted, the job that proves he is not a bankrupt failure like his father.

Second, so what if he loses? He doesn’t even seem to care, telling ABC News political homunculus George Stephanopoulos he’ll be happy as long as he gives it “his all.”  And most of the other Dem hopefuls aren’t not, according to the polls, beating Trump now anyway, so what’s the diff?

Third, does really anyone else (besides Michelle) have a definitively better chance to beat Donald Trump than he does? He is telling himself he’s the only person that did it, so why would Kamala or Gavin or Gretchen have a better shot than him?

While he has the tasteful, respectable ‘I’m not gaga, I have Parkinson’s” out, does he think, even if weren’t addled, that he needs to take that option?

The party desperately wants him to go, but Biden simply – again, at this point – does not see a downside to staying in office, let alone taking on the re-election campaign.

The Deep Democrat state (and you thought it was evil capitalist Republicans running things?  Pshaw!) dragged Biden from the grave of Iowa in 2020, tossed a whole bunch of black votes at him in South Carolina, and then convinced the world he was the only “normal” candidate who could beat Trump.

Now, this time they want him gone. 

But, like de Leon, he has no reason to leave.

He might as well take his, and yours – to be blunt – chances.